The main features of the cultural policy of the Revolution, which is celebrating its 50 anniversary, with priority in the defence of the nation and an open university, were highlighted by relevant figures of Cuban culture.
The opening conference of the winter season was held at the Aula Magna of the Havana University. The winter season has been held for the last two years in that emblematic centre and covers all the areas of scientific knowledge, starting, this time, with culture.
Abel Prieto, minister of culture, presented in the panel the roots of Marti of this strategy that defend the legacy of the popular culture in front of any kind of colonialism and elitism.
It is a comprehensive policy that has among its challenges to teach us to read and write again, against the avalanche of triviality that is also reaching the country.
Prieto, who is also member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party, called for a re-reading, on today’s light, of the Words to the Intellectuals, pronounced by the Cuban leader Fidel Castro over 45 years ago, in which he links the destiny of the culture with the destiny of the nation.
The poet and narrator Miguel Barnet, president of the Union of Cuban Writers and Artists (UNEAC, after its initials in Spanish), made an evocation of the Cuban revolutionary thinking by remembering Fernando Ortiz, Nicolas Guillen, Wifredo Lam and Alejo Carpentier as paradigms.
Graziella Pogolotti, president of the Alejo Carpentier Foundation, underlined that the cultural policy is one of the more creative and original characteristics of the Revolution, while Professor Elmo Hernández, director of the Ludwig Foundation, referred to the extent to which education must move together with culture.
As it is already a tradition of these conferences, a debate and exchange of questions and answers completed the life rapprochement to the strength of the national culture, while at the same time the weakness can still be seen to face the challenges of banalities.
Translation to English: Rodney Lopez (Cubarte)