DEVELOPMENT BULLETIN-CUBA: Facing Up To The Global Cultural Challenge

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Nov 14 1998 (IPS) - Cuba will probably never match the level of technology North America is able to deploy as it spreads its culture around the world, Cuban Culture Minister Abel Prieto admitted recently.

Still, the Caribbean island has “an impressive cultural wealth that is recognized the world over,” Prieto said at the closing session of the Sixth Congress of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC – Union de Escritores y Artistas de Cuba), held here on Nov. 5-7.

And if there is any place in the world where an authentic modern culture other than that imposed by the U.S.culture industry can develop it’s Cuba, he argued, adding, however, that this would require a united front of intellectuals, cultural institutions and all the forces that influence Cubans’ education.

“If this front is led by creative talent, it will be impossible for them to absorb us culturally,” said Prieto, who has been culture minister for the past year and a half after heading the UNEAC for nine years. “It won’t be possible for them to steal our soul, to damage the cultural bases of the nation.”

Citing figures from the U.N. Organization for Education, Science and Culture (UNESCO), Cuban President Fidel Castro warned of the U.S. “cultural invasion” of the world.

In 1993, UNESCO reported that Washington controlled 70 percent of communications satellites, more than 60 percent of the networks and 75 percent of the internet. It also distributed 70 million copies of videos annually, floodng the global market with its entertainment programming.

Castro added that the communications sector was the second most solvent industry in the United States, with films alone increasing their share of the European market from 53 percent in 1985 to 76 percent in 1994.

Asia, Africa and Latin America import between 30 and 80 percent of their TV programmes and videos and between 70 and 90 percent of their TV series from the United States, Castro warned.

According to the Cuban leader – who participated in many of the congress’ sessions – U.S. programming accounts for 50 to 80 percent of the transmissions on Latin American TV channels. More than 70 percent of films and series shown in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico are U.S. imports.

The danger of globalization “is even greater than we thought some years ago,” warned Castro, who has repeatedly referred to the issue in recent public speeches.

The Cuban leader defined the UNEAC Congress, which brought together some 4,800 artists, writers and art critics, as a “turning point for national cultural development”.

“We have seen here an army, with capabilities, optimism, bravery, powerful revolutionary consciousness and with a place on the front line of defence,” stated Castro, who has sometimes criticized works that question contemporary Cuban society.

Prieto said nothing should interfere “when the time comes to evaluate the extraordinary moral and spiritual, patriotic and revolutionary nature” of the intellectual movement.

“We have to open more spaces for this movement each day,” he noted. “We have to eliminate all bureaucratic obstacles, all incomprehension or narrow views that can get in the way of its development.”

Prieto, himself a writer and essayist, said the mission to “save culture” was never abandoned in Cuba, not even at the height of the economic crisis in the early 1990s. “We have saved it, and today it is showing remarkable fertility,” he said.

The minister stressed there was a need for concrete communication links to be set up between artists, institutions and cultural policies.

“The alliance between vanguard Cuban artists and our institutions is today more important than ever,” Prieto stated, adding that the institutions were “strong and prestigious (…) purged of all bureaucracy, authoritarianism and dogmatism.”

In his opinion, “it is our creative minds and these renovated institutions” that can defend socialist cultural policies, prevent the market from destroying what has been achieved, and help save national culture within the present circumstances.

Prieto stated that among the greatest accomplishments of the Congress was the recognition of the UNEAC as a forum for debate between artists from different schools of thought and with divergent opinions.

The conference dealt with issues such as community-based culture, culture and tourism, the economy of culture, teaching culture and new legislation now under consideration.

In the field of communty-based culture, for example, the discussions focussed on the issue of salaries, improving libraries and the training artists in schools, and the need to prohibit the use of children in tourism-related entertainment.

There was widespread agreement that tourism should be integrated into the Cuba’s culture, with delegates emphasizing the need to create awareness of the national patrimony.

There were also calls for legislation to protect retired artists who have no academic credentials, while the relationship between art and the economy was also broached – the congress called for an analysis of the potential of social sectors that now possess economic power.

Several delegates warned about new foreign investments and the presence of foreign partners in the national economy which, they said, could lead to the eergence of lifestyles and behaviour that are alien to Cuban traditions.

Television, the preferred medium in Cuba, came in for harsh criticism because of its deficient programming. There was also a call for increased funding for radio, the most accessible medium.

There are 61 radio stations on the island, which are able to transmit almost 1,000 hours of programming each day mainly because the lack of resources is offset by creative repair.