Gay writer Reinaldo Arenas was persecuted by Castro's homophobic regime.
Now a film about his life has outraged Fidel's followers.
By Peter Tatchell. Friday June 8, 2001.
The Guardian .
Old propaganda, slanders, lies and half-truths about the Cuban revolution
and its treatment of gays - these are the accusations made against Julian
Schnabel's new film, Before Night Falls, by the Cuba Solidarity Campaign. It
plans to picket cinemas with leaflets denouncing the movie as "old rubbish
in a new bin".
On general release from next Friday, Before Night Falls tells the life story
of the celebrated Cuban novelist Reinaldo Arenas, who was persecuted by the
Castro regime because his writing and homosexuality defied socialist orthodoxy.
Directed by Julian Schnabel (Basquiat), the film stars Javier Bardem (Live
Flesh, Jamon Jamon) as Arenas and co-stars Sean Penn and Johnny Depp. At the
2000 Venice film festival it scooped the grand jury prize, and Bardem was
nominated for best actor at this year's Academy awards.
According to the Cuba Solidarity Campaign, Before Night Falls "presents
a distorted and often fantastical portrayal of Cuban revolutionary reality. Cuba
no longer discriminates against homosexuals." But far from being "outrageous
lies and falsifications", this film illuminates, through the life of
Arenas, a monstrous moment in Cuban history, when Castro's homophobia paralleled
the persecution of gay Chileans during the Pinochet dictatorship. Although
homosexuals are no longer savagely repressed, it is nonsense to suggest that
there is no discrimination in Cuba today. As for the past, why shouldn't the
truth be told? To acknow-ledge previous horrors does not negate the many
positive achievements of Cuban socialism, including the highest standards of
health, education and housing of any Latin American country, and a literacy rate
exceeding that of the US.
The Cuba Solidarity Campaign has denounced Arenas as "embittered"
and "deeply problematical", but he was initially an ardent supporter
of the revolution, joining the rebels fighting to overthrow the Batista
dictatorship at the age of 14. After Castro's victory in 1959, Arenas benefited
from the new government's mass education programme, gaining a place at the
University of Havana and winning official acclaim for his first novel, Singing
from the Well. But his follow-up book, Hallucinations, was refused publication
and had to be smuggled to a publisher in France. This act of defiance resulted
in repeated police raids and the confiscation of his manuscripts. The campaign
of harassment culminated in his arrest in 1973 on a false charge of sexual
assault. Fearful of his fate, Arenas escaped from prison and made an
unsuccessful attempt to float to Florida on an inner tube.
Recaptured, he spent the next two years brutalised inside El Morro prison,
until he agreed to secure his freedom by renouncing his deviant writings. Arenas
eventually got out of Cuba in the 1980 Mariel harbour exodus, when Castro
decided to get rid of "anti-social" dissidents, criminals and
homosexuals by allowing them to emigrate to the US.
Settling in New York proved a mixed blessing. Though free to write, he was
stateless, impoverished and later contracted HIV. With no health insurance, he
could not afford proper treatment. Dying and plagued by depression, Arenas
committed suicide in 1990, at the age of 47. If his life was an indictment of
communism's lack of political, artistic and sexual freedom, then the
circumstances of his death were an equally damning reproach to the fate of the
poor and sick under capitalism. Arenas himself made this point shortly before
his death, bemoaning that by going into exile he had exchanged political
repression for economic injustice.
Peter Marshall's generally favourable book about the revolution, Cuba Libre,
recalls that many gay artists and intellectuals, like Arenas, supported Castro's
insurrection. They saw his rebellion against the US-backed dictatorship as
paving the way for cultural and sexual freedom, as well as social justice. The
popular leftwing journal Lunes de Revolucion was run largely by gay writers. Its
radical ideas seemed to enjoy the tacit support of the rebels. A couple of years
after Castro came to power, however, Lunes de Revolucion was closed down, as
were other free-thinking magazines. Many gay authors and journalists were
publicly disgraced, refused publication and dismissed from their jobs. Some were
re- assigned to work as janitors and labourers.
Castro challenged many backward ideas, but he embraced with enthusiasm the
homophobia of Latin machismo and Catholic dogma, elevating it into a fundamental
tenet of Cuba's new socialist morality. Idealising rural life, he once claimed
approvingly that "in the country, there are no homosexuals". When Cuba
adopted Soviet-style communism it also adopted Soviet-style prejudice. "Maricones"
(faggots) were routinely denounced as "sexual deviants" and "agents
of imperialism". Laughable allegations of homosexuality were used in an
attempt to discredit "corrupting" western influences such as pop
music, with the communists circulating the rumour that the Beatles were gay.
In the name of the new socialist morality, homosexuality was declared
illegal and typically punishable by four years' imprisonment. Parents were
required to prevent their children from engaging in homosexual activities and to
report those who did to the authorities. Not informing on a gay child was a
crime against the revolution. Official homophobia led, in the mid-1960s, to a
mass round-up of gay people without charge or trial. Many were seized in
night-time swoops and locked up in forced labour camps for "rehabilitation"
and "re-education".
The repression did not begin to ease until the mid-1970s, and even then it
was not because Cuba's leaders recognised their error. They halted mass
detentions and reduced sentences largely because they were shamed by the
international protest campaigns organised by newly formed gay liberation
movements. A more significant softening of attitudes took place in the 1980s.
With the advent of Aids, the Cuban authorities eventually showed greater
tolerance towards homosexuals in order to win their confidence and support for
safer sex. At around the same time came the secondment to Cuba of east German
doctors and psychologists, who viewed homosexuality as a natural minority
condition.
The 1979 penal code formally decriminalised homosexuality, but the legal
status of lesbian and gay people in Cuba is still ambiguous. Homosexual
behaviour causing a "public scandal" can be punished by up to 12
months in jail. Discreet open-air cruising in public squares and parks is
tolerated, although often kept under police surveillance. Homosexuals are still
deemed unfit to join the Communist party, and this can have an adverse impact on
a person's career when appointments depend on party membership. Lesbian and gay
newspapers and organisations are not permitted. The Cuban Association of Gays
and Lesbians, formed in 1994, was suppressed in 1997 and its members arrested.
Gay Cuba? Not yet.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001
Before Night Falls -- by Reinaldo Arenas
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