The House of the Americas has to remain as a temple to confront imperialist, fascist and colonizing manipulations, with truth, justice and beauty, said today Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba ( PCC) and President of the Republic, during the celebration for the 65th anniversary of the institution.
From the Che Guevara room, Díaz-Canel remembered how on his visits as a child to Havana he would pass by the mansion on 3rd and G, in Vedado, with the hope of seeing Haydée Santamaría or any of the great names in literature, the Latin American plastic arts and music that met there.
The Cuban President considered that one of Casa’s greatest merits is having treasured works of endearing value for the cultures of the region.
His words were also a fair tribute to Haydée Santamaría, manager of a great milestone for the then nascent Revolution.
A woman who harshly defined herself as someone without culture is, even after her death, loved, respected and honored by everyone, he said.
We should ask ourselves if sensitivity, passion, humanism and revolutionary commitment are not sufficient roots to nourish, give birth and flourish culture, added the president.
He referred to the support of the artists and intellectuals gathered in the institution to the authentic project that is the Cuban Revolution.
The peasants who participated in the first public celebration for July 26, in 1959, and the visit of Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, who at that time was still a young guerrilla, arrived at the House, Díaz-Canel narrated.
The work of this facility, since its birth, has been none other than promoting the arts and literature of our region, working for Latin American and Caribbean integration in the field of culture and combating the colonialism that is imposed on the people, he stated. the Cuban head of state.
He pointed out that this work oriented towards cultural emancipation and unity that Bolívar and Martí dreamed of was decisive, in particular, when the governments of Latin America, except Mexico, broke with the Revolution.
He asserted that all this was possible thanks to the spirit of integration and service that Haydée imbued into the House, through the organic need for justice and beauty.
The first secretary of the PCC alluded to the most fervent creators throughout the continent and those who were murdered by fascist dictatorships, among them, Rodolfo Walsh, Paco Urondo, Haroldo Conti and Víctor Jara.
Other intellectuals persecuted in their countries were welcomed into the House, such as Manuel Galich and Roque Dalton, who began lines of work that continue to the present, he recalled.
He emphasized the publication, by the institution’s editorial fund, of texts by important voices of anticolonial thought, where Paulo Freire, Darcy Ribeiro, Pablo González Casanova and Roberto Fernández Retamar stand out, with their inescapable essay Caliban.
Casa de las Américas brought us closer to Rubén Darío, Pablo Neruda, Alí Primera, Eduardo Galeano and Ernesto Cardenal, just to mention some essential names for the continent, but we must also remember the work of Alejo Carpentier, Mariano Rodríguez, José Lezama Lima , Pablo Armando Fernández, Harold Gramatges, Argeliers León, Umberto Peña and Eduardo Heras León, insisted.
In the words of Díaz-Canel, Haydée’s personal support was essential for Nueva Trova to have its first space in this place, the same one where Silvio Rodríguez, Pablo Milanés and Noel Nicola sang together for the first time, which laid the foundations for the subsequent Protest Song Meetings.
During his speech, he praised the work of Abel Prieto Jiménez, current president of Casa de las Américas, and his team, for their sharp criticism of the cultural crisis that the world is experiencing, based on capitalist barbarism.
There is no better tribute to the intellectuals and artists of this place who gave their lives to the anti-fascist struggle than to make common cause for the ideals of social justice, peace and freedom, he said.
He congratulated the jury of the Casa de las Américas Literary Prize, an award that he classified as anti-colonial, Martian, Caliban and as an expression of unappealable attachment to culture.
I ask you to maintain the mystique of Haydée, Retamar and the founders of this site, which is to preserve the mystique of the Revolution, Díaz-Canel stated.
The event was attended by members of the Political Bureau Roberto Morales Ojeda and Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, Secretary of Organization of the Central Committee of the PCC and Minister of Foreign Affairs, respectively.
Inés María Chapman Waugh, Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic, and Alpidio Alonso Grau, Minister of Culture, also participated.
Casa de las Américas will reach its 65th anniversary of being founded this April 28.
){kind=link}