The National Theatre of Cuba half-opened three of it numerous doors (always closed), with access to its main and older hall, the Avellaneda, to receive the large crowd that crowded together in the entrances and adjacent areas, up until the early hours, to finally attend the concert which was held under the auspices of the United Nations, the Federation of Cuban women, and other institutions: NO TO VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN.
The crowd congregated there, the majority young people, started to worry and show its discontent, due to the delay and slowness with which, almost “drop by drop”, they permitted entry into the hall.
The social lack of discipline, expressed in pushes, nudges, and shouts, on the part of the young people, students and primarily South Americans, who together with the natives of Cuba, made their way without any type of consideration for others, trying to pass through the narrow gap left by the half-opened doors, now going against the very spirit of the concert.
Evidently, the administration of the cultural complex favored this situation, with its mistaken policy of “closed doors”, not to mention that the concert started 20 minutes later than the planned starting time.
After the presentation and performance of our singers Rocy and Feliu, as well as a brilliant performance by the instrumentalists Calzadilla and Garcia, piano and flutist respectively, an “intermission” of thirty minutes was allowed for preparing the stage and equipment, with a view to presenting the main figure of the show: Julieta Venegas, excellent singer, instrumentalist, and composer, greatly followed and admired by the international and Cuban public.
Juliet finally appears on stage before the delirious cheers and applause from an audience which admires her and is under her spell, with over fifteen songs, many of them sung in chorus by her fans. The concert, due to delays, lasted until midnight. Around eleven many young people were leaving, very reluctantly, due to transportation difficulties if they stayed any later.
When I was there, enjoying the wonderful show, I could not help but think about the paradox that occurred that very day in which all of the foreign press echoed the brutal attack suffered by Berenice Hector Gonzalez, which almost cost the life of this fifteen-year-old, inflicted by another teenager of nineteen years, both of Cienfuegos.
But the greatest irony of all this is that the medical certificate, irresponsibly and cowardly issued by Gustavo Aldereguía Hospital doctors in the city of Cienfuegos, who treated the victim, said that this girl barely out of childhood had suffered “minor injuries” in the attack. And her attacker is still free today.
Just as this news is coming to be known through the media and by those who, in one way or another, enjoy Internet services, is the same exact moment in which a concert is being held “against violence against women and girls”, under the apparent indifference of its sponsors.
December 4 2012