By Graciela Ramirez on July 17, 2023 from Havana
In memory of Marta Rojas, Ana María Radaelli, Guillermo Cabrera Álvarez, Lázaro Barredo, Antonio Moltó, Iroel Sánchez, chroniclers of the Revolution.
It is said in a few words: 60th Anniversary of the UPEC…but it means so much to celebrate these six decades of the Union of Journalists of Cuba, founded on July 15, 1963.
An emotional and gathering reflected that this Friday, when the doors of the beautiful Martí Theater opened and began to fill up with journalists from past and present generations.
It was touching to see some with a slower pace or helped by a cane, but with such a youthful glow and pride in their eyes, those who have dedicated almost half a century of their lives to the ethics of truth.
Tubal Paez, honorary president of the institution, along with other legendary journalists, were honored by the UPEC presidency with the 60th Anniversary Coin and the warm applause of their colleagues. The presence of high-ranking leaders of the Government, the Party, the president of the National Assembly Estéban Lazo, the Workers Central Union of Cuba-CTC-, the Federation of Cuban Women -FMC- marked the importance of the commemoration and the high significance of the role of the Cuban press for the nation.
Ricardo Ronquillo, president of UPEC received the testimony of respect and gratitude from the Confederation of Cuban Workers, the FMC and Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel. As I write these lines a Tweet from Prime Minister Marrero Cruz also congratulates the Cuban media.
Rogelio Polanco, former director of Juventud Rebelde, today a member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee and Head of its Ideological Department, handed over the painting that bears the signature of Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel and reflects Fidel’s words to the press when he said: “Consider me as one of you”.
Six decades between two centuries, marked by the intensity of the struggles and the great challenges that Cuba and Latin America have had to face.
While I was at the event, I recalled the first time I had the privilege of meeting a Cuban delegation made up of intellectuals and journalists, it was July 1992, when the II Ibero-American Summit, which Fidel would attend, was being held in Madrid. There was still no People’s Summit, no Internet, no social networks, not even e-mail.
The climate at that time, after the fall of the USSR, the Balkan war, the crisis of social democracy and the right-wingization of Europe, anticipated the tension and pressures that the United States would exert in the presence of the maximum leader of the Cuban Revolution.
Abel Prieto, at that time president of the UNEAC, Ovidio Cabrera for the Central Committee, Arleen Rodríguez Derivet, young director of Juventud Rebelde in those years, Gladis Rubio, Pedro Martínez Pírez and other prominent journalists were part of the entourage.
The aggression of the mainstream media was fierce. Rivers of ink, headlines and two-page “opinion” pieces counted the days to the fall of the Revolution. Cuba would not be able to resist, the last red bastion of the West would fall, was the story with which it was intended to deliver the coup de grâce to those of us who bet on another international order, more just, more humane and possible.
The counterrevolution, always at the service of Washington and against their homeland, had moved to Madrid.
Graciela Ramirez, photo: Bill Hackwell
I remember when we saw them in front of us, the first thing we thought was where did they come from? They were twice our age, they looked like rich people, they wore black crests on their Cuban flags, they were coarse, rude and some of them could not help looking like thugs. I am not being subjective. They reminded us of the Francoists who went out in November to kick the stalls of the immigrants at the flea market.
It was a great struggle where we conquered not only the streets and squares in large mobilizations in Madrid led by Antonio Gades, Comisiones Obreras, UGT and thousands of Spanish and Latino solidarity activists joined in. We also carved out our space to tell the truth in the mainstream press. Without counting on a penny we collected the almost eight thousand dollars to pay for a half page ad in the El Pais newspaper. Mario Benedetti, Rafael Alberti, journalists, writers, artists, workers’ centers, deputies from all the left signed the text and helped with their contributions to pay for it. Besieged Hope was the title with the sub head that said ‘Welcome Fidel, we admire the dignity of your people’. The text denounced the criminal nature of the blockade and called for an international mobilization.
With the writing of that text, two hands with the Argentine poet Poni Mitcharvegas, I made my debut as an apprentice journalist. It cost the Vargas Llosa (reactionary Nobel Prize winner)alot displeasure but that is another story.
In 1993 I visited Cuba for the 2nd time. It was on that trip that I got to know the Juventud Rebelde newspaper and the combined Granma. Arleen and Pititi were in charge of JR. Jacinto Granda and Guillermito Cabrera Alvarez at Granma.
There was no paper, the machines were facing enormous problems due to lack of spare parts, the power was out for more than 8 hours a day. There I met Estéban Ramírez, Pepe Alejandro Rodríguez, Luis Sexto, Manolito González Bello, Marquito, Soledad Cruz, Magda Resik who I think was not yet graduated, I saw Leonardo Padura there.
They arrived at the editorial office on bicycles, others after long walks from the bus stop where the only bus left them, after the hardships to reach them; they all faced countless daily problems at home. However, in the texts I later saw published by those women and men, there was not a drop of tiredness. They were as brilliant as they were human. I wondered how they managed to find their strength day after day.
Since 1994 I have been living in Cuba, some of those comrades became my extended family. I was able to answer myself where they got their strength from, facing similar problems… to start again after the blackout; to urgently look for a medicine that the blockade prevented this people from getting?
The Cuban press in the hard years of the special period, in the mobilization for the kidnapping of Elián. The emergence of the TV program Mesa Redonda, the main political space of opinion on the reality of the country and the world. The press as a decisive factor in the long battle for the freedom of the Five Patriots. The leap towards the Internet, denied to Cuba by the blockade, represented another enormous challenge. Talented Cuban journalists and programmers created the most important portal in Cuba and one of the most important in Latin America: Cubadebate. Today, all the media have their informative and interactive portals.
The Cuban press, which today celebrates six decades of existence, is the voice of the people who have had to face all kinds of aggressions of voracious and criminal imperialism, which has put Europe at its feet and conditions great powers, but has not been able to bend or make this island succumb.
Today, the Cuban revolutionary press faces other challenges against cultural colonization, harassment, hatred and lies through the narrative imposed by the mainstream media and its armed wing: the social networks; the kidnapping of political, ideological and social thought, ideological-cultural penetration, defeatism and the constant invitation to abandon ethics and principles.
And once again Cuba and its press from the UPEC are continuing to make the difference, with diminished resources, without large mobile devices, with enormous connectivity difficulties, but with a Communication Law that should be an example for the world because of its progress.
Arleen Rodriguez was telling me the other morning from the old Europe, as right-wing as it was three decades ago that at the reception for Diaz-Canel in La Voz del Operario, there was group of workers organized by the communists as additional support and security. It reminds me of our days of combat in Madrid…
Cuba will win! They chanted in Lisbon and today they are doing it in Brussels.
And here is the UPEC in its 60th year, with the same passion for the truth of that July 15, 1963 and the ethics that brightly lives in each one of them.
For the fights that we will together with the Cuban press these days in Brussels from the Summit of the Peoples, in parallel to the CELAC-EU. For all the challenges to come, Congratulations UPEC, Congratulations dear comrades for raising the rifle of truth.
Graciela Ramirez is the co ordinator of the International Committee for Peace, Justice and Dignity and the Editor of Resumen Latinoamericano in Cuba.
Source: Cuba en Resumen