Development & Aid, Gender, Headlines, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean, Population

WOMEN-CUBA: Nobel Peace Nominee Defends Diversity

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Jul 13 2005 (IPS) - Nearly 20 years ago, when Lizette Vila began to work in Cuba with the disabled, transvestites, people living with HIV and alcoholics, she avoided talking about minorities, because “the word in itself was a kind of discrimination.”

Vila, the only Cuban among the 999 women from 150 countries collectively nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, told IPS that as long as diversity is viewed in terms of “otherness”, “there can be no harmony, and exclusion will continue to exist.”

“Everyone forms part of diversity. As a heterosexual woman, I am exactly the same as a lesbian woman, we both form part of diversity,” said Vila, a documentary filmmaker and cultural promoter.

The campaign, “1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005”, was launched in 2003 on the initiative of Ruth-Gaby Vermot-Mangold, a member of the Swiss Parliament and the Council of Europe, with the support of Swisspeace (the Swiss Peace Foundation). It has since earned the backing of a worldwide network of organisations, including a number of United Nations agencies.

Nominee number 1,000 has no name, age or nationality, but represents the millions of women around the world from all walks of life who work for peace and human dignity in their daily lives.

Only 12 women have received the Nobel Peace Prize since it was first awarded in 1901. The collective nomination campaign is aimed at doing justice to the millions of women who struggle for peace in anonymity.

“Peace doesn’t need doves, it needs women,” is the slogan of the Palomas Project, a cultural promotion and female leadership initiative which Vila has led up since 2002.

One of Vila’s best known works as a filmmaker is the documentary “Y hembra es el alma mía” (And My Soul is Female), a ground-breaking exploration of the lives of transsexuals and transvestites in Cuba.

In Vila’s view, the traditional intolerance for sexual diversity in this socialist Caribbean island nation cannot be attributed solely to cultural and historical factors.

Since the triumph of the Cuban revolution in 1959, major social transformations have been promoted on the basis of the inclusion of all sectors of society, with a particular emphasis on women and the black and mixed-race population.

But the lack of understanding and acceptance of homosexuality and other non-heterosexual forms of sexual expression endured as a legacy of centuries of “machista” male-dominated power.

The only way to effectively promote acceptance and bring an end to intolerance is through concerted efforts to raise awareness, and Cuba has the experience needed to undertake this task, said Vila.

Unfortunately, the concept that everyone forms part of diversity has not been fully assimilated in either the thinking or action of the country’s leadership, and has thus not found a place in public policies, she added.

“Y hembra es el alma mía” was never released in Cuban theatres, and was limited to screenings at film festivals. “The important thing is that it contributed to a line of work that has allowed some of these people to change their identity,” said the filmmaker.

Vila was born Dec. 17, 1949 into a poor, working-class family in Havana. She studied music and started out writing theme music for television. In 1989, she made her debut as a filmmaker with “El orfebre” (The Goldsmith), the first of over 30 documentaries she has produced.

Her subjects include victims of domestic violence, high school dropouts, an order of nuns who carry out humanitarian work in Cuba in relative obscurity, and women living with HIV/AIDS.

She has won two Coral Prizes and two critics’ awards at the Havana Festival of New Latin American Cinema.

Vila has also taught in universities in Cuba, Colombia, the United States and Venezuela, and represented the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba on a U.N. special commission on the legal and social rights of women from 1996 to 2002.

But above all else, Vila sees herself as a cultural promoter. The walls of the Palomas Project headquarters are decorated with photographs of activities organised for people with Down’s syndrome, cancer patients, and many others.

The project, which is affiliated with the Cuban Film Institute, holds workshops, exhibitions, concerts and “other peace-oriented actions that promote changes in lifestyle and respect for diversity.”

The Palomas Project also promotes Danza Voluminosa, a unique modern dance troupe whose members are all obese, and recently organised an exhibit of nude portraits of older adults by U.S. photographer Jacqueline Hayden.

“We have no financing whatsoever. All we have is this office, some equipment, our heads, our hearts and our work,” said Vila, who is currently working with her filmmaking team on a documentary about the “construction of masculinity.”