Jauretsi: Word On The Street

Another excerpt from Yoani Sanchez’ Blog (writer living in Cuba)

Myopia and astigmatism

I put on the glasses of optimism and glance out over the collapsing city where I live. With these shimmering crystals of hope, my heart beats more peacefully, without turning somersaults. Thanks to them, I understand that I’m not climbing fourteen floors thanks to an inefficient state—incapable of installing an elevator after five months—but rather I am a fervent ecologist, determined to consume only my human fuel. With this new glass through which I see everything, I see that my plate lacks meat not because of the super high prices in the market, but rather because I love animals and avoid the suffering of slaughter.

I don’t have an Internet connection at home, but the rosy lenses reveal to me that this service is only for officials and resident foreigners. Perhaps they want to protect me from the “perversions” of the web, I tell myself, as would Voltaire’s ridiculous Candide. So I’ve tried, for the briefest moment, to see palaces instead of ruins, leaders who carry us to victory when in reality they lead us to the precipice, and men who are hypnotized by my hair, even though I know they continue to watch me.

The problem starts when I take off the glasses of innocence and look around me, at the real colors of the crisis. The pain in my calves returns in response to the long flights of stairs; I start dreaming of steak; and a blinking modem becomes an almost erotic desire. I toss the glasses of optimism from my balcony, maybe there’s someone down there who still prefers to use them, who would even like to distort the truth with them.
–Yoani

Finally, out of box! 

(Photo by Matthew Barney)

Big things are happening between the art scenes of Cuba and USA! It’s called “Chelsea visits Havana” presented by Fundacion Amistad. It was organized by Alberto Magnan and Dara Metz (of Magnan Projects). This is the first U.S. based exhibition to travel directly from the United States to Cuba in decades.

(Photo by Nan Goldin. Nan one month after being battered, 1984)

As part of the 10th Havana Biennial Chelsea visits Havana offers the Cuban art community and general public a window into the current art scene in New York. The exhibition is part of Fundacion Amistad’s cultural diplomacy initiative, Bridges to Culture. The exhibits began late March but it will run through May 17, 2009. A sign of the changing times, Chelsea visits Havana is also the first major group show to be accepted by both countries and approved for exhibition in the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Cuba’s renowned national arts museum.

It has been over twenty (20) years that a large-scale show of this kind featuring U.S. artists has been mounted, and fifty (50) years since artworks have been directly shipped from the United States to Cuba. Ten of the exhibiting artists will travel to Havana for the historic event. All of the featured artists are represented by galleries in the New York City neighborhood of Chelsea, regarded as one of the international epicenters of contemporary art.

(Painting by Will Cotton, “Chocolate Bath” 83″ by 83″ oil/linen 2002)

Chelsea visits Havana is an historic opportunity for Fundacion Amistad and its Bridges to Culture initiative which uses the power of art to surmount the cultural, political and social boundaries between the United States and Cuba. This concept even supersedes the U.S. government trade embargo, which classifies Art as a cultural asset explains Luly Duke, President and Founder of Fundacion Amistad.

(Painting by Delia Brown. “Homework”, 2008)

Participating artists and galleries include:

Marina Abramovic (Sean Kelly),
Alejandro Almanza Pereda (Magnan Projects),
Assume Vivid Astro Focus (John Connelly Presents),
Radcliffe Bailey (Jack Shainman),
Matthew Barney (Barbara Gladstone Gallery),
Matthew Benedict (Alexander and Bonin),
Guy Ben-Ner (Postmasters),
Long-Bin Chen (Frederieke Taylor),
Delia Brown (D’Amelio Terras),
Edward Burtynsky (Charles Cowles Gallery),
Will Cotton (Mary Boone Gallery),
Jules de Balincourt (Zach Feuer),
Christoph Draeger (Freight + Volume),
Walton Ford (Paul Kasmin Gallery),
Nan Goldin (Matthew Marks Gallery),
Dinh Q. Lê (PPOW),
Loretta Lux (Yossi Milo),
Nicky Nodjoumi (Priska C. Juschka Fine Art),
Tony Oursler (Lehmann Maupin Gallery),
Trevor Paglen (Bellwether Gallery),
Jack Pierson (Cheim & Read),
Matthew Ritchie and James Case Leal (Andrea Rosen),
Duke Riley (Magnan Projects),
Tim Rollins and K.O.S. (Lehmann Maupin),
Jonathan Schipper (Pierogi 2000),
Andrew Schoultz (Morgan Lehman),
Devorah Sperber (Caren Golden),
Brian Tolle (CRG),
Jade Townsend (Priska C. Juschka Fine Art),
Carlos Vega (Jack Shainman Gallery),
Michael Waugh (Schroeder Romero)
Doug Young (Roebling Hall).

A full-color, dual language catalogue of Chelsea visits Havana will accompany the exhibition and is available for purchase through Fundacion Amistad. Fundacion Amistad is a New York City based 501 (c) (3) not-for-profit organization that has worked to improve mutual respect and understanding between the U.S. and Cuba for over 11 years through their cultural initiative projects and humanitarian aid programs.

The “Chelsea Visits Havana” images are available upon request.

Contact Info:

In New York: Dara Metz. Ph: 212.244.2344 / info@magnanprojects.com
In Havana: Alberto Magnan Ph: 011.535.278.0939
(The images above are not necessarily exact pieces in the show)

For more homework, go to: Fundacion Amistad.

Here’s to fostering cross-cultural ties through visual means…. We hope this can be one of the first communicators between both countries.
J

Yet another beautiful book has been released on Cuba. You know how much I can’t stand to see those generic Cuban images coming out of the country with 1950’s pastel cars and ladies with cigars in her mouths. Obviously these images exist in Cuba, its just that I like it when photographers dig deeper, and see the country with unique eyes.

Case in point: “Camp Adentro” (deep within the country), a photo narrative by Philadelphia-area photographer Susan S. Banks. She studied with Mary Ellen Mark in Oaxaca, Mexico. Mary taught Susan the value of developing a photo essay.

When I see these images, it brings me back to that place of my favorite Cuban music — the 1930’s era of music created in these exact areas — “guajiro” music as they call. It’s a combo of folk, country, blues, and straight-up peasant music — very SOULFUL. Guajiro is like Cuban country music, guitar driven, and Spanish as much as its Afro.

Susan stumbled upon this family in Pinar Del Rio. They are a group of tobacco farmers who have never been photographed before. Even more so, this family grows all their own food, gets by without electricity, and has no needs for telephones, much less own one. It’s a world that is part country, part gypsy, but all about family, neighbors, animals, valley, and tobacco. This is as raw as raw can get.

The photos are as strong as a good poem. Susan shoots in 35mm, handheld Leica M6 and natural light.

The book is available now.
J

(Raul Got Word of Trash Talking Behind His Back)

The saga of the “Raulistas” vs the “Fidelistas” lingers on. Remember the axing of 2 top Fidel Castro officials a few weeks ago? (read Big Change in Cuba).

Up until now, mystery has surrounded the sudden cabinet changes. For a split second, my optimistic brain had entertained the idea that this shift was a move towards positive change? Seems like it was just an old fashioned bust where the “Fidelista’s” were disrespecting Raul, so it was time to clean house… naturally.

Only time will tell what type of government Raul will truly construct. According to Charlie Rose’s episode tonight, the black caucus under Obama just recently visited Cuba and met with Raul. There was lots of talk about how Raul respects Obama and that he wants to meet the American President. I’ll report these talks as they occur.

But back to our original story — what sparked Raul to fire (pictured above) Perez-Roque and Lage?

(Conrado Hernández, right, Director of the Official Office for the Basque Government in Havana with Juan Jose Ibarretxe on a 2002 visit to Cuba)

Let’s begin with a Cuban named Conrado Hernández who has big fabulous parties on his property in Matanzas. Conrado served as the islands liaison between the Cuban government and business interests in the Basque region of Spain. Conrado used to invite both Perez-Roque and Lage over to the ranch. One of the times Conrado taped their conversations, some shit-talking was recorded.

On top of making “vulgar jokes” about Fidel Castro’s age and health, they made fun of Raul’s incompetence. The other guy sitting in the taped talks was Fernando Remírez de Estenoz, the head of the Cuban Communist Party’s Foreign Relations Department. The guys even dissed on Raul’s new vice president, José Ramón Machado Ventura.

(Conrado Hernández recorded Raul-dissing talks with Cuban officials during parties at his ranch in Matanzas.)

Nobody really knows why exactly the Cuban government decided to raid Conrado’s home, but the point is, they found the recordings. They also found an unauthorized diplomatic passport. According to Cuban officials, the bogus passport was given to him by Mr. Roque. The confiscated tapes were allegedly being slipped to Spain’s Intelligence Officials (the Spanish Embassy in Cuba extremely denies this).

The rest is what transpired:

• February 14th — Conrado was arrested when he was at the Havana airport. He’s been held for over a month.

• March 2 — Raul Castro announces the whole story to his office. It was a room of both “Raulistas” and “Fidelistas” and a time of reckoning between the 2 camps. According to the New York Times, after Mr. Pérez Roque got canned, there was a dramatic standing ovation (presumably from the “Fidelistas”) in the lobby when he left the building for the final time.

• March 6 — Raul calls a meeting with his top 20 Officials. Raul describes (in broad strokes) the details of the situation… and actually played parts of the tapes for those in the room, thereby consolidating the “Raulistas” into a tighter team.

In Cuba, the word “traitor”, “loyalty”, and “betrayal” are used more often than in a Sicilian mob movie. For this particular battle, it was a win for the “Raulistas” considering they had evidence in hand.

Like sands through the hourglass, these are the days of our lives.
J

Cuban writer Yoani writes from the island about her 3rd time application to travel outside her country. Below are frustrated words of the eloquent blogger who has no hopes to leave the island and see the world. Here’s hoping Yoani gets her chance one day!

This time they’ve been more direct: “You are not authorized to travel,” the woman told me quietly, almost nicely, dressed in her olive-green. My attempt to get permission to leave ended without much delay and with the same negative response. I demanded an explanation from the officer, but she was only a wall of contention between my demands and her hidden bosses.

To augment the papers in my collection of negatives, here is the latest document received from SIE (Immigration and Emigration Section). I am also posting my visas (above), to record the fact that my problems are not about entering another country, only about leaving mine.
– Yoani

———-

It’s such a shame that so many educated Cuban youth, with all their enormous potential, are forbidden to travel outside their own country. Just to add to the layers of misinformation about Cuba’s Travel laws, another privileged Cuban citizen (with travel rights) misspoke at a press signing. Miguel Barnet is considered one of the Cuban writers most published abroad — and is President of the Artists and Writers Union of Cuba (UNEAC). This week, he criticized those who believe his countrymen cannot freely leave the island as he, who has traveled widely, does and says the only ones who can’t travel are those in prison. “People believe that we Cubans can’t travel and I’ve been to more than 47 countries,” Barnet said during a meeting with the press in a bookstore in Panama City. “Cubans are traveling,” he stressed, “the only ones who don’t travel are those in prison,” affirmed Barnet.

Ask most people in Cuba if it’s easy to travel, and they’ll roll their eyes and laugh back squirmishly. Instead of just telling their people they can’t travel, the government instead insists that you need to fill out applications, swim through gallons of red tape, pay high application fees (unrefundable if you get declined), and of course the government delivers millions of declines. In short, unless the government approves your exit, you can’t leave the country. Period. The rest is semantics.
J

(Jose Marti Airport. Photographed by Estevan Oriol for East of Havana)

Behold! President Barack Obama has eased travel restrictions to Cuba with a policy change signed into law this month. The few Florida travel agents that booked Cuban flights now have phones ringing off the hook. Some agents claim the demand is so big that they are increasing seat capacity with larger planes in the summer. Maria Aral, president of ABC Charters out of Orlando might also add a sixth day of flights in addition to her five days a week flight schedule from Miami to Havana.

Under the new policy, Cubans can visit extended-family members 1 time a year. Previously, Mr. Bush limited visits to family member once every three years (and only to see immediate relatives). The U.S. government also will consider humanitarian visa requests.

(Making Changes)

This move would have been intolerable for Cuban-Americans just a few years ago, but the tide is turning among the younger Cuban generation in Miami. Exit Polls from the November elections in Miami-Dade County show that 57 percent of Cuban-Americans support the embargo. In 2004, it was 64 percent.

NEW POLICY POINTS:

• What changed: A new provision signed into law by President Barack Obama last week effectively rolls back rules on travel to Cuba to what they were before restrictive Bush administration amendments were put in place in 2004.

• Who can travel: People living in the U.S. can now visit relatives in Cuba once every 12 months. In the past, travelers were only allowed to visit parents, spouses or children. The definition of relatives was expanded to include “any individual related to the traveler by blood, marriage, or adoption who is no more than three generations removed from the traveler or from a common ancestor with the traveler.” Other licenses may be issued on a case-by-case basis.

Visitors can now spend up to $179 per day, rather than the $50 per day that had been in effect. Government officials, journalists and researchers are still allowed to travel to Cuba. New regulations are being worked out to permit travel for those engaged in the marketing and sale of agricultural and medical goods.

• More details: Travelers to Cuba must make arrangements through a travel agency authorized by the U.S. government.

SOURCE: U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control

For more homework on the new policy, go to: US DEPT OF TREASURY.
J

(50 Year Winning Streak is Over!)

This week is a melancholic week for Cuban baseball — and I’d venture to say Cuban morale. Their 50 year winning streak is OVER. Dead in the water. It happened at Petco park on Wednesday night. Japan beat the Cubans in the World Baseball Classic, eliminating Cuba before a major international tournament’s final game for the first time in 50 years.

(Baseball Junkies Fidel & Camilo Cienfuegos)

One of Cuba’s biggest exports is baseball. Whatever turmoil they might experience politically, it all gets eclipsed a few times a year by the glorious victories that annually show the world another sort of dominance — the superiority of a man on a field. Pure and honest.

(The Famous Cuba pitching stance)

Watching the ranks of Cuban baseball stars rise in their field has that additional subgenre of human drama. Several of their star players debate the painful decision of defecting (and subsequently leaving their families behind along with their beloved homeland) in order to forge ahead and realize their athletic dreams… sometimes making enough money to feed entire neighborhoods back home. The last person to flee “la patria” was Cuban outfielder Yasser Gómez, who defected last December but has not decided to sign with a major league team yet.

(Relatives of Yadel Marti watch him play from Cuba)

(A Training Day on a Saturday in Havana)

(Cuban Baseball Team)

Cuban baseball stars are considered the real celebrities in Cuba — and deeply intertwined in Government fascination (Fidel himself dreamed of being a ball player when he was young). Despite the same struggles they face in their every day lives, the National team is always invited for a standard Government ceremony before they are sent off into the world to boast one of Cuba’s best exports.

The superior training of their athletes adds to the rockstar status of the Cuban image — so everytime Fidel loses a star player, it’s something he takes as a personal diss, sometimes punishing co-players who remain back at home. No doubt, a tough decision for any player to make. The international success and respect for the Cuban baseball team is somewhat of a security blanket that makes it’s people proud to be on top… and reasonably so! This week, the ego-crush is felt far and wide with the 11 million people on the island.

(Raul passes national banner to Eduardo Paret)

(The New Winners, Japan)

Japan beat Cuba 5-0 in the World Baseball Classic. That means Cuba is eliminated before a major international tournament’s final game for the first time in 50 years.

New York Times summarized it simply as the death of “50 years of Cuban dominance and one of the most remarkable streaks in baseball”. Sniff. Sniff.

For more details, Read New York Times game review.
J

I got a letter from a girl called Ioana who commented on the last blog Post “Big Change in Cuba”. I tend to gravitate towards input from people who lived though Communism from places such as Poland or Berlin… especially stories of the Fall of Communism and the human folly that ensues with making such a drastic transition to a new society. Below is the letter from a girl who experienced the Fall of Communism in Romania.

(Ioana)

Hi. So I heard the news either yesterday or the day before on npr. My first reaction was “yay” and then I remembered what happened in Romania. I’m from Romania and I have seen how the cowards went underground and remained quiet for a while and they eventually reemerged as a political party. On top of that the top people of the communist regime who had a lot of blood and dirt on their hands have been quietly protected. I know, because my step-grandfather was one of them. Their pensions are ridiculously high and they still have connections within government.

One type of communist will replace another. I don’t mean to poop on the parade but that’s what happened in Romania and frankly in Russia. This doesn’t mean that things won’t change but it might not be necessarily for the best. I suppose if Obama does build that bridge it will be a huuuuge change for Cuba, I’m just worried that for the little guy it won’t bring about a better life. I hope in Cuba’s case it will be different than in Eastern Europe. Thanks Jauretsi! Had to get that off my chest — Ioana

….And thank youuuu Ioana. The forum is open if anyone else has words of wisdom to illuminate the situation of Cuba’s “new day” post-Fidel Castro.. and how we can better understand the dynamics of their eventual transition a little better. Send all letters to lajauretsi@gmail.com.
J

(Buh-Bye Carlos Lage, seen on the right)

Today there’s been an explosion in the news regarding Raul Castro’s first public stance against Fidel’s system. Back in December last year, I wrote about this notion of Raulists vs Fidelistas, and the rumor that big change was afoot inside the bubble.

Both The New York Times piece and Steve Clemons’ The Washington Note (both written 2 days ago) have verified that Raul is starting to axe people in Fidel’s camp and cleaning house.

If you know anything about Cuban politics, you could argue that Fidel has his Rumsfields and Cheney’s all around. Very smart men, but very controlling and um, not very nice. These men are considered Fidel’s closest team, strict Communists, and top advisers in government.

Here’s the main players that were fired.

(Vice President Carlos Lage is Fired)

(Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque is Fired)

To replace Perez Roque, the president named Brigadier General Jose Amado Ricardo Guerra as the new cabinet chief. Also, according to Bloomberg.com, Raul “merged some ministries in a bid to increase efficiency.” In short, Raul is consolidating his power and taking the reigns.

To debunk another conspiracy theory, Fidel Castro is not dead. His health condition has been a State secret and he hasnt appeared in public since he stepped down in 2006. There have been several reports of the bearded guy shuffling around the city with tons of security and Mercedes Benz’s around him. Locals are a little freaked out to talk about it because of guarded “State secret” aspect, but nonetheless, cubans can’t keep a secret, so the word is out that El Comandante is still alive, breathing, and taking strolls outside.

I’m hoping that the “fall of the extreme-minded of Cuba” will begin a trend with the “fall of the extreme-minded of Cuban-Americans”. It’s pretty nauseating witnessing the bickering between both old-school camps while at the same time seeing them feed each others hatred and beef. Move over bacon, now there’s something leaner!

Let’s just say this week was a BIG week of historical proportions for the Cuban government and for Communism.

As far as Raul and what type of sword he will wield? No exact word but it’s reported he’s demanding efficiency (a foreign concept in Cuba), pragmatism, and forward-thinking nation. As the Steve Clemons elegantly stated on Monday, “Raul Castro seems fully in control now — and he’s done with ideology”.

Let’s see how Raul drives the bus on Obama’s watch.
J