The Witch Hunt

By Ana Hurtado on August 9, 2023

History is selective because it has always been written by those in power. We have witnessed centuries of official discourse in which we have been handed down generation after generation what has been chosen to remain in history.  Who have been the great winners, who have lost. And until recently we humans believed and nodded our heads without questioning anything.

But already at the end of the 19th century and during the 20th century, this axiom began to be questioned as people began to think critically about what they tell us, who tells us, and why they are telling us.

In the last century the United States gave itself the banner of being the scribe of contemporary history. It is not to be confused with journalism, it is about power. Journalists in capitalist systems are employees of the owner of a media conglomerate whose boss has no idea what a code of ethics is, what a journalistic genre is and what telling a story is. And above all, what they have no idea at all about is the voice of the voiceless.

In the words of Ryszard Kapuściński, whom I have delighted in rereading in recent days:

“The poor are usually silent. Poverty does not cry, poverty has no voice. Poverty suffers, but it suffers in silence. Poverty does not rebel. You will find situations of rebellion only when poor people harbor some hope….. These people will never rebel. So they need someone to speak for them”.

And in that came Fidel.

It is important to allude to the abandonment of the ultra-right-wing Iván Espinosa de los Monteros of the Vox party in Spain. This man says that his position is now far from that of the party’s leadership. If he, the grandson of Spanish Nazis who sent Republicans to concentration camps of the Third Reich, distances himself from the current elite of this group of old-fashioned people, we should ask ourselves:

What are the rest like?

Along with power, this party of factious people anchored in interwar Europe, was gaining followers by making use of populism in a disenchanted Spain. But in the last elections they have lost 19 deputies and now one of their leaders is leaving. Are people realizing that the fascist discourse has to be taken head on to prevent its traction? For that it has taken a lot of work of free journalism, of comrades who from alternative media or individually have denounced day and night the dangers of fascism.

Is this not but a clear symptom that with conscience and working alternatively to the hegemonic, small victories can be added?

It is a matter of breaking day after day the lies that are sold to us as truths and the messages that no longer go so much to the intellect, but to the emotions. Because no, fellow Spaniards, no matter how much this bunch of Francoists tell us that immigrants come to take our jobs, immigrants come looking for a better life from anywhere in the world, and in most cases they do the work that most Spaniards do would not consider. And it is the señoritos who vote for Vox who exploit them in the fields, without a contract, from sun up to sun down, paying them illegally 2 euros an hour to pick strawberries or cotton.

This discourse is already defeated. Before, access to information was reduced. Now it is we ourselves, the citizens and the people, who use the communicative and virtual tools that they themselves have created to unmask the lies and tell the truth.

Moving on last week I was writing about the movie Barbie and the Hollywood film industry. And it is mandatory that we go back more than half a century to the famous “Un-American Activities Committee.”  How different is what they were doing then from what is being done now? Let’s see.

The Committee was officially active from 1947 to 1956, although it had been in existence since the mid-1930s. Then it continued to exist but was renamed. American stuff.

By way of a brief summary, it was to investigate all those who they considered disloyal to their homeland, communists or those who had sympathized with communism; obsessed that there was a communist plot within the United States.

Senator Joseph McCarthy was in charge of launching the well-known “witch hunt” to silence all those who could be dangerous for the power; not really because they were communists (look at the danger), but to make the population think differently through art and above all through cinema.

Protected by the fact that in the thirties the Communist Party in the US was strong especially in the union struggle and in the workers’ movements, McCarthyism injected the whole population with a constant paranoia where communism and all those who could become sympathizers were demonized, in the midst of the Cold War.

And they went after those connected to cinema. They went after the intellectuals.  And they began to summon them to testify. Those who didn’t were ostracized; work contracts ended, they had to emigrate to Europe as in the case of Charles Chaplin, careers were destroyed. You had two options: you spoke up and accused or you refused. Many intellectuals who had fled Nazi Europe and fascism faced a bleak outlook in the “land of the free”. McCarthy’s weapons were fear, denunciation and paranoia. Thus, and specifically speaking of cinema, which is the subject that concerns us, the industry was cowed and whistleblowers such as Elia Kazan and others began to emerge who began to denounce colleagues based on rumors and other issues. No wonder that in 1999 when the Academy gave Kazan an honorary Oscar, many of the actors and directors did not applaud him or get up from their chairs. Old age justifies malpractice with co-workers, ruining the careers of filmmakers so that your own career can rise by ingratiating yourself with the powers that be.

There were those brave enough to stand up to it: Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall among others led a march on Washington to denounce the witch hunt. Known as the “Hollywood 10,” they became part of a blacklist. Names like Dalton Trumbo. We cannot forget on the opposite side Gary Grant, who was not content with what was there, but launched into anti-communist speeches.

What can we say about Arthur Miller? The Witches of Salem is a masterful response to the censorship and persecution of the time. Exemplary.

It demonstrated dignity. Decency. It would take hours to continue reflecting on it but the message is clear. Censorship has always been present but at this moment in history there is so much madness about it, that we are well able to distinguish what power is capable of doing. Plus all the things that remain hidden.

To end here we should ask ourselves; is there much difference between the censorship of those times and the total “freedom of expression” that we claim to have now?

It’s basically the same, only the name changes. Either you write for them, or you work for them, or you do what they say or you are out. Your speech won’t be valid if it doesn’t agree with that of the dominant ideology.

How many films that reflect the reality of struggling and empowered women have been made in recent years within independent and auteur cinema? Many. We will not see them on the big screens of the world. They escape the discourse that is convenient for them to transmit to us.  Instead we will just see Barbie and her followers. The discourse has mutated, the make-up too, but the actions and the content remain the same.

Today we are also witnessing a witch hunt. One we have never really came out of.

Source: Cubadebate, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English