Leonardo Batura blames the regime for the crowding out of Cuban artists and intellectuals

Editorial by CubitaNOW ~ December 19, 2023 Tuesday

From Spain, Cuban writer Leonardo Batura Fuentes described censorship in Cuba as “an inherent practice” that has not changed since the beginning of the regime.

“Censorship continues to be a standard practice, even in legal mandates that do not require its creation and approval because it is already carried out in the circulation of production and culture,” Badura warned in an interview.

During a conference at the Casa de America in Madrid, where he was honored during Teachers’ Week, the novelist noted, “The socialist Cuba of the 1970s openly and ruthlessly practiced censorship and annulment processes of artists, intellectuals, and teachers. “Everything with the revolution, nothing against the revolution,” he said. [Fidel Castro]And under that slogan a battalion of spirited oppressors took up their harvests.

Today the famous writer says that “the methods have changed, but the essence of the principle remains the same because its practice is inherent in the system.”

In his intervention, Batura included “a long list of Cuban intellectuals, artists, writers, who today live in exile as part of the consequences of these restrictive policies,” but “there is not a small population of censored or limited artists who are still living . . .” in the country”.

For the writer, on the other hand, there is a great danger from the culture of cancellation, not only in dictatorships or totalitarian societies, but also in the democratic world.

“All freedoms promoted by certain societies are at risk today. The process is not new, review the history. The fear of cancellation has spread and established itself as a painful mental and creative condition (…) The practice of these approaches can come from the extreme right and extreme left, as they came from fascism and communism,” he said. Batura Fuentes.