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The Friends of Cuban Libraries - (www.friendsofcubanlibraries.org)/.
The Friends of Cuban Libraries are making available information on a BBC
broadcast focusing on Cuba's independent librarians, which was aired on May 1,
2002 (www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/meridw.shtml).
Since the BBC broadcast was aired, two of the volunteer librarians
interviewed on the program have received international awards for their
pioneering work in defense of intellectual freedom. Gisela Delgado was awarded
the Swedish Liberal Party's Democracy Prize, and Human Rights Watch named
Victor Rolando Arroyo
as a winner of the Hellman-Hammett Prize, an annual award given to persecuted
writers and other defenders of intellectual freedom.
Here is the text of the broadcast:
[Introduction by a BBC correspondent]: "A few years ago at a book fair
in Cuba President Fidel Castro protested that the narrow range of books in the
country's public libraries wasn't the result of censorship or banning, merely a
shortage of funds. Two of his fellow citizens [Ramon Colas and Berta Mexidor]
decided to put that statement to the test by making their private book
collection publicly available. The project was such a success that across the
island there are now more than sixty libraries run from private homes, stocking
everything from children's fiction to books on religion and mysticism to works
by Cuban writers in exile. The BBC's correspondent in Havana, Daniel
Schweimler, set off to discover how they work.
[Daniel Schweimler]: "The Argentine journalist Jacobo Timerman wrote
that 'if it's true that every Cuban knows how to read and write, it is likewise
true that every Cuban has nothing to read and must be very cautious about what
he writes.' Shortly after Fidel Castro came to power in 1959, he sent
thousands of volunteers into the mountains and the inner cities to teach the
people to read and write. Cuba now has one of the best literacy rates in the
developing world. Most Cubans are unable to get access to words such as these
written by one of the best Cuban writers of recent years, Guillermo Cabrera
Infante, now living in exile in London:
[Voice of Cabrera Infante]: " 'One third of the [...inaudible], which
is the tragic story of my country, from island to garrison, from brothel to
barracks, from tropical paradise to hell on earth. It was in fact a sad book,
but everywhere readers complimented me on how funny it was.'
[Daniel Schweimler]: "Four years ago President Castro said there were
no banned books in Cuba, just a shortage of money to buy them. So his words
were put to the test by a couple living in the East of the island, who opened
up an independent library in their own home. The seed was planted, and there
are now more than sixty libraries across Cuba. They are, for now at least,
tolerated by the authorities, but many of the owners have been detained or had
books taken from them. Ricardo Gonzalez has about two thousand books in his
home in the West of Havana.
[Ricardo Gonzales, in translated voiceover]: " 'You can see that in
this library we are in the roof is broken, the shelves are made from bits of
old wood. But nevertheless people come, because that signifies freedom. But
the freedom is limited by the repressive organs of the Cuban state.'
[Daniel Schweimler]: "The state-run libraries and bookshops are full of
works about the Cuban Revolution, books by and about President Castro and the
Argentine revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara, great Cuban writers of
the past such as Alejo Carpentier and Nicolas Guillen, and classic Spanish
literature. But they contain nothing the Communist authorities might regard as
counterrevolutionary or subversive. George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm, for
instance. Ricardo Gonzalez again:
[Ricardo Gonzalez, in translated voiceover]: " 'The readers are
returning to the library. But we have always had a few readers at this
library, the Jorge Manach [Library], who kept coming even during the worst
times of repression to borrow books and then circulate them to a wider
audience.'
[Daniel Schweimler]: "The books are given by foreign tourists,
embassies and aid organizations abroad. Cubans who leave the country often
donate their collections. The service is free, the standard security measures
taken to ensure that the books are returned. The biggest problem, according to
Gisela Delgado, who runs a library in the center of Havana, is for borrowers to
overcome their fear.
[Gisela Delgado, in translated voiceover]: " 'We're doing an enormous
amount of work here to try and make available uncensored literature to the
Cuban people. At the same time we are seeing a cultural revolution, since a
lot of people are losing their fear. They are reading these famous books,
which they've been told were banned. Then they are writing their own
testimonies, free from the terrible censorship they have suffered these past 43
years.'
[Daniel Schweimler]: "She says that in four years she has not lost a
single book, and all, including the children's books, are looked after and
returned in good condition. Customers borrow works on a whole range of
subjects, but she says by far the most popular are those which talk about
modern-day Cuba from a perspective other than that put forward by the
government. Andres Oppenheimer's 'Castro's Final Hour' is one example.
[Unidentified reader of a selection from Oppenheimer's book]: " 'Only
fear of the unknown prevented a popular rebellion. Only the failure of U.S.
policymakers and Cuban exile leaders to allay these fears, and perhaps even to
recognize some of the early social gains of the Revolution, kept the Cuban
people from turning their discontent into active defiance.'
[Daniel Schweimler]: "Victor Rolando Arroyo, director of a library in
the western city of Pinar del Rio, says repression in the provinces is tougher.
[Victor Roland Arroyo, in translated voiceover]: " 'Some of our
libraries have been attacked during the night. Individuals have gone to the
libraries and taken books away. These are people we recognize. We know who
they are and have reported them, but the authorities have taken no action
against these thugs.'
[Daniel Schweimler]: "Public transport is poor, and many readers live
in isolated communities. So Victor has formed a team to solve the problem.
[Victor Rolando Arroyo, in translated voiceover]: " 'We have a group
of volunteers, some on foot and others with bicycles, who cover the region
making contacts, offering books. What they do is explain which books they have
and what they are about. What all this does is encourage people to read more.'
[Daniel Schweimler]: "The Cuban authorities view all those who oppose
them as counterrevolutionaries, often in the pay of the government's enemies in
the United States. The librarians say they are the peaceful vanguard of a
force working for democratic change in Cuba. The authorities distrustfully,
cautiously, are allowing the libraries to operate, having themselves created a
reading public with an appetite that is not easily satisfied."
[End of radio segment] | 
