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Against Fractures and divisions

Race, class and gender in Cuba and the world

Leonardo Calvo Cárdenas
Historian and political scientist
Vice President Progressive Arc Party (PARP)
National Vice Coordinator, Citizens’ Committee for Racial Integration (CIR)
IDENTIDADES Representative in Cuba
Havana, Cuba

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C

uba is suffering from backwardness and a
time warp in many aspects of its modern life.
It is not surprising to think that the Cuban authorities, which for so many years have become accustomed to having absolute control over all of society—
its isolation and consubstantial, permanent, material
impoverishment—see these as a fundamental guarantee of their exclusive and repressive hegemony.
One need not clarify that it has been more than half a
century since there has been any debate or transparency in Cuba with which to treat any of the pressing
issues that might disturb our society. Yet, the race issue—in all its dimensions and complexity—is one of
the most intensely manipulated and distorted matters
in the widely missing open spaces and lacking freedoms that have characterized Cuba in recent decades.
While a considerably large part of the planet set its
hopes on the Revolution’s romantic utopia, one whose
legitimacy stemmed from far-reaching values and
support from most of Cuban society, its high-level
leaders unleashed an ever-repeating cycle of violent
fratricide, betrayals and excesses against human dignity totally divorced from their original or programmatic rhetoric—from the very first day.
That programmatic rhetoric said nothing at all about
the problem of racism, obviously so they would not
alienate those in the hegemonic sectors of Cuban society that supported them. After all, that support was
essential for the triumph of this so-called revolution,
something that those backers probably don’t want to
remember, because it filled our beleaguered island’s
subsequent history with painful and bloody words.

The change in rhetoric that came with the Revolution
in no way meant that the patterns of coexistence and
racial-cultural reference, solidly established by the
hegemonic elite since the early, nineteenth century
were going to change. These were patterns and references that turned those who had contributed to the forma