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By Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria. Posted on Fri, May. 16,
2003 in The Miami
Herald.
At an extraordinary meeting of the National Union of Writers and Artists of
Cuba, attended by ''special guest'' Fidel Castro, the attendees were coerced
into signing a statement against U.S. ''fascism'' and the war on Iraq.
I think that no one mentioned -- much less discussed -- the wave of
repression unleashed by the regime against journalists, poets, intellectuals and
others in Cuba for the crime of expressing their ideas, a topic that was a lot
more urgent and relevant for such a gathering.
But, of course, the purpose of the meeting and the call to condemn U.S.
actions halfway around the world was precisely to divert people's attention from
events in Cuba itself. The presence of the commander-in-chief was part of the
campaign of terror being inflicted on Cuban intellectuals.
What's most remarkable about that campaign is precisely its brazenness, the
scant effort to conceal its true motives and the shamelessness of its excesses:
summary trials; exorbitant sentences; executions carried out hours after
sentences were imposed; the showy display of police forces, including police
dogs, invading entire city blocks to arrest a single peaceful, unarmed poet; and
the appearance of the Maximum Leader at a meeting of intellectuals to intimidate
them in person.
Add to these indecencies the obvious ploy of timing the repressive acts with
the Iraq war to keep them out of front pages and the obvious effort again to
keep the United States from lifting the embargo.
What exceeds all boundaries of shamelessness, however, is accusing the
Americans of fascism. When, with its recent actions, the Cuban regime has only
ratified its fascist nature, both in its policies and essence.
At the risk of getting carried away by my professional deformation and
becoming excessively pedagogic, I remind the reader that fascism is based on
emotion, not on thought. What's more, fascism is an enemy of the intellect. That
is why it persecutes intellectuals and turns them into servile propaganda tools.
A classic fascist regime (Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy) is built
around a military leader who embodies the fatherland. Therefore, it demands
loyalty, not thoughtful adherence, and this loyalty must be manifested in
massive demonstrations with the display of the largest possible number of
symbols and emblems.
Along with this type of loyalty, and closely linked to it, fascism's other
predominant emotion is resentment, generally against a foreign power (the
British, for Hitler) but also against a domestic foe (the Jews, also for
Hitler.)
Loyalty is forged in the rejection of these enemies, who, by being labeled
foreign and traitors, serve to draw lines around the essence of the nation,
represented by the leader. The United States of course plays the role of a
necessary enemy for the Cuban regime.
Linked to that resentment is the fascist cult of violence and death itself.
The slogan most disseminated by the Castro regime, ''Patria o muerte'' (Homeland
or death), comes from a truly fascist stock.
Derived from the cult of violence, fear is the other emotion promoted by
fascism. It is a double-edged emotion because it may be the very origin of
fascism, upon which it builds its warmongering, repressive and propagandistic
framework. While the idea is to frighten the enemies of the state, the fear of
annihilation, of literally disappearing, is what compels the desire to destroy
the opponents, real or contrived. Fear issues from the exercise of power in its
pure state, bereft of ideas, the way it is done currently in Cuba. What
terrifies those who perpetrate it is that the irrational exercise of power by
those in power leads to self-destruction, the political version of the death
instinct studied by Freud.
It also leads to the kind of scramble for power that creates blood baths and
even suicides, as in Hitler's case. Shakespeare's tragedies already foretold all
this.
The clearest indication of the Havana regime's fascist nature is the three
death sentences applied to the alleged hijackers of the ferryboat in which they
tried to flee the island. These were a form of punishment against domestic
enemies and against the foreign power that would give shelter to those
''traitors'' and let them go unpunished. It was also a warning to the rest of
the population.
The executions also were an allusion to the violent origin of the regime and
the infamous paredones (execution walls) upon which it built its power.
An unbridled cult of death and violence, those death sentences were endorsed
by a poet and intellectual, Roberto Fernández Retamar, a member of the
Council of State. According to the current Cuban legislation, that body must
ratify every death sentence. A single nay blocks the execution.
To make Fernández Retamar an accessory to these actions -- we won't
know whether out of fear or conviction -- serves the double purpose of
legitimizing them and simultaneously annihilating any likely intellectual
opposition. Accessory or not, Fernández Retamar is another victim of
Cuban fascism because, as a poet and an intellectual, he is now finished.
Poets Raúl Rivero and Fernández Retamar are the protagonists
of the current drama in Cuba. Both have been silenced, the former by being
imprisoned, the latter by having to hide in the pit of power. That body does not
speak, it utters slogans that are the poetry of fascism.
Fernández Retamar should have appeared before the National Union of
Writers and Artists of Cuba to justify his vote. He may yet have to do it, in
the not-too-distant future.
Roberto González Echevarría is Sterling professor of Hispanic
and comparative literatures at Yale University and author of The Pride of
Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball. | 
