Search results for: 1971 congress on education and culture

Jorge Gómez and the Silence Surrounding His Fall From Grace During Cuba’s Five Grey Years

  Cubanet, Luis Cino, Havana, 24 March 2026 — There is much talk about Jorge Gómez Barranco, leader of the band Grupo Moncada, who died on March 23—and it’s almost always good talk, because there is no doubt that Gómez was a good person and much loved by many in the cultural sphere, particularly music and … Continue reading “Jorge Gómez and the Silence Surrounding His Fall From Grace During Cuba’s Five Grey Years”

Cuban School Manuals Since 1901: From Education To Indoctrination

A Spanish institution digitizes more than 50 20th-century textbooks. 14ymedio, Havana, 16 March 2025 – The text books with which many generations of Cuban children were educated since 1901 can be found today in the Manes archives, a Spanish institute dedicated to the conservation and narration of South American educational thinking. The project, with more … Continue reading “Cuban School Manuals Since 1901: From Education To Indoctrination”

Casa de las Americas Licks Its Wounds on Its 65th Anniversary and Longs for Its Influence in the Region

14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo, Havana, April 27, 2024 — After 65 years operating as a kind of second ministry of culture, Casa de las Américas longs for the time when the institution was more powerful and influenced the cultural debates of the continent. On the eve of the anniversary, its president, cultural commissioner Abel Prieto, regrets … Continue reading “Casa de las Americas Licks Its Wounds on Its 65th Anniversary and Longs for Its Influence in the Region”

A Brief Chronology of Disregard and Intolerance in Cuba

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, November 2, 2021 — The dictatorship’s most frequently recurring formula to impede or interfere with changes that do not align with their interests has been to incarcerate. They’ve raised the bar in two ways: first, by presenting as apocalyptic the results of anything they consider a “return to the past,” and … Continue reading “A Brief Chronology of Disregard and Intolerance in Cuba”

Causes and Effects of the Embargo / Fernando Damaso

Fernando Damaso, Havana — On the 4th of January, 1959, the Constitution of 1940 was modified without the knowledge of the Cuban people. On the 10th of January, the death penalty and seizure of property was established for “political misdemeanors,” leaving the interpretation of which open to the executors. On the 7th of February the … Continue reading “Causes and Effects of the Embargo / Fernando Damaso”

Truth and Memory Weekly Bulletin on UMAP / HÉCTOR SANTIAGO

HECTOR SANTIAGO UMAP* was more terrible than what has been said, because they tried to change homosexual orientation through so-called scientific methods which, imported from the USSR, consisted of insulin injections and the application of electroshocks, interacting with images of naked men, on the one hand, and naked women on the other. So the images … Continue reading “Truth and Memory Weekly Bulletin on UMAP / HÉCTOR SANTIAGO”

The Public Sphere In Cuba, Without the Public / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

[Title]Would this be the T-shirt that could resolve the problem? [T-Shirt text”] Police and National Guard: I do not support AT ALL these T-Shirts that say that THIS REVOLUTION IS SHIT, and what’s more, I think they’re horrible, OK?” ARTURO, THE BRIGHTEST STAR At the launch of the magazine Criterios number 37, on February 28 … Continue reading “The Public Sphere In Cuba, Without the Public / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”

Barnet and His Alter Ego / Miguel Iturria Savón

The Florida media commented on the details of the flow of musicians and writers that travel from Havana to Miami or New York, where they perform in clubs and theaters or speak in universities and conference rooms. Among the literary figures the writer Miguel Barnet, the President of the Union of Writers and Artists of … Continue reading “Barnet and His Alter Ego / Miguel Iturria Savón”

The ‘Five Grey Years’ Kept Going Much Longer Than a Decade, Primarily Because of Fidel Castro / Cubanet, Luis Cino

That dark, inquisitorial period lasted much more than five years. It did not, as some would like to pretend, end in 1976. Cubanet, Luis Cino, Havana, 7 June 2025 – It was the late essayist Ambrosio Fornet who coined the term, “The Five Grey Years,” to refer to the repression of artists and intellectuals during … Continue reading “The ‘Five Grey Years’ Kept Going Much Longer Than a Decade, Primarily Because of Fidel Castro / Cubanet, Luis Cino”

Cuban Intellectual Ambrosio Fornet, Who Baptized the’Five Grey Years’, Dies

14ymedio, Havana, 5 April 2022 — The Cuban film writer and screenwriter Ambrosio Fornet Frutos died this Tuesday at the age of 90, the Casa de las Américas reported on its social networks. “His work constitutes a fundamental part of the nation’s culture, which he always defended,” the institution wrote, recalling that the intellectual was “one of its … Continue reading “Cuban Intellectual Ambrosio Fornet, Who Baptized the’Five Grey Years’, Dies”

Rene Vazquez Diaz: Cuban Forgettings / Intellectual Debate

See here for background information on this series of posts. René Vázquez Díaz, Sweden, 2007 — Last year, during a period of several months, personalities committed to the politics of cultural repression during the 1970s were interviewed on various Cuban television programs. The reappearance on the small screen of odious characters who call to mind … Continue reading “Rene Vazquez Diaz: Cuban Forgettings / Intellectual Debate”

Message From Juan Antonio García Borrero / Polemica, The 2007 Intellectual Debate

See here for background information on this series of posts. Your message to Desiderio has motivated me to add some ideas to this debate, which, to my taste, has left us with an excess of words in the middle of a desert of actions. Compared with the richness of ideas and reflections that have been … Continue reading “Message From Juan Antonio García Borrero / Polemica, The 2007 Intellectual Debate”

State Inefficiency, Convenient Business / Cubanet, Ernesto Perez Chang

Cubanet.org, Ernesto Perez Chang, Havana, 22 May 2015 — Attestations about poor or non-existent attention in Cuban state businesses are so abundant that few pay attention to them. In order to offer a response to the indignant, the island’s official press searches for causes of such abuse not in the inefficiency of the state enterprise … Continue reading “State Inefficiency, Convenient Business / Cubanet, Ernesto Perez Chang”

The Five Grey Years: Revisiting the Term / Ambrosio Fornet

By Ambrosio Fornet / See here for background information on this series of posts. 1 It seemed as if the nightmare was something from a remote past, but the truth is that when we awoke, the dinosaur was still there. We haven’t found out — and perhaps will never know — if the media folly was … Continue reading “The Five Grey Years: Revisiting the Term / Ambrosio Fornet”

Messages of Desiderio Navarro / POLEMICA: The 2007 Intellectual Debate

Dear Friends and Comrades: Suddenly, more than thirty years after his dismissal, Luis Pavón, ex-president of the National Council of Culture during the euphemistically called “Five Grey Years,” reappeared in the public sphere on nothing more nor less than an entire programme on National Television dedicated to “his cultural impact on Cuban culture.” So, was … Continue reading “Messages of Desiderio Navarro / POLEMICA: The 2007 Intellectual Debate”