By Graciela Ramírez Cruz on February 8, 2022
photo: Yusmilis Dubrosky.
It did not take long after it was announced that the San Remo Music Awards Festival, that are to be held in Havana in April, was being organized by Liz Cuesta, the wife of Cuban President Diaz Canel, for a fire storm of reaction to come out of the anti Cuba Miami press calling for the prestigious event to be boycotted followed by an organized social media blitz against the musicians scheduled to perform.
Once again this tiresome anti Cuba playbook will be defeated like the ones they have been suffering after each attempt to wipe us off the map twists and turns in their stomachs. They know well that we will emerge stronger and better than before. And every step we take in that direction infuriates them with hatred and blurs their vision to the point of absurdity and ridicule.
Cuba is banned from everything; the immorality and illegality of the longest, cruelest and most sustained blockade in history is not enough for them, nor are the 243 measures, nor the terrorist attacks, nor the millions of millions to make this country their colony once again. Not even a Bayer aspirin is sold to Cuba even if it is manufactured in Germany, nor is it given access to credits and international financing, Cuba is boycotted in everything: its vaccines, medical collaboration, trade, transportation, tourism, communications and now even the re edition of a memorable festival such as the San Remo festival which, just by mentioning it, makes us relive beautiful moments of European music in its best times.
That the stellar event is being directed and coordinated by a Cuban revolutionary, with delicate features, graceful by nature, simple and sweet like her people, who puts all her passion and energy in everything she does for her country in this difficult stage is one thing, but if that woman is also the wife and companion of the Cuban president, the attack must be brutal.
This is exactly what we are seeing these days in the rogue press of Miami, in the social networks and in the pressure on some artists of little worth who have come out to repeat like parrots the deplorable script of submission.
I am talking about Lis Cuesta, a first lady not in the style of the bourgeoisie, I am talking about a woman who has worked all her life in the field of university learning and culture, without ceasing to do so now while being the wife of the president. I am talking about a mother and young grandmother who, together with her husband and partner, has suffered the pain and anguish of the brutal US onslaught against Cuba, with food and medicine shortages, without oxygen, in the midst of the 2nd wave of the pandemic and the most serious attempt to deliver a soft coup.
You have to be very strong to resist the war being waged against Cuba. You have to have very strong values and principles and a people and a revolutionary leadership of Homeland or Death to overcome 60 years of blockade which are in actuality six decades of undeclared but imposed war.
In their perversity, the enemy shows not only their fangs, but also the patriarchal machismo they enjoy with impunity. No male leader is objected to like this because of his age, weight or height, much less the clothes he wears. But if that leader is an empowered woman, with personality and leadership, they scrutinize us with even a magnifying glass and throw on us all their low life scaffolding to try to neutralize us. We are not Barby dolls nor do we want to be. We are happy with our years, our lives, our height, our extra pounds, with the clothes we feel better in and the hair color we want.
It bothers them a lot that we look good. I always keep in mind Evita, Celia, Vilma, Haydee, Olga Benerio Prestes, Cristina, Dilma and Marielle Franco, my comrades in detention-disappeared among so many other beautiful women who fought memorable battles and continue to do so. Celia and Vilma in the Sierra Maestra with flowers in their hair and their guerrilla uniforms are our mirrors. It is not that of Snow White. It is that of the struggle of us women, each one in the historical stage of our peoples that she has had to live.
We will never give them the pleasure of seeing us with the traces that all their wickedness leaves in each one of us and the men of this country of sun, of solidarity and noble people, who know no hatred or rancor but can give lessons of dignity and human solidarity to the whole world. A country that would never think of boycotting any event of even their worst enemy. Because we have more than enough of the ethics that are so lacking in those who think they are the gendarmes of the world.
They boycott a Festival like the San Remo Awards in Cuba, where the most benefited will be the artists who come to this island, which is a bastion of international music.
Those who boycott it today do not mention that Cuba was declared by Unesco a ‘Creative City of Music’ for its high artistic quality. Nor do they say that Havana will be the first Latin American city to host the San Remo Music Awards, one of the most important Italian music contests that bring to our memory icons like Gianni Morandi or Eros Ramazzotti, which is also a tribute to all of Latin America and the Caribbean.
This great event, in which international and Cuban artists and contestants from all over the country will participate, will be held despite the pressures and boycott from April 5 to 10 this year.
It will be another great disappointment for the imperialist lords.
To our comrade Lis Cuesta Peraza the embrace of sorority and the strength and beauty of the women of the Patria Grande to continue generating good things for the people.
Graciela Ramirez is the editor of Cuba en Resumen that is back on line after being closed down since January 27 for the crime of writing articles from Cuba.
Source: Cuba en Resumen