Havana/With Milei, Netanyahu, Hitler, the CIA, Trump and other “usual suspects”, in addition to a good number of commonplaces –swastikas, missiles, Mickey Mouse–, the cartoonists who aspired to participate in the first Political Humor of Havana. The limits of the adjective were set this Friday by the cartoonist and cultural curator Arístides Hernández, Ares: The event aspires to “plurality of speeches,” as long as no one offends the leaders –historical or current– of the Revolution.
“In Islamic countries it is impossible to paint a caricature against the prophet Muhammad, and in the case of Cuba there are limits to the humor in relation to the historical figures of the revolution, that type of satire does not appear in the media here and abroad. the case of Spain, with the kings,” alleged Hernández.
The cartoonist Alen Lauzán, exiled in Chile and one of the most recognized Cuban cartoonists of the moment, agrees completely with Ares. “Islamists would never call for a Humor Festival about Muhammad; Nor in today’s Cuba could another be made satirizing Fidel Castro, the Revolution. What happens is that as far as I know, we Cubans are not Muslims, nor was Fidel a prophet, nor is the revolution a religion,” he says ironically.
/ 14ymedio
According to Lauzán, one of the pencils behind the magazine Mazzantini –reference of the graphic humor of Cuban exiles–, “humor should have no limits, only those that each comedian creates, according to their moral and political values, not those imposed by governments and institutions. From there whether it is good or bad, correct or profane, is something else. Even the worst mood has its audience.”
Hernández, for his part, was right in putting tolerance for critical humor in Cuba at the level of Muslim countries like Iran, but he was wrong to cite Spain, where artists have free rein to ridicule both the royal family and the Government and its opposition. .
Throughout the free world, Lauzán believes, “salons, biennials, humor contests and political satire have been held, but of course, always in the interest of what the organizers of said events understand as convenient and/or politically correct.” But, unlike in Cuba, an exhibition can also be organized without asking the State for permission on what topics to cover or which comedians are allowed to participate.
Despite the restrictions of the biennial, graphic humor made by Cuban authors is experiencing a boom and Lauzán, together with the group of Mazzantini, is one of those responsible. His magazine “of bulls, chivas and tarruces, of strain and crossbreeding,” and the biennial project, “more than incomparable, they are incompatible.”
“They have nothing to do with each other because they have different concepts of creation and ways of interpreting freedom, not only of expression, but also of creativity. One is governed by what the one-party Ideological Department imposes on all media and the other by what each editor understands should be the editorial policy of each publication,” he explains to 14ymedio.
“As far as I know, Cubans are neither Muslims nor Fidel was a prophet, nor is the revolution a religion”
In the biennial, he concludes, “the sacred commandments of the PCC (Coranist Party of Cuba) rule,” but Mazzantini “It is governed by another concept: against everything that is against the Superior Leading Force of Society and the State.”
This Saturday, only two tourists visited the Gallery on 23rd and 12th Street, one of the venues of the biennial. The international leaders that the official press identifies as enemies were repeated in each vignette, but not the local ones or the allies.
Within the strict thematic channels of the biennial, the jury could only award works on common themes, such as criticism of television, hunger and money. The declared enemies of this “diverse space”: the “ultra-right” governments, which “rewrite history” and promote “neo-fascism”, a bag that includes the Argentine president and the Israeli prime minister.
Some 46 cartoonists from 22 countries – including Venezuela, Russia, China, Iran, Turkey and Syria, nations with very little or no freedom of expression – have attended the biennial, convened by the Ministry of Culture, whose head, Alpidio Alonso, He was at the presentation this Friday. Other spaces in El Vedado – such as the Riviera cinema – screen “classics against fascism” such as The national shotgunfrom the Spanish Luis García Berlanga, or The great Dictatorby Charles Chaplin.
The Ministry of Culture aspires for Havana to become, until June 28, the “world capital of political humor.” However, it has ended up creating a harmless world for the Cuban leaders. An ideological truce that, after the scourge of more than 40 issues of Mazzantinithey certainly need it.
