Performance of Cuban Artists against Critics

HAVANA – Last Saturday April 10, 2010, the government of Cuba’s president Raul Castro staged two simultaneous concerts called ‘Concert for the Homeland’ as a reaction to the criticism of Europe, the U.S.A, dissidents, and the foreign media over violations of the human rights on the island.

Singer-songwriter Silvio Rodriguez was one of the Cuban Artists and musicians performing on two stages: one at the ‘Anti Imperialist Forum’ which the Cuban government put up as a podium for Anti-American rallies in front of the U.S. Interest Section in Havana, and the other took place in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba. The state-run Cuban Media had announced Rodriguez as the artist who would kickoff the concert in Havana. But instead of singing a song the artist chose to read a text he had written and which was spread all over the Internet in the days before the concert.

The author of the song ‘Ojala’ (‘I Wish’) read his ‘Questions of a Dreaming Troubadour’ for the hundreds who were present at the Concert. Last week Silvio’s letter had been the instigating factor for an open debate with the writer and journalist in exile Carlos Alberto Montaner. Rodriguez’ music was performed live by several of the famous Cuban artists who had been programmed for the event such as singer-songwriter Amaury Perez, Sara Gonzalez, Vicente Feliu, and Salsa Singer Paulo FG, although he himself did not sing. The president of the institutionalized Writers and Artist Union, Miguel Barnet, was one of the well known intellectuals and artists selected for reading assorted poems and text.         

During the week before the concert, the state-controlled Cuban media assured the audience that the “Concert for the Homeland” had been realized to “defend” the right of Cuba to “maintain its independence,” and that it was held in response to the “ferocious political campaign against Cuba that the United States, the European Union and the information media at the service of media terrorism are orchestrating”.

The government-run media (there are no government acknowledged independent media on the island) and the Cuban government itself have reacted strongly to the global critique on the violations of human rights in Cuba which increased exponentially since the dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo died last February after holding a hunger strike for 85 days in prison. Last Sunday president Raul Castro said that Cuba would prefer “to disappear” instead of the island accepting the “blackmail” by the United States, Europe and the dissidents who are trying to “manipulate” Cuba in the area of human rights.