Buena Fe Left Alone
HAVANA TIMES – It was more than evident the discredit into which the group Buena Fe had fallen, thanks above all to its leader, Israel Rojas.
For those unfamiliar, it’s worth recalling that we’re talking about the musical group most followed by young Cubans up until 2021, after almost two decades of offering tasteful music and daring, critical lyrics within the Cuban political context.
What began as a duo (and they insisted they still basically were, even when accompanied by other musicians) had earned a place in the hearts of the younger generations above all.
Their first misstep came on November 27, 2020, when some 300 people went to the Ministry of Culture headquarters to protest the repression against the San Isidro Movement (which had barricaded itself on Damas Street, in the San Isidro neighborhood of Old Havana, in protest over the arrest of rapper Denis Solís).
Israel Rojas was not sitting in the dark on the sidewalk in Vedado in the early morning hours, but rather in an air-conditioned office where everything was stalled and the demands of the young people—which were not few—were ignored.
He was one of the “chosen” to mediate, although he had nothing to complain about. He was simply a convenient pawn for the system, unlike others who would have made things far more tense with clear positions.
However, the real turning point came on July 11, 2021, when Rojas appeared on national television to defend the order to attack issued by the Cuban president against his own people, justifying the violence with which demonstrators were repressed on that historic day.
He put the cap on the bottle later, when in an article he stated that his lyrics did not refer to Cuban reality, and that those who thought, for example, that the sparrow in Central Committee flew near the Plaza de la Revolution were idiots. Those were his exact words.
No one went out into the street smash his records (first of all because no one bought them—everything was pirated), but they did roll over Buena Fe, which since then has not recovered and has seen its massive concerts vanish completely. Those who used to sleep outside theaters to buy tickets for their shows clearly felt betrayed upon seeing one of their idols bought off with the perks of the regime (car, house, etc.) and openly belittling his fans.
Outside Cuba, the picture is equally grim, because every time they try to gather more than embassy staff in a given country, they receive not only the scorn of the general public but also open rejection from many who, instead of simply staying away, prefer to attend carrying signs and shouting “accomplices” in their faces—or worse.
Well, this week Israel went viral after granting an interview to the independent outlet La Joven Cuba, in which he laid virtually all the blame for the island’s current misery on the US government.
According to him, if the Cuban social system changes, US policy will remain the same. He forgot that when the Socialist Bloc collapsed spectacularly, no one came to tell them how to do things from then on, and they have had more than 30 years of democracy without the United States—or anyone—dictating their laws.
Poisoned by the Cold War discourse, Rojas doesn’t even realize that the chicken he eats comes from the neighbor to the north, and that the trade embargo doesn’t even fulfill ten percent of its intended purpose.
He said he had always spoken of reconciliation and peace, but that discourse was forgotten on July 11, 2021, and now it turns out that to him Cuba’s bleak panorama is Trump’s fault, when we’ve been suffering for more than 60 years.
The only positive thing he said—without mentioning names, of course—was that it’s necessary to lead by example and erase the distance between those who make decisions and those who suffer them.
Nevertheless, the “makeover” didn’t work, because no one forgets what this deeply unpleasant person has done in recent years, and this is etched far more deeply in the Cuban public’s consciousness than any song he may have written—probably even more than any he may sign in the future.
It didn’t go over well with his followers either, who criticized him for appearing in a medium “financed by the enemy,” for the pitiful image he projected, and urged him to give a concert soon to prove he still had thousands of fans.
They planned to do it this Saturday, August 9, right on 23rd Street, but they didn’t give the state-run University Student Federation (FEU) enough time to mobilize people so they wouldn’t look ridiculous, and the few attendees (apparently fewer than a thousand, judging by the images) were linked to another event, the Summer Film Festival being held in Havana these days. Incidentally, it also seemed they were in the middle of a blackout given the darkness all around, so yet another excuse to gather a few more bodies.
In the interview with La Joven Cuba, he himself acknowledged that he had lost the majority support he once had among Cuban youth—but perhaps he also thinks that’s the fault of some Trump decree.
He has tried to let time pass to see if people will forgive him, but it hasn’t worked. He keeps trying to resurrect a corpse already in a state of decay, and there’s no going back, because no one believes in his buena fe (good faith) anymore.