With Cuban culture in the front line

by Yaima Puig Meneses

Our school rooms are a vital space for forming a patriotic and revolutionary conscience

Probably Wednesday December 17 brought more relevant news than last year in the international scenario with the announcement made by the presidents of Cuba and the United States of reestablishment of diplomatic relations between both nations.

The recognition by President Barack Obama of the failure of the policy of hostility, isolation and blockade imposed against our country reflects, at the same time, the firmness and dignity of the Cuban people in defense of our values and principles confronting all these years the attacks of the most powerful power in the history of Humanity.

However, no one imagines for one moment that ends for Cuba a battle we have waged for so many years. As explained by our President Raúl Castro Ruz in the recently concluded 3rd Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) even the “spokes persons of the U.S. government have been clear in pointing out that They are now changing their methods but not their political objectives and insist on acts of interference our internal affairs that we will not accept”.
Now, simply, it is a change of scenario with other nuances that will require calmness and reflection by our people but keeping firmness that has always characterized us in face of a new process beginning.

We cannot allow us to be naïve in face of the current challenges in front of us or ignore the nature that has distinguished the relations between both governments; much less ignore the fact intending from U.S. territory to erode our revolutionary institutionalism through different methods. These are now in the ideological and cultural field intent on leading us to an economic collapse.

It is therefore of utmost importance to continue strengthening our educational work in the schools to strengthen the values associated to socialism, sovereignty and patriotism. Precisely in our teachers and professors is one of our main pillars in the field of values and ideas. With enough clarity and integrity characterizing them to confront new challenges and be victorious.

In the teaching of Cuban history telling our children and young people of the true contradictions and many distinctions of its importance and where the protagonists are heroes of skin and bones; we can also find answers to many of today’s questions.

Our classrooms are a vital space for the formation of a patriotic and revolutionary conscience imparted with clear and simple ideas that, at the same time, deep. These values that have guided our Revolution through the centuries, are the examples of Martí, Fidel and so many heroes in our battles for independence that have continued to the present; heroes who have offered their Homeland their unconditional support and even their lives.

In the new scenario that arose after December 17 the mass media and cultural institutions take on an irreplaceable role. We must be alert now more than ever to counteract the avalanche of pseudo culture bombarding us from the U.S. industry of entertainment and intends to confuse “the U.S. people” with the “modern”.

More than once in our history we have been clear in stating that we are essential anti imperialists that is not a synonym of anti U.S. people. Also it should be pointed out that it has never been expressions of hate and enmity against the people and culture of the United States.

To spread our popular culture continues to be a challenge; to promote it in the communities and extend to national media is also of utmost importance for our people to be able to understand by themselves it truly identifies us as Cuban, that are our roots, where we come from…

In this manner acquire warning made often in different congresses of the Asociación Her­manos Saíz (AHS) and ICAIC - Cuban Institute of Art and Film Industry on the determinate colonial features in the mass media and programming of several cultural institutions.

We must leave behind what is called abstracts, generalities and move towards a definite accusation of several events that occur today in Cuban society. The role of a rigorous criticism of a colonized promotion is essential today.

And it must be everyone, from the sound track of tourism spaces or to gastronomy to the conductor or director of daily programs transmitted in our television, play a role in the formation of values and promotion of the best roots of our culture.

It is important to create a critical and intelligent position, of analysis against the behaviour of consuming “at all cost” that is not necessarily the most instructive and often saturated with foolish and empty contents.

Adjusting the cultural policy of the country to its values; to the roots that for more than half a century sustains us cannot be an act of one day, less so in time. It corresponds to our teachers and professors, culture promoters, artists and writers, art instructors, producers and officials of the media to work together so that our essential action and principles reach coherently the population, without concepts of alien to our traditions.

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