RELIGION-CUBA: Merchandising The Pope’s Visit to Cuba

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Dec 21 1997 (IPS) - The hoopla over the visit here by Pope John Paul II next month has moved into top gear with posters, postcards and other souvenir merchandise appearing throughout Cuba.

Welcoming posters showing the first meeting of the Pontiff with President Fidel Cstro in Rome last year, along with postcards of the two leaders shaking hands, are now on sale before the Pope’s arrival Jan 21 for his historic five-day visit/.

The photos in the posters and postacrads have fake columns superimposed in the background, presenting an image which could as easily be taken from the Vatican as colonial buildings in Old Havana.

Along the bottom of the poster, the yellow and white flag of the Vatican is shown under the image of Castro, and the Cuban standard, with its blue and white stripes and red triangle with a white star, under the Pope.

“Only four dollars,” the buyers appear to say in surprise when they see the package including a poster, the same image in postcard form and a sticker with the outline of Cuba and the slogan “Papal visit to Cuba.”

The posters, postcards and stickers – produced by the Office of the Historian of the City of Havana – are on sale in the most expensive stationers in Havana, along with 300 dollar pens and Christmas figurines worth 40 or 50 dollars each.

In Cuba, a country where the average salary is around 200 pesos and hard currency is mainly provided by family remittances sent from abroad, the dollar costs 23 pesos in the currency exchanges.

The Office of the Historian is an institution linked to the government which was given special powers to guarantee the development and conservation of the oldest part of the Cuban capital.

Some posters of John Paul II had already appeared in doors and windows of houses or apartments in Havana over the last few weeks, but these, like all the other propaganda for the papal vist, had been produced by the Catholic Church.

The new products from the Historian’s Office are the first instance of promtion of the visit by the Cuban government.

Meanwhile, the latest issue of Bohemia, a fortnightly magazine distributed nationally, last week carried a report entitled “profile of the Vatican in images.”

The State television channel broadcast a repeat of a documentary on Castro’s visit to Rome last month on the anniversary of his meeting with John Paul II. But Church authorities are complaining the information provided by the State monopolised mass media is providing insufficient details of the Pope and his visit to the island.

Access to the radi, television and press is still one of the biggest bones of contention between the Church and government in Cuba. For instance, Cardinal Jaime Ortega was given authorisation to appear on a state-run TV station in preparation for the papal visit, but still has to be given a date when he can make this ground=-breaking broacast.

Ortega said that up until now it is not clear if the television stations will be transmitting any of the material on the Pope provided by the Catholic Church. There has also been no indication of a reply to a papal petition to re-establish the Christmas holiday on Dec. 25.

Christmas disappeared from the calendar of festivals here in 1970, when the communist government was tied up in a massive sugar harvest which mobilised all the human and material resources possible in order to produce 10 million tons of sugar.

Although Dec. 25 is still considered a normal workday, many people have begun to celebrate Christmas with greater enthusiasm since the government took its first steps towards religious tolerance early this decade.

“There is now a more favourable open attitude toward the religious world – much less rigid than before,” said Ortega, the day before the Historian’s Office put its new products on sale.