Author: Armando Chaguaceda

The Catholic Church, like the party, is an institution of people — though not necessarily humane — with pragmatic goals and where rhetoric and actions don’t always go hand in hand. Its history is full of dark chapters as well as contributions to the liberation struggles of our peoples.

I’ve been trying to end the year alternating between inevitable walks through the narrow streets of my city and reading a good book. In the latter case, the candidate I selected is From Germany to Germany, a book by Gunther Grass.

A few years ago, at the height of the political campaign known as the “Battle of Ideas,” Havana was paralyzed with unusually frequent mobilizations of hundreds of thousands of people — all of which paid for with public resources — in the well-known “Marches of the Combative People” and the “Open Forums.”

In my last post I dealt with art that’s critical yet committed to expressing the realities of today’s Cuba. At that time I discussed the hip hop duo Los Aldeanos, while this time we turn our gaze to the work of filmmaker Eduardo del Llano.

With increasing frequency and belligerence, the Cuban art world produces lucid voices that defend autonomy, social justice, national sovereignty and personal liberty as part of an emancipatory promise made to the island.

A few weeks ago I was able to return to Buenos Aires through an invitation to the event “Global Economic Governance: The Possible Roles of Latin America,” organized by the magazine Nueva Sociedad.

It has been said that up to now the complexity of the problem of the status of Puerto Rico had impeded trips by US presidents, little motivated by the potential for islander votes.

It is a valuable setting since it allows a chance to dialogue with activists and social movements from all over the world, though their struggles and perspectives are not very well known within the state-centric and liberal matrixes that dominate Cuban society and common sense here.