Political Prisoner Luis Manuel Otero Speaks from Prison
Interview with El País newspaper of Spain: “Either a Martyr or Out of the Island”
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As the third anniversary of the July 11 protests, the largest since the beginning of the Revolution, approached, the dissident artist spoke with EL PAIS.
By Carla Gloria Colome (El Pais)
HAVANA TIMES – Artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara has been given a few minutes to make his Tuesday call. He grabs a public phone at the maximum security prison of Guanajay, on the outskirts of Havana, and at 1:05 in the afternoon, the artist answers some questions for as long as the prison authorities allow him. Otero is Cuba’s most famous political prisoner, and according to him, “the most dangerous” for the government. When Cubans thought they couldn’t have a leader, tired of their own, the figure of Luis Manuel, a self-taught artist, emerged from the poor and black neighborhood of El Cerro.
His phrase “we are connected,” his defiant performances, his multiple police detentions, his hunger and thirst strikes, and finally the encampment in his house, the headquarters of the well-known San Isidro Movement, drew not only the attention of Cubans on the island but also of the entire exile community and part of the international community.
In September 2021, his face appeared among the 100 most influential personalities of Time magazine, alongside Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, pop star Britney Spears, tennis player Naomi Osaka, and Puerto Rican singer Bad Bunny. “His tireless struggle for freedom of expression and his uncompromising stance against autocracy reveal the power of resistance,” said Chinese artist Ai Weiwei in that publication. “His life, his behavior, and his expression together are so powerful that they can withstand the aesthetic and ethical degeneration of authoritarianism,” he added.
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The last time Otero Alcántara walked the streets of Havana was on July 11, 2021. The date marks the largest anti-system protests to have taken place in Cuba since the Revolution came to power. Thousands of Cubans took to the streets, and thousands more ended up becoming political prisoners. Three years after his imprisonment, with a five-year sentence for alleged crimes of outrage against national symbols, contempt, and public disorder, Otero Alcántara clearly remembers the moment when the Cuban police charged against him on Prado Street as he was heading to join the demonstration, which he says was one of the happiest days of his life.
Do you have any particular memory of July 11, 2021, the last day before prison?
LUIS MANUEL OTERO: Yes, it had been a good week, we were working, organizing a sort of medical kit to bring medicines to Cuba due to COVID-19, and that day, like for many, I was also surprised to see so many people in the street. In fact, I thought what was happening was normal. At that time, it was relatively common for people to protest because there was no water, but they were small protests. That day, at the San Isidro Movement headquarters, many people were telling me: ‘Luis Manuel, call for it, call for it, call for it,’ and I really never believed I had that power to call as people think I do, and that’s when I went out to freedom.
I went out without a phone, disconnected from everything, until today. That was one of the happiest days of my life. In fact, when they arrested me and put me in a patrol car with three guards, the patrol’s radio was announcing: ‘Hey, thousands of people are coming down San Lazaro Street, thousands of people are coming down Trillo Park.’ And at that moment I said: ‘Good, now it’s really falling.’ And the patrol driver told me: ‘But you won’t be there.’ And I told him: ‘I don’t need to be there, I’ve already done what I was going to do.’ Next to me was a young guard with a mask, who made a gesture as if saying: ‘Wow, we are connected.’
At some point, you became the most well-known and probably most followed person in all of Cuba. What do you think made you occupy that place?
I’ve never seen myself as a handsome guy, and people see me as somewhat handsome, for example. It’s the same with this. I started with the need to make art, it’s a disease, it’s my vice, what I believe in. I believe in that, in love for others. Since I was a child, I always had that, being concerned for others, worried about the child who had nothing, even when I had nothing either. If I had a peso, I would split it in half with the one next to me. I have that, and it’s not a curse, but sometimes it’s a kind of non-blessing because being worried about others keeps me from being in Hawaii, living like any artist of my generation. But there’s a responsibility to others that never leaves me. I am one of the happiest people in the world.
My happiness is fulfilled when I do for others. And that comes intrinsically from within me, I don’t intend it. Starting from there, I make art committed to reality. Reality itself has often tested me. I went to Madrid, I could have stayed, I could have chosen the easy art path, painting flowers, or making a type of political art that was simply discourse and wouldn’t activate real content within reality and wouldn’t move reality because art moves reality if you as an artist intend it to. Otherwise, it becomes a political caricature.
From there, I kept working, and at some point, I realized that a lot of people were connected on the same line. Also, due to some craziness I have, I resist aggression differently. And also due to the vacuum of leadership in Cuba, many people put me in that place. It was a mix: a certain charisma I believe I have, the work that creates an impact, a commitment to people. Contemporary reality is not rigid, and being an artist, having certain freedoms, allows me to encompass a bit more than if I had been a politician, something that implies behaving in a certain way, dressing in a certain way, and I love freedom above all.
So let’s talk about freedom. What is freedom to you: how imprisoned are you, how free are you?
I am imprisoned, of course. Freedom is a construction, in the sense that it is built day by day. You are not free; you are a little freer than yesterday and a little less than tomorrow. In that construction, you lose possibilities. For example, I have to go to bed at a certain time, get up at a certain time, I live behind bars, I can only speak twice a week. On the street, you can always talk, drink cold water, have sex. These are all limitations that take away your spaces, telling you “you are not free.” Here, someone decides how you dress, how you cut your hair, how you shave. All those are freedoms you lose being imprisoned, and I am imprisoned. Luckily, here I can paint, I think it’s one of the few spaces of my own freedom. They haven’t wanted to interfere there because if they do, they know they’ll kill me. I think thanks to art, painting, drawing, I’ve been able to survive these three years. I keep drawing, painting, doing things. I have many projects, things that take me back to childhood, childhood traumas, sex in childhood, the mistreatment by teachers. In three years, I have a lot, probably a new idea every week. Otherwise, in this confinement, I would be like a sparrow, and I would have crashed against the bars a long time ago.
You have already said you accept exile, leaving Cuba, in exchange for your release. But if you serve the entire sentence, will you still leave Cuba?
First of all, two years ago I agreed to leave as an option to continue working, as a way, as a means of struggle because I am a creature of struggle, and I will continue to fight not only against this power but against all evils, against racism, homophobia. Art is the tool that God or whatever exists facilitated for me as a human being. From there, I will be an eternal fighter and eternal resistance against what I believe is wrong. I never thought of leaving, but the regime suggests that there is no option to walk the streets of Cuba due to the danger they have made me believe I am, or that people believe I am. I realized that the art I make is a danger to them, and well, the other option is exile or keep fighting. Just as they fabricated a five year sentence from nothing, from falsehood, they can build another five or ten years, and relatively nothing would happen. So, I chose exile. But if these next two years or the time they decide pass, I won’t go anywhere because I don’t want to leave Cuba. That is the big problem, either a martyr or out of Cuba. I don’t see another way out.
So, how do you imagine the day you finally get out of prison? What is the first thing you plan to do?
The day I am released seems like a work of art, a rigid canvas. I imagine I will go through a complicated process, of two or three days, passing through different places until I reach exile. Mind you, that’s if they release me soon, because if one more day passes, I plan to go on my big hunger strike. And I will do it not out of obstinacy, but because I really don’t want to leave Cuba, I never wanted to leave, but it’s an option to continue working and doing things.
In the worst case, I’ve always thought of becoming a martyr, having my name given to a school, having the San Alejandro school renamed Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara. If I get out well, if I get out alive, that day will be one of the happiest of my life. I won’t hate anyone. It will be a reunion with all my friends, with my family, being able to breathe, being able to walk, being free. So, people can see the work of these three years, because of course, the only way I’m leaving here is with all the work of this time. This confinement has many ways to end. In that thought of a happy ending is meeting all the people I love and continuing to work. The big performance is to lock myself in a capsule for three days, to get rid of all the hatred, all the darkness, tear all my clothes, and remain with the flag.
In the three years you have been in prison, Cuba as a country has deteriorated much more. Do you know you will probably come out to a worse country?
Of course, I am concerned about the Cuban reality. I can’t speak to you as I would have three years ago because I am a very organic person, putting my hand on the ground, walking the streets. Seeing people’s faces, I can perceive what is happening. I have been disconnected for three years; I have a visit once a month. I ask questions, people around me comment. But that talent I think I have of walking the streets and perceiving how Cuban ecosystems work, that’s been cut off. I know it’s a reality that’s on fire, I know it’s worse, and that’s why I know every day I am more dangerous and that they won’t let me walk the streets of Cuba.
I no longer have the supposed fear one should have of a prison, of a space like this that I now see relatively normal, because your body has already adapted. They know I am dangerous; they won’t kill me because they know that making me a martyr is part of my reality. The other thing is that this cycle, as an experience, no longer generates anything for me. Before I would go to prison, get out of prison, that no longer generates anything for me. Now I think creating contributes more.