COMMUNIQUE FROM RAUDEL PATRIOT SQUADRON / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

THE TRUTH AS LOGIC OF LIFE

(COMMUNIQUE FROM THE PATRIOT SQUADRON)

… It will be good to die on your slopes

victim of your killer earthquake,

to stand like a squadron on the road,

shredding all the flags…

Ángel Escobar

First of all we want to extend, by way of a blessing, an embrace of peace and memory to the world.

We clarify, for those who misunderstand, the clueless, the malicious and the inadvertent that the inspiration of this communiqué (a diplomatic term) is not from threat, pressure, or other arts are not on record among our privileges; rather to question aptitudes and practices of those with whom we are in tangential disagreement, and that its purpose, far from any bait that you might suspect or conclude, is to seek, first of all, responses and dialog. May this clarification serve for those who call themselves militants on the left and for those so-called militants on the right. Also for the ambidextrous and — why not? — to inspire the pacifists and the killers.

The point of this Communiqué is to express the causes that drive us to denounce a totality (and combination) of unfortunate events, committed from one of the highest institutions of governmental power (the Department of State Security), which we interpret as coercive, injurious, and punishable, keeping in mind that they have been exercised from an authority that exceeds any other kind of power, using “methodologies” for their useful but hostile ends.

We assume as a criterion that the fact of understanding doesn’t necessarily imply agreement. This disagreement must never be a motive for avoiding dialog. That would be to victimize difference beforehand. But we also assume that “dialog” (and its meaning) is when two or more (zones) decide to get together despite their differences or similarities, and on those, (re)raise debate, thought, controversy, and the attitude of (mutual) understanding. When one of the parties imposes, dictates (maybe will, fortune, criteria … like when one has a voice and when one must be silent), the event can be classified under many other names or representations, but never will it be a dialog.

The facts that we expound upon are verifiable, and we consider that none is justified, and they surpass all sense of ethics and respect.

  • The friends close to the Skuadrón Patriota are “bothered” frequently by agents identified as being from State Security, with the object (according to these gendarmes) of warning them of the fact that the “discussions” and “attitudes” of Skuadrón Patriota surpass “the limits”. They openly propose to them that they “collaborate” in the spirit of “helping” Skuadrón Patriota not to be manipulated by “enemy agents”.
  • On repeated occasions Skuadrón Patriota has been prevented from performing in various public spaces where it has been invited to share the stage with prestigious rapper groups, including being denied access to these spaces as simple spectators.
  • State Security “constructed” and “instrumented” from false information the rumor that Skuadrón Patriota was involved in the organization of actions that had as their objective the celebration of the first anniversary of the March for Non-Violence which took place the 6th of November 2009. Rumors that we deny since then as total and consciously false.

We ask:

  • Will the practices of our institutions (our police, its policies) be “to mobilize themselves” toward non-dialog, when already many of its results are irreversible, and the wounds and distances created are insuperable?
  • It seems very curious to us that these institutions mobilize themselves (and act) based on “accredited rumors by or from third persons” and almost never (so as not to commit the sin of absolutism) by or from argument and attitudes of those whom we believe and live with truth as life’s logic, although this stubbornness punishes us with more “non-friends” than wheat. Is the rumor perhaps the central principle toward the confrontation of our problems? If so, this would be truly sad.

Before the occurrences of these curious concurrent twists of fate, we have bitterly assumed the obligation and alternative of questioning aspects that don’t correspond to a true dialectic policy.

We warn that:

  • Skuadrón Patriota is not hostage to any postulates which are not those with which one conducts oneself and assumes as life’s logic: demonstrating and expressing the truth from an iconoclast posture, from compromise, from true utility, never from mere appearance or feigning.
  • Skuadrón Patriota is not a beneficiary of interests that avoid and exclude. It does not permit itself to be financed by ideological agendas of any stripe, but only by Hip Hop culture, its foundations, its principles, its remissions.
  • Skuadrón Patriota denounces any type of spin doctoring (whether it be from militancy or from some other cause) of its artistic position as well as sociocultural, and we invite all to know the truth and the reason which guides us, and that we defend.
  • Skuadrón Patriota denounces the stated intents (which we consider invasive on their face) as exercised by State Security to the detriment of our prestige, and which then wound our moral integrity and of friends and family before the community in which we live.
  • Skuadrón Patriota means resistance and liberation, but never nonsense. Skuadrón Patriota means the continuity of values that gave life to the Hip Hop culture: the voice of a generation that refused to be silenced by urban poverty.
  • Skuadrón Patriota does not feel nor will feel any respect for lies and those who spew them, whatsoever may their ideological tendencies be. Skuadrón Patriota respects and defends the right to interpret, to read between the lines, to opine and to be mistaken, but never will defend the lie nor rumors on which it is built.

We reiterate, how much more will there be to prove, to tolerate? Which other bitternesses will have to be crossed? Which will be the new price to pay because of and for the cause of a mistake? Was this Communiqué necessary, its anger, its powerlessness, its hesitation at an inconvenient time? Is Skuadrón Patriota censured? Why? By whom?

These events only demonstrate and show the intrinsic rusting of an incongruent mechanism that does nothing except to break up, eclipse, make uncomfortable, avoid, anger. The true respect to “otherness” starts with self-respect.

Skuadrón Patriota calls attention to these facts and asks (itself): will we be able to give our inattention a rest?

We will wait for answers, and a true confrontation before these unjustifiable slanders which have been brandished against Skuadrón Patriota.

In closing, we extend another embrace in peace and memory for the world,

Güines, 7 December 2010

(+53)53572088

Originally published on this blog: December 20 2010