Song War Declared by Cuba’s Communist Party
By Circles Robinson
HAVANA TIMES – The Cuban Communist Party / Government has been shaken by a song from some of the island’s most popular artists. They made the video from outside the country where independent recording is not a crime.
Titled Patria y Vida (Homeland and Life), in two weeks 3.2 million people have visited the video. Many more have seen it embedded from other sources. It is highly critical of what the artists consider the failed Cuban system.
Trying to show that many Cuban artists remain loyal to the government/party/revolution/leaders, the authorities financed a makeover song titled Patria o Muerte (Homeland or Death), the age old call to arms used by Fidel Castro.
The government financed response comes after its’ massive media campaign to discredit the Homeland and Life artists. The attacks bear the usual seal of attacking the messenger with personal insults and fabrications, avoiding discussing the subject matter.
Despite unlimited resources the response song video sounds and looks extremely contrived. A poor imitation trying to present a counter message. But don’t just take my word, watch the two productions side by side and draw your own conclusion. Your comments are welcome.
Here is the original song Patria y Vida with subtitles from the DemocraticSpaces.com website.
Here is the Cuban government’s response video Patria o Muerte. There is no version with the subtitles in English. Below the song, we bring you a translation of the lyrics in Spanish taken from the offical Cubadebate website.
Homeland or Death for Life lyrics
You’re mistaken again
You took another false step.
You have left naked again
Your head on the guillotine.
Once again you are faceless
The offenders of the people.
Another betrayal for the money
Today I react, later I’ll adorn
It pays to say
Our time is up.
Profitable for the one who pays
Silence is profitable.
Shit it profitable
How foolish of the empire
Making lying profitable
and confusing people
Making singing profitable
So you are against poverty
From a satin sofa
You obtain money and vileness
It pays to scream
What they want to hear
Those who hire your voice
The ones that incite you to hate.
Who make it profitable to throw mud
At your country in these times.
And if you don’t do it
You bring good profits dead.
I hope you have funds
To mortgage your time
The Revolution will last more than
62 thousand millennia.
Give it water and don’t put any additives
We will pass you by
Let your savings grow,
We know your misery.
Homeland or death we will live
Homeland or death we will fight
Homeland or death for life
Homeland or death we will win!!!
Anti-Imperialist;
Do you actually think that the Cuban Government is NOT trying its best to keep the country functioning as best it can?
To think otherwise exposes your negativity and of course, aids in the American plans to destroy Cuba.
I am married to a Cuban lady and have a house in Santa Marta, Cuba. So I am not as totally removed from Cuban Politics as you express in your post.
I also spend time in Northern Canada since I am a Canadian with dual Citizenships.
Canada is not doing so well politically as you probably have noticed. Every country in the world has something that the inhabitants don’t like, or don’t agree with. I’d suggest you just suck it up!
I’m sorry that you feel the way you do regarding your government’s actions, but I am glad that you spoke up.
All the best.
Don D., from Northern Canada – and Santa Marta, Cuba, also.
Don D., I’m no fan of US foreign policy either but that does not hide the foolishness of your statements about Cuba like “Your Cuban Government is trying its best to help its citizens any way that it can.” What policies might you base that on? Name some please so Cubans and others can see how much you know about the situation on the island. And… let us know why the ones who don’t see it like you do shouldn’t be allowed to show their opposition? Would you accept a Canada without opposition to government policies?
Most of your complaints are the result, NOT of your own government, but from the leaders of the despicable US Government’s, Military Industrial Complex, which literally RUNS the elected officials that make up the US Government.
Dissention is the name of the game here, and CIA money (through its 17 acronym-named divisions and other US NGO’s), are paying young Cuban Dissidents to promote this dissention by whatever means possible. These young (and not-so-young) Cuban Dissidents are paid equal to the damage they create, after sending a video to the above US entities, as proof.
Also, the damaging articles you read in the Cuban social media, are all part of the US SCHEME to SPREAD DISSENTION against your Cuban Government.
At the present time, these people seem to be winning the propaganda war against your government.
In reality, it is similar to what the US Government is doing in China and a plethora of Democratic-Socialist Countries, around the world.
Your Cuban Government is trying its best to help its citizens any way that it can, BUT, it is very hard to compete against the BILLIONS OF US$’s that are being spent in Cuba,to undermine YOUR COUNTRY and ITS GOVERNMENT.
60-years of any absolutely atrocious Blockade, PLUS the TOTALLY ILLEGAL Extraterritorial Sanctions, both Financial, OR, with Military Reprisals, against ANY country that supplies needed Goods, Food, or Medical Supplies, to Cuba, is beyond ANY semblance of decency.
HOW would YOU run a country with all of these problems on YOUR Shoulders?
Your Government, and YOU, the People of Cuba, have put up with this American Bitterness for LONG ENOUGH!
The EU, United Nations, and Citizens’ from all over the world, are becoming aware of Cuba’s plight caused by the (so-called), Democratic(?), US GOVERNMENT.
The tide of awareness is growing at a fantastic rate, with meetings and parades of enormous magnitude, AGAINST the US Government’s treatment of the people of Cuba.
I know it’s hard, BUT TRY TO HANG ON FOR A LITTLE BIT LONGER! Help is definitely on the horizon.
Cuba and its peoples’ potential, is TOO GREAT TO BE TAKEN AWAY FROM YOU, THE CUBAN CITIZENS!
Particularly by a country 90 miles away, that will very soon be split in half by insurrections that are just slightly below the surface and are ready to explode.
A very large number of people in America are in AT LEAST the same condition as the US has forced upon the people of Cuba.
The American Government has ordered Tanks, Machine Guns and other Tools of War, to be handed over to Local Police Forces to try to contain the forthcoming riots when they do break out – it will be sooner, rather than later, in my humble opinion.
Don from Northern Canada.
Let’s provide some objective critical analysis to some of the lyrics to “Patria o Muerte” as presented by the Communist government. The song is indeed inspiring for those few die heart communist elites hoping their dying Revolution still has some adherents on the island.
However, for the majority of Cubans, toiling everyday to try and survive, those lyrics and slogans from 60 years ago are empty, patronizing, and ignored.
“So you are against poverty
From a satin sofa
You obtain money and vileness”
How many of the majority of Cubans living in extreme poverty have the luxury of figuratively lounging on “a satin sofa”? How many of the majority of Cubans with little or no access to American dollars to purchase basic necessities “obtain money”? Cubans have no “real” money and earning any is an exercise in futility. The assumption that a few Cuban cultural singers are on the CIA payroll is preposterous.
When a Cuban musician buys a guitar or has a musical instrument gifted to him/her from an American friend or family remittance, the musician is branded as a traitor working for the overthrow of the communist regime especially if the musician(s) are singing songs counter to Revolutionary ideals. Imagine the “vileness”, the corruption of that musician or a group of musicians to compose a song encapsulating the feelings of the majority of Cubans.
“It pays to scream
What they want to hear
Those who hire your voice
The ones that incite you to hate.”
The majority of Cubans have been screaming – enough is enough! – of the present extreme economic hardships and want a better life one with some dignity and prosperity for their children. This is what the musicians are singing; this is what the majority of Cubans want to hear; this is what inspires the Cuban youth. But, the communist elites are tone deaf and can only paint any opposition as insurrectionists to be silenced.
The indirect assumption of enemies lurking around every street corner ready to render the nation into extreme peril is a dystopian idea straight out of Huxley’s “Brave New World”. “The ones” all Cubans need to fear; “The ones” that are instigating this horrible turmoil are of course the same “ones” who have an open hand ready to reach out and mitigate the current economic Cuban malaise inspiring Cuban musicians to voice Cubans’ aspirations.
“The Revolution will last more than
62 thousand millennia”
That laughable lyric is enough to inspire all Cubans, not just the talented musicians, to voice their opposition to the current oppressive communist administration and work diligently towards beneficial change, otherwise “The Revolution will . . .” Scary thought.
Dan I’m aware of the homeless problem around the world I live in NYC but in the proletariat paradise this kind of things are not supposed to happen. Go outside your hotel late at night on Calle Monte in Havana and you will see the homeless problem in Cuba, and next time ask your Cuban friends to take you to El Fanguito on the banks of the Almendares river. But it’s interesting to see how “despite” the 60 years of “aggression” from USA the Cuban dictatorship keep building Five stars hotel. Importing even construction workers from India, like in the case of Hotel Manzana Kempinski in Havana. Shame on you for defending an obsolete and bloody dictatorship. The Cuban people need democracy now and there right to multiple parties free political election.
At least they have a home, despite 60 years of Superpower aggression, Olga. Want me to send you pics of the 2 dozen or so homeless, in sleeping bags in the city park in my small Pennsylvania town ?
Up Lifting Music with a Future: The Living will Take Back it,s Right full Place over the Cuban Nations Hunger & Sickness with Death left over from the Forgotten Revolution that Never Did Provide it,s People a life with much as a Meaningful Future. There Words Demanding Cuba,s Change is in the Air they breath as New Music is Giving the Now Generation a injection of No Fear when the wide eyed World is Watching Cuba. They Choose Life, Not a Revolution with there Country as Death, if equal Freedoms are Granted by intervention provided by others. Mark That March on that 13th 2021
Just look the stairs of that building tenement in the top photo and you can make your own conclusions if the Cuban people can live another 20 years in this misery.