IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 5 ENGLISH | Page 12

Race, class and gender

Associationism,
Not Mirages
José Hugo Fernández
Writer and journalist
Havana, Cuba

T

prohibiting this, there is nothing wrong
with the government finally having realized it would be good to have likeminded people, due to their common roots or
any other reason, come together and
exchange ideas in an organized and systematic way. What is wrong is that this
possibility still continues to be forbidden for those who want to do it independently of government tutelage and
control, and that because of this they
have to huddle together in organizations
like Casas de Cultura, Asociación Hermanos Saíz, Casas del Caribe, Casas de
Cultura Africana, or the Unión of Cuban Writers and Artists (UNEAC),
among others.

he government of Cuba is running out of the reasons it always
uses to justify its prohibition of
the gatherings of slave descendants in
mutual aid societies or any other kind of
collectivity, on the fringes of the oppression of its totalitarian system of
domination. History has shown us that
its socio-culturally unifying project has
been nothing more than a counterproductive and overwhelming power strategy. This explains why today it must
take it apart piece by piece, yet it still
failing to acknowledge its failure and,
of course, never hesitating to create a
lifetime of distorted prohibitions.
The difference nowadays is that it tries
to mask these prohibitions by adulterating them in a way that benefits its own
concept of civil society, a concept so
basic and common in the democratic
world, and yet so far from our own reality.
Suddenly, a group of party-line institutions (more of less camouflaged as autonomous ones) has begun to sponsor
the creation of groups whose members
come together by cultural or other kinds
of concerns, among which, of course,
there are a few of interest to slave descendants, since their exclusion would
be scandalous. After half a century of

The mirage of a civil society that behaves as if it’s subordinated to the dictatorial power structure (which has also
already demonstrated its lack of action
for fifty years) can end up being useful,
for the government, above all. It could
even relatively successfully channel the
interests of certain population groups.
Yet, I highly doubt that it is what Cuba’s blacks and mestizos really need
right now, given their current situation—suffering from stagnating poverty, socio-economic backwardness,
pessimism, harshness and a lack of opportunities.

12