The Ideology of Prohibition

The Ideology of Prohibition / Luis Cino Alvarez
Posted on November 12, 2013

Havana, Cuba, November, www.cubanet.org — With regards to the absurd and
prudish limitations imposed on some students by the Communications
Faculty, Elaine Diaz recently wrote on her blog: ". . . the policymakers
are scandalized by things from the students as if the Revolution were
going to fall apart next week. They should ask themselves what kind of
Revolution falls apart for so little."

The answer is simple: a revolution like that of Fidel Castro, which long
ago stopped being one in order to become a racketeering and mean
dictatorship, which, if it has managed to continue in power for 54
years, it is precisely because it fears everything different, it is
closed tight and does not waver in repressing a fractious student who
thinks with his head like the Ladies in White, who, for the henchmen of
State Security are all the same: dangerous enemies of a revolution so
fragile that it cannot tolerate anything that differs one iota from
official decrees.

Besides, in their aberrant paranoia, they fear books, songs, visual
arts, blogs, Facebook and the Internet in general. And also 3D films.
The private mini-theaters whose projections have been prohibited without
it mattering that the people lose money that they have invested or that
they will be left without work. They alleged that these theaters had
never been officially authorized, so they did not even give them time to
close.

There the fools who thought that prohibitions had been left behind for
ideological reasons!

Some think that behind the prohibition on 3D cinemas, as in the case of
clothing imported from Ecuador or Miami and sold by individuals, is the
desire of the State to eliminate competition by those individuals. But
let's not fool ourselves: the reasons are more ideological than merely
commercial. As ideological as when in the '60's they prohibited North
American music and by extension British also, The Beatles included, no less.

The prohibition on mini-theaters was seen coming. Several days ago, a
long article (3,260 words) in Rebel Youth, the newspaper of the
Communist Youth, showed the official preoccupation with it. It cited
Fernando Rojas, vice minister of Culture, who accused these cinemas of
showing video to promote "frivolity, mediocrity, pseudo-culture and
banality." In spite of the vice minister declaring himself in favor of
regulation before prohibition, finally the regime decided on the latter.

So, once more, a handful of meek and submissive eggheads, on behalf of
their obsolete, uneducated bosses without a drop of class, who have
Haitianized and what is worse, barbarized, the country, claim the right
to be the arbiters of cultural quality and good taste.

It is not that the cultural commissars are wrong when they say that
banal and low quality products prevailed in these cinemas. But those
products are not very different from the films and pirated series that
pass for Cuban TV or that are shown in the few and deteriorated State
theaters that remain. Because the high brow cinema (ay, Huxley) that
some foreign correspondents say is seen in Havana is quite scarce. Only
arthouse and films of a certain quality are seen on some television
programs, in a few film festivals to which very few go and in the
Festivals of the New Latin-American Theater, which keeps getting worse
and which now, without Alfredo Guevara, it remains to be seen what will
happen.

The commissars' interest in cultivating our taste (always within the
moral and ideological coordinates of the system) in order to make us
"the most cultured people on the planet," for lack of organicity and
coherence, but above all sincerity, has failed down the whole line. From
the punks who slide down the shell of the University for All, the
ballet, the symphony and chamber music, jazz and arthouse theater. They
prefer reggueton, Manga comics and films about vampires and Jackie
Chang. And if they have the money, "to put on the spectacles" they
prefer to see Avatar and Ice Age in 3D.

The prohibitions are not going to manage to tidy up Cubans or cultivate
their taste. They will only make their lives more boring and miserable.
Particularly those of the young. Maybe the bosses think that they will
be easier to control so. To hell with their ideas!

Luis Cino Alvarez, luicino2012@gmail.com

Cubanet, November 10, 2013

Translated by mlk

Source: "The Ideology of Prohibition / Luis Cino Alvarez | Translating
Cuba" -
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