Notes on the Cultural Crisis of Today: A Look from Cuba

Source: Cuba Network in Defense of Humanity

Speech delivered by Abel Prieto in the 10th International Congress of Higher Education, “Universidad 2016” in the Conventions Palace of Havana, Cuba, on February 18 of 2016. - I thank Minister Alarcon and the organizers of this event for the invitation to share with you some ideas on the subject “the new technologies of information and communications and cultural consumption”. This is a subject we have been debating in Cuba, mostly in the congresses of the Hermanos Saíz Association (of young artists) and in our Union of Writers and Artists (UNEAC) and later in other meetings of the Media Committee of UNEAC. Undoubtedly we are going through a serious cultural crisis. In this crisis technologies have an important catalytic role. Everything is amplified at an extraordinary speed. They have been placed at the service of consumerism; of the hegemonic industry of entertainment and cult of the so-called “famous” and help to form and give life to millions of fanatics that follow their daily adventures. - It is a good idea to explain that Cuba now is not prejudiced against the TIC. There is an ambitious program offering information to Cuban society that began, we must say, in the primary schools, from all schools including those in distant localities of difficult access, in the mountains, everywhere. We have 100 % of all children in schooling and it must be said they learn computer sciences of better or lesser quality. We train very capable computer scientists and there is a program to extend Internet that has been decisive in the recent past. We consider that the TIC are not innocent on their own. They are what human beings want to do with them. They can serve to organize networks of stamp collectors, of lovers of poetry of motorcycles, lonely people seeking company but also pedophiles. In their forums they can discuss social, political, economic and vital subjects, fundamental or, for example, to what led the singer Justin Bieber to change his hair style. - Well used the TIC offer powerful means that were unthinkable previously, for teaching, for social and economic life, for research, to spread and share knowledge, of science, art, literature, good films and diverse forms of using free time (not necessarily idiotic). It is a priority for us in Cuba to deeply employ the potential offered by the TIC. - Some myths have used the TIC. One deals with the theory of “freedom” of the consumer of culture never before seen. In other words the new technologies gave birth to an active protagonist of cultural processes. According to this myth a young person today, alien already to a vertical tyranny, unidirectional, of television and films in their traditional format is at their disposal to prepare their own cultural “menu”. This is not certain or partially certain: the young person designs his/her menu with a limited number of sites that the hegemonic industry of entertainments puts at their disposal. The consumer, when it comes to exercising their “liberty” is already trapped by the machinery and will choose the fashionable options. If anyone has any doubts check the millionaire number of fans that follow the “famous”fashion moguls through the social networks. It is hard to believe that these multitudes have decided “freely” to become addicts of what often lacks talent. Being at the service of an agenda of the hegemonic industry the TIC contribute to strengthen the omnipresent message. It would be absurd to think that adolescents build home altars to extol the image of Justin Bieber making use of the freedom to “choose”. They were not, in the intimacy of their awareness those who “chose” their idol. It was the publicity professionals, the laboratories that work to promote the “famous” who led them to this madness. Of course, Justin Bieber, or his mangers have used intentionally and skillfully YouTube that has grossed millionaire sums. We should recognize that the young people of today are “freer” of course, to enjoy the offers of their apparent preferences when they wish and through the article they have. - Today we face a dramatic paradox having more efficient and fast instruments possible for cultural formation while we contemplate that the frivolous gains ever more space and retract and disintegrate the paradigms of human tradition. Hervé Juvin points out that in a globalized “culture-world”, the addict, the “integrated” has lost all organized sight of cultural memory. “Juan Sebastián Bach and rap, the firms of graphic artists and Chanel, the confessional and eastern monastery(…) mixed in these new states of conscience that forges the practice of simultaneous incitement”. (Gilles Lipovetsky and Hervé Juvin, El Occidente globalizado (The globalized West). Un debate sobre la cultura planetaria, Anagrama, Barcelona, 2011) [Here it is pertinent to recall that analysis made by Umberto Eco about the wax museums in the United States that links images of George Washington and Gulliver and Disney’s Pinocchio where fiction and reality, past and present, history and the comic, the important and unimportant are fused together for a mythical and naïve image.] - We are all, even the Cubans, bombarded daily by this avalanche of cultural sub products in which the basic purpose seems to be to sell and entertain although it is evident that they harbor a charge of highly toxic values: consumerism, violence, racism, exaltation of the image and the customs of the colonizers, fierce competition, promotion of the law of the strongest, the fanatical cult of technology (beyond its usefulness and ethical sense), the distortion of history or dissolution of induced amnesia; breaking up of thought and capacity to pay attention; absolute disruption of the cultural hierarchies as I said becoming a part of the post modern jumble in which the necessary creators are mixed together with a mediocre group. - Today the universities and educational institutions, in general, work very powerful counter concurrent tasks that grasps children, adolescents and young people to an amazing world and in essence empty in which the name diversion and pleasure have removed memory, ethics, solidarity and humanistic principles in which cultural values, knowledge and virtue lose prestige against money, force, power, sensuality and glamour in which everything is mixed in a rapid whirl of images, without recognizable paradigms in which there is no center or sense – just fragments. It becomes inevitable to remember when viewing the present scenario at a distance those verses of Macbeth that Faulkner used to title one of his greatest novels: “Life is but (…) a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury without any meaning at all”. - I know that today there is an intellectual current that refuses to accept the crisis, welcomes with benevolence all those phenomena and considers “nostalgic” and “antiquated” those who try to promote a critical analysis of the situation. Our magnificent essayist Graziella Pogolotti who teaches every week in her column of Juventud Rebelde, renamed herself, when writing some years ago, the memoirs of a “dinosaur” for her fidelity to the values of humanism, today in disgrace. Personally I am not concerned of being accused “apocalyptic” (as Unberto Eco said many years ago) or of being “nostalgic” or “antiquated” or even of being a “dinosaur” because I am convinced that what is at stake is too important. It goes beyond the esthetic and the so called “good taste. It has to do with essential values even associated to the survival of the human species. How will we be convinced of the urgency to stop aggression of the environment in persons who have built their sense of happiness around consumerism? How re-educate them to a rational style of life, balanced, responsible and not based on waste nor a rapid race (egged on by the publicity) of buying-discarding- buy beyond their real needs? How to inculcate in these persons the spirit of basic solidarity towards their peers if they have been educated for fierce competition and function to survive in a world where the “winners” should crush without pity the “losers” if they intend to reach their goal? - The young person who enters University today arrives with a formation received in the schools and a parallel formation apparently not institutional: that which they have been absorbing since infancy in the most diverse audiovisual material, of publicity, of an elaborate paradise for commercial culture, a flood of messages, apparently diverse but, however, of a horrifying coherence that has rained over them and made them think of happiness and privileges depends on their capacity to buy, “consumerism”. If they belong to a privileged minority they will have their wishes or, at least, a percentage of them. If the youth was born and raised in a poor family or one with scarce means they have lived with intensity, pain and frustration the dream is always postponed to consumption and a wait to graduate to be more prepared in the race to success. However, it is clear (they have been well taught) that his or her reality as a human being is definitely associated to the action of consuming. Let us recall those words by Frei Betto: I consume and therefore I exist (paraphrasing Descartes). - And the consumer dreams of “reaching the status of the product” because, incredibly “the merchandize has a label, a status, an added value for those who wear it”. And in the group of young adolescents the label of the merchandize is a sign of identity. If the individual refuses to carry those objects “they run the risk of being excluded (…) from the social circle that established their identification as a code of at least a minimum level of consumer pattern”. On the other hand part of the consumer career has no end: “A product acquired today (…) will be obsolete tomorrow (…) and be removed any attempt to conserve the same electronic gadget, enough for your current needs. But all around them they become aware of an anachronism. You lose the identity of the tribe…” [This kind of subjective expiration that leads us to discard a piece of equipment because it is “démodé” or “anachronic” although still working it is now “observed as obsolete” and is a very common example – extreme – of the irrationality of the system] [And in this manner Betto continues] persons became salable merchandize, roaming containers waiting to be admired, desired, envied and coveted. That becomes the investments in gyms, cosmetics, plastic surgery, etc.” The “neo liberal culture” he say is to make us believe that the [merchandise](…) gives us the energy to wrap us in holy water to belong to the elite, the rich, the powerful (…). And if we are deprived of this privilege, the feeling of exclusion leads us to frustration, depression, unhappiness”. [In the case of the propaganda directed to the adolescents, it especially exploits the need of those young people to belong to a group and feel accepted. This influence is strengthened today thanks to the social networks. And we know the weight of “self esteem” and that the “tribe” (or group) in those young years of doubts and perplexities, such as in adolescence,] - Referring to the new generations, they read less. In other manners they depend on the audiovisual universe despite the enormous influence the Spanish scholar Jon E. Illescas has called in his book “the dictatorship of the video clip”. (La dictadura del videoclip. Industria musical y sueños prefabricados, ed. El viejo topo, 2015). He explains that it deals with something that is entertaining, undoubtedly for children, adolescents and young people and equally promote values and desires(…) from wealth to a form of hedonism that goes from branding and submission of women” and imposes “a way of living and of thinking.” The hegemonic video clip emits a demolishing message of individualism, Illescas (…), explains that promotes competition, and invites to live the present in a hedonistic manner and search for the most intense pleasure and immediately possible”. In summary, it “serves to construct a story in which wealth is a synonym of happiness and joy. And in the meantime weakens humanistic values such as generosity or affection”. The seductive messages of the video clip are absorbed a-critically by the cultural consumer who sees “violence, machismo, selfishness or inequality as part of human nature”. It also pushes us towards consumerism: “poverty rarely appears in the video clips. And the political consequence of invisibility is immediate: poverty that hides is occult excluding public debate”. On the other hand the video clip has become “a catalogue that invites us to buy in the nearest mall” (explains David Becerra, a clear commentator to the book by Illescas). An example: “the video clip Bad Romance of Lady Gaga. This video clip includes new advertisements: Nemiroff vodka, Ninetendo, HP PCs, Philippe Stark Hi Fi equipment, Heartbeat earphones, Sol Carrera sun glasses, Burberry clothing, La Perla lingerie or Alexander McQueen shoes//(…); usually the advertisements in a video clip are directed to the young public. Although, as Illescas points out, sometimes the advertiser pays for the whole video clip. This is the case for example of 'Papi' by Jennifer López in which the brand of Fiat cars is a real protagonist of the clip.// The video clip is then conceived as an audiovisual discourse that generates publicity space to transform the spectator to a mere consumer”. - Here speaking of video clips some “famous” ones have appeared. It is worthwhile to stop for a moment because they occupy a central role in the “educative” machinery parallel to traditional institutions of education. The contemporary, so called “cultural consumption cannot be conceived without the presence of these fetishes. - One way or another, as far as I know the programs of these institutions in all levels aspire to promote, among the students, an approximation to the paradigmatic figures, to those who have consecrated their lives to noble causes, to emancipation, peace, human rights, defense of the truth, scientific and cultural advancements. Aside from the distance between countries in the region and ideologies I imagine that many educators are trying to use the means available to teach the lives and work of men and women such as Galileo, Leonardo da Vinci, Mozart, Bolívar, Toussaint-Louverture, José Martí, Benito Juárez, León Tolstoi, Pasteur, Gandhi, Bertrand Russell, Marie Curie, Einstein, Picasso, Chaplin, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Paulo Freire, la Madre Teresa de Calcuta or more recently the recently canonized Oscar Arnulfo Romero among so many admired. In Cuba, for example, we have our educators in the figures of Che, of Mella, of Maceo, of Fidel, of course our patriots, revolutionaries and thinkers of the vanguards since we were a colony of Spain until the triumph of the Revolution in1959. - Even the figure of Christ, one of the central symbols of the West with his sermons of love, material generosity and sacrifice for the brethren is, undoubtedly, the paradigm par excellence of many institutions of teaching, However, the parallel educational “machinery issues aggressive anti Christian messages during the Christmas holidays. “Before, during and after the day known as the birthday of Jesus Christ a commercial maelstrom takes over the world…”Thus the birth of that who said it was easier for a camel to enter through the hole of a needle than a rich man in the kingdom of heaven becomes an orgy of publicity and consumerism. In fact Christmas becomes “an episode of commercial expansion whose capacity of penetration has surpassed all limits (See “¡Arriba las manos, esto es la Navidad!” by Fernando Buen Abad. [Hands up, this is Christmas!]) - Today this intent to found honorable paradigms of being known and studied by children, adolescents and young people, all educators in the world, even in Cuba, inevitably come against the Olympus of the parallel “educational” machinery inhabited, as we know, by the “famous”. These are singers, models, actors, fashion designers, athletes, aristocrats, television anchors, representatives of the business “triumphant” elite in general. And this range tends to grow, as we shall see. - In the Operation of hiding the poverty that Illescas sees in the video clips, the “famous” play an insuperable role: they swim in money and show off their fortune spending millions in whims. [For example: Lady Gaga had to have a hip operation and decided to order, from an exclusive jeweler, the rapid construction of a wheel chair bathed in gold. The also famous jeweler (Ken Borochov) said, proudly, that he had done one “fit only for a queen”. This order was qualified kindly by the media as “another extravagance” although it generated controversies. But of course, the extravagance became prodigiously philanthropic since, when she improved, Lady Gaga gave the chair to an invalid fan called Emma and paid for the treatment and transplant the young woman needed. She put her personal doctors at the disposal of Emma. Obviously the noble gesture of Lady Gaga generated an uncontrolled publicity avalanche] - At the same time, each episode of the private life of one of the “famous” becomes world news. Sometimes the managers of the “famous” individual suggest that each month or three months to make up an incident, a small or large scandal to feed their legend and for popularity to shoot up. [there are thousands of examples but what seems to me most illustrative, either real or alleged was the clash of Rihanna in 2009 with her boyfriend of the time, the singer Chris Brown that led to the cancelation of a presentation in the Grammy Awards. Digitally a photograph leaked by the Los Angeles police showed the singer with visible lesions and there was a large coverage of the case in the press. Brown declared himself guilty of a the larger crime of aggression, received five years of conditional freedom and ordered to stay away from Rihanna fifty meters except in public events where it would be reduced to ten meters. In spite of this, in February of 2011 a judge modified the sentence with the consent of Rihanna and both singers appeared together for the prizes and nominations. This story had millions of spectators, both in a successful soap opera. Each testimony, each revelation, each legal measure each gesture of rejection or clemency, each meter of distance or approach between Rihanna and Brown were followed avidly by the fans]. - To be aware of the life of the “famous” can be addictive. A Web site (www.wonderwalllatino.com) has a peculiar invitation to subscribe through email to receive weekly bulletins. It says [all in capital letters]: “SUBSCRIBE FOR YOUR WEEKLY DOSE OF GOSSIP OF THE “FAMOUS” ENTER YOUR EMAIL”. It is very significant and obvious the reference to the weekly dose in other words the medicine or drug that cannot fail you. - Most of the “famous” individuals are from the world of acting, in series and films, often playing themselves. They are judges in reality type competitions of all kinds; they publish autobiographies written by ghost writers and photography books on themselves doing philanthropic work at time suspect cosponsored by large corporations; they have statues in wax museums, (These institutions call on their fans to view their idols while waiting for the great moment most desired, to see them in person); they have meetings and love problems and all kinds of scandals that we have just mentioned, that are widely transmitted and raise their popularity. They intervene actively in commercial publicity and often their own line of fashion, perfumes and even videogames. - The social networks have made it a privileged space for communication between the “famous” and their fans. Never, even the most famous emperor in the history of civilizations, have they managed to gather such a numerous and fervent army as the “famous” have achieved through Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Never before was their a means to exalt the minds of these mass troops and even fall in a state-like ecstasy as the ones offered in these networks. - Some time ago I intended to do a kind of comparative analysis between the ten “famous” most followed in Facebook. This study was incomplete for lack of time and I am sorry because I began to discover interesting facts. At the time I found a golden list (of the “Top Ten”) headed by Eminem with about 50 million fans followed by Rihanna with 48 million and in third place Lady Gaga with 45.6 million. The only Latin of the “Top Ten”, Shakira with 43 million followed by the deceased Michal Jackson with a few thousand difference. He was followed by Justin Bieber, Cristiano Ronaldo, Katy Perry, the rock group Linkin Park and rapper Akon. A few days ago I found the list of the “famous” in Twitter of 2014 and discovered to my surprise that some names were repeated: in the first place Katy Perry with more than 51.3 million fans; second place was Justin Bieber with 50.2 million ; third a politician, Barack Obama, with 42 million. Fourth place was Lady Gaga with 41.1 million and finally three places later Rihanna in 7th place with 34.5 million) - One of these “famous”, Justin Bieber, has found in the social networks an important link for his sales and to promote the so called “Bieber Fever” of his fans. A large part of the attraction for Bieber was in YouTube. Much before cutting his first EP [or extended play lasting 20 to 25 minutes], My world, his videos in YouTube have had hits millions of times. His representative Braun asked him to work more on his image in YouTube and record more home videos for transmission. Braun declared that he asked Justin to “sing as if no one was in the room”. “The product would be for children [he added] and let them do the work to feel they belong”. [See how shrewd the educator Braun is: he understands that if the children view the “finished product of the ‘private and spontaneous’ videos of Bieber they join the farse, make it theirs and fall into to the trap irreversibly.] Later, always advised by Braun, Justin Bieber opened his account in Twitter through which he interacts with his fans and has millions. It has been said a few years ago his account won 24 thousand new fans. His accounts in YouTube and Twitter have demonstrated to be a tool of marketing. For example, his musical video of the theme “One time” began to be sold spectacularly after being published in YouTube. - Rihanna became an artist with “I like it” in Facebook. Also she was the first women to pass the 3 billion hits in YouTube. The “famous” Linkin Park took part in the sound track of the Transformers: the vengeance of the fallen (2009) the second of a trilogy of “real image” that is originally a line of toys and later comic books and cartoons) and has been linked to another option of the TIC very important, : the video games. The video game Linkin Park appeared in the market in 2010 and in iTunes was number three in the category of most sold action games. Three members of the band appear and each level is based on one of the members of the group. This video game appears with some of the main themes of his list of records. This is an example of how they connect with the “famous” and their promotion with all the options offered in the hegemonic industry of entertainment and the TIC at their service [Of course the purpose of the evolution of the Transformers into toys and comics and cartoons is a saga of films in “real image” and it should be another lesson learned early in our days that has to do with the cult of technology. This has even been taken to the large industry of entertainment to found those technologies of promotion of their productions. Today the so-called “special effects” have become more attractive for the potential consumer of a film of television series than any other evaluation associated to the plot, the actors, the conflict, the story”. A product allegedly artistic in which the basics is concentrated in this cult of technology, betrays the entrance, by its own essence, of humanistic roots of art. It de-humanizes the esthetic experience, empties it. Even warns of the intent to substitute the monsters of the old horror films with freak monsters created with this technique in which the human is alien. In these creature designed coldly for destruction, one feels nostalgia for those old vampires, wolf men, evil but, somehow tender]. – The “famous” receive every days honors in magazines with a large circulation that are curious for their pompous terms. Rihanna, for example, was included in the Forbes magazine in the list of the “most powerful” in the planet. She appeared among the ten best dressed in 2008 and according to People magazine was included in the list in Glamour magazine of the 50 most glamorous in 2009 and was declared in that same issue as “Woman of the Year”. By June of 2007 Gillette had named Rihanna “the celebrity with legs of a goddess”. In 2011 Esquire declared her “the sexiest woman alive”. MTV named her the largest star and queen of the Caribbean. In 2012 Time magazine placed Rihanna eight among the most “influential” in the world. She was named woman of the year also by Glamour. She was named the hottest celebrity in 2012. In 2011 and 2012 Vogue gave her the title of “Woman of the Year” and based its decision on the fact that Rihanna was “independent, energetic” with “class and spirit of struggle”. That same year the singer was qualified as the most “powerful” in the world. - Another example is the much awarded Singer; of course, Shakira. The company Live Nation considered her the most important artists of her generation “for her global impact clearly consolidated”. [The generation of formation and launch of the “famous” moves in that manner. She achieves popularity and then is awarded for accomplishing her purpose]. According to Forbes Shakira is one of the singers who has earned more money and is among the one hundred women most influential in the planet. The “famous” obtain all sorts of prizes from the hegemonic industry of entertainment. [These awards function as legitimate formulas in the process of making a “famous”; they are rarely questioned; they are considered indicators of irrefutable hierocracy]. - In fact here is a repeated “educational” message that is very clear and day by day, becomes part of the awareness (and subconscious) of the fans of these “famous”: their earnings, the fame, the feeling of “influence”, “powerful”, “sexy” that allows you to have a better life, a privileged scale of the human species. - At the same time the Money a “famous” receives of is invested in a super film product or that collects best seller acts as another indicator that the consumer associates naively with quality. - “The best publicity [explains the Bulgarian cultural anthropologist, Ivailo Dichev] as the amount of the Budget, the number of hits, the sale Price (Do you remember that just recently we thought important this were understood by a few chosen?) What did they write about the latest Harry Potter ? The first message, the most important was [the sale of 7 million copies in the first 24 hours only in the United States] (…) We should not miss Terminator, Titanic, Troy, the new Superman, precisely for the global potlatch of their alleged records: something exceptional occurs if they spend millions, that is important; it means it is culture. On the other hand “low budgets” became a derogatory definition of marginal films, of those one can forget. The low budget film has fewer effects (…) and demands a special effort of the eye trained for another visual rhythm. In this manner, viewing is not pleasure but work”. (A hegemony of the world-popular?, 2006, Denken Pensée Thought Myśl… E-zine of European Cultural Thought, volume 3, Centro Teórico-Cultural Criterios, la Habana, 2015). [In other words money that is invested in an artistic or pseudo artistic production is directly proportional to the quality. And vice versa] - The “famous” strengthen the consumer current; since they continuously lend (and are well paid for it) to announce several products and accept to compose and interpret songs associated to publicity campaigns. They even go beyond and found lines of articles allegedly designed by them and “godly” with their names. A notable case is Rihanna who said she intended to found her own company of all here businesses, including music, films, perfumes, fashion, book companies (this one she did not found. Yes I did read that some time ago a photography book was preceded by an enormous publicity. We should not forget that that writer of Croatian origin, Dubravka Ugresic, who analyzed the decadence of the literary market tells of a delirious world today of the memoirs of Monica Lewinsky deserves more publicity than the complete works of Marcel Proust. Of course, speaking of Monica Lewinsky, it is coherent that – after the scandal and rising to the category of “famous” – she did not find space in the editorial field but in a star reality show and the launch and sale of her own label of purses.) - At present Rihanna signed contracts with Body Secret Spray (her first tour was called Rihanna’s Secret Body Spray Tour) with Nike, with Gucci; she recorded the song “Winning Women” with another Singer to promote the women’s deodorant of Proctor& Gamble. [This is very symptomatic of the publicity logic that associates the use of a product that can make you a “winner”; in this case in a woman “winner.] Rihanna became the spokeswoman for Nivea; a song in which an important part is the Nivea’s 100 Years of Skin care campaign. She has worked with Armani to design her own collection of jeans and lingerie. - Another “educational” message intensely multiplies by the “famous” is what we could call the vast value of the superfluous”. We akready mentioned the ostentation of Lady Gaga to have a wheel chair in gold. Another that I already mentioned: is the change in the hairstyle of Bieber, an event that occurred suddenly in 2010 that was considered the costliest: hair cut of all times. And products had to change to reflect his new look. A US toy company spent 100 thousand dollars to correct the “Bieber” dolls that would be sold during the Christmas season of 2011. (And the wax museums that had Bieber replicas had to make considerable investments. Imagine a fan who after paying entrance to one of the museums finds a Bieber with an old haircut. Another more recent example: the actress Uma Thurman appeared in public with what was called “poor makeup” and caused a huge stir in the social networks.” The scandal of her new makeup made the actress defend herself from the critics. “I believe no one has liked my make up” she said in the NBC television program, Today. There she took the opportunity to say she did not have any kind of plastic surgery. Note how the trivial has achieved gigantic weight I the logic of the “famous”. Obviously the superfluous surpasses what is truly important in the scale of priorities of this machinery, above all in children and young people). - The exaltation of physical beauty and the chimera of eternal youth form part of the exacerbation of the superfluous in the lives of the “famous”. In a digital article (“The before and after of the famous of June 2015) dedicated to the addiction for plastic surgery of the celebrities of Hollywood and the world of shows and fashion has reached the morbid fascination of presenting their images where they present the “before” and “after” of the “famous” faces and invites the public not without a germ of cruelty to move the cursor from left to right to rediscover the pitted and folds, the double chins, the neck lizard skin that has cost so much money to hide. One film star comments that “a few years ago the information media reported that an actress was spending more than 350 million Euros for esthetic touchups”. Another confessed she had at least 20 operations to eliminate wrinkles. - All or almost all the “famous” of the list I mentioned (that was once the “Top 10” in Facebook) are of humble origin and their families – they tell – go through precarious situations. Support this manner of resurrection of the Cinderella myth in the hope that the multitude of “losers’ will become one day “winners”. - At the same time many do philanthropic work through donations, beneficial concerts and foundations, all very publicized. I should explain that some of these “famous” are generous and practices genuine altruism and with the best purpose to help the needy. But beyond these personal intentions in the Olympus of the “famous” nothing is pure and often philanthropic actions are contaminated. The system creates a strange promiscuity in which Philanthropy, publicity and marketing cohabit. - We mentioned above that it is antichristian to promote consumerism in the birthday of Christ. And it is necessary now to recall that the exercise of philanthropy accompanied by propaganda is not truly Christian. In Mateo, 6,1-4 Christ says: “Beware that doing justice before men you are seen by them in another manner and will not have the rewards of our Father in heaven. Well, when giving alms don’t play trumpets before as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and the streets (…). Even more why you give alms it should be in secret; and your Father who sees the alms in secret rewards them in public.” Philanthropic actions of the “famous” are accompanied by trumpets, as we know and sound in the synagogues, the streets, the media and social networks. - When Shakira was eight her father declared bankruptcy. Later she said: “In my childish head it was the end of the world”. Later to show her that things could beworst her father took her to a nearby park where she could see the orphans who lived there. The image impressed her so she said “one day I am going to help this children, when I become a famous artist”. And she founded the Bare Feet Foundation at the end of 1990 to offer help to the unprotected infant community of Colombia and countries of the third world. Curiously Rihanna told a very similar story: “When I was young I liked watching television and saw those children that suffer I always said that when in am grown I want to help others”. For that reason she created the Believe Foundation in 2006 that gives children help in education, economic social and medical support. - Shakira for her humanitarian work was named by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) good will ambassador. On the other hand (and this is where the promiscuity we spoke of starts); the Spanish cars SEAT joined Shakira to manufacture a car that would have the name of the foundation: the SEAT Lion Barefeet. This car was eventually auctioned in 2007 in the Car Hall of Geneva in the presence of the Spanish label Erich Schmitt. Shakira received donations for his philanthropic work from the AMAG company, the Swiss importer of the Porsche cars (Consequently no one can deny that there is a contradiction in the corporations associated to the car industry lend their name to support with so much enthusiasm a Foundation that has a name referring to those who would never a car and launch, to top it all off, a model baptized as SEAT Lion Barefeet. It is the kind of events, very publicized that is capable of muddying noble good intentions.] - Often the philanthropic efforts of the “famous” do not end well. A few days ago I presented the book Red Zone of Enrique Ubieta on the battle waged by the Cuban doctors and nurses against ebola in Sierrra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea. There I learned of the pathetic solidarity initiative of a group of musicians well known in Europe and the United States who, in November of 2014 “recorded a song of solidarity for the patients of ebola. But they did not do at least a minimum of research about the culture of the peoples suffering the epidemic (…) the title of the song “Do you know what Christmas is?” was fatal to connect with a population in shish two thirds of the countries infected [Sierra Leone and Guinea] are mostly Muslim and the words far from being educational was inexact in the description of the epidemic and inspired fear in the Europeans (…) In Africa it was widely rejected.” And in fact it was a compassionate and humanistic initiative but marked by a colonial vision. A Liberian scholar specialist in African issues answered, upset, about the song that was aired by Ubieta in BBC Mundo: “As if we know what Christmas is …we who know it but do not celebrated it”. - A very sensitive issue is the philanthropic impulse of the “famous” to adopt children of Southern countries. Even some press of the system have questioned more than once if it is a “true gesture of love or if “it is a chic fashion”. Children from Haiti, Malawi, Mongolia, Cambodia, Ethiopia. Vitenam, Korea. Juin makes a brutal comment in this context saying “it is not strange that (…)stars have the right to buy children who will learn of the glitter of the future but not of their parents or their land”. [This bitter reference by Juvin of the publicity to adopt children of the underdeveloped world by the “famous” of the North it is not difficult to see the metaphor of the process of absorption and plunder of the root to which so many millions of children, adolescents and young people of the South are submitted by the hegemonic industry of entertainment. They are kidnapped by and implacable colonial machinery that, in the end, makes them renounce their land and their parents.] - Some of the “famous” on the other hand cultivate a certain image of inoffensive rebellion against the system. In the referred to Top 10 of Facebook there are four blacks and mestizos: one of African origin, former inmate of Akon; Rihanna, born in Barbados; Michael Jackson; Brazilian footballist Cristiano Ronaldo. There is even a Hispanic, Shakira and the eternal adolescent naughty boy, a sort of Peter Pan who refuses to grow up, Justin Bieber. There is the impression that these “famous” built aspire to give color to their Olympus and try that the exploited minority have some idol to adore. Even Lady Gaga is intent on representing rebellion. In an article of The Sunday Times (Lady Gaga and the death of Sex” 2010) Camille Paglia said that this “famous” (is in fact a thief of identity of someone who breaks the erotic taboos, a product manufactured in the mainstream who sings these strange songs, of rebels and dispossessed when nothing is done about it”. - Amy Kaufman of the Los Angeles times commented on Justin Bieber: “although [he was] (…) educated in the suburban Stratford, Ontario, his manner of dress and of speech – employs African American jargon (…) – suggests that he imitates his favorite rappers”. Good, nicknamed the “arrogant trainer of Bieber gave him a “street look” in the style of the singer that were baseball caps, tracksuits, military type dog tags and colorful sneakers. The idea was to appeal to a certain “rebelliousness” based on the superficial, on the superfluous is something that appears also in Rihanna who, once in her career, adopted, according to the media, “a more rebellious image” to record one of his albums: “She cut her hair and dyed it black”. - In the article by David Becerra on the book by Illesca he says how the “hegemonic video clip constructs a model we can call “black capitalism”. “Through Afro American signers, mostly from marginal barrios, an idea is built of the possible success of those who can escape poverty through rules of the capitalist system also at times in implies committing crimes, making use of violence or drug dealings. The oligarchy favors a “dictatorship of the video clip for populations of the ghettos. De-politicized models that show that they way out is always individual, never political or collective, of the problems they suffer. The construction of a rap star that has escaped poverty displaces the imagination of other referents such as Martin Luther King, Malcolm X o Angela Davis”. – [In this point I want the analysis with what we will see of narcomoda and the “new heroes” like El Chapo or Pablo Escobar. We would have add a large work over “folklore” that Hollywood has made of the figures of the left such as Eva Perón (Evita, the musical by Andrew Lloyd Weber filmed by Alan Parker with Madonna in the role of Eva Peron and Antonio Banderas as Chi in the role of narrator)l Frida by Julie Taymor in which Tina Modotti is reduced to an alleged lesbian love affair; Emiliano Zapata (Emiliano, dream of a hero by Alfonso Arau in which the revolutionary is a sort of shaman) and Federico García Lorca (the scandalous Death in Granada also entitled The disappearance of García Lorca by Marcos Zurinaga with Andy Garcia in the role of the poet assassinated; it is based on two books of the well known biographer of Lorca, Ian Gibson who shamefully authorized credit and later, even used the film regarding the cover of the new editions: Powerful Gentleman of Don Money without a doubt). Of Course the system is convenient for many more adolescents who admire the drug addict rapper, “rebel” than Martin Luther King or El Chapo or Pablo Escobar rather than Che]. - Up to now, referring to the “famous” we have referred to Singers actors, models, footballist, and television anchors. But this Olympus goes farther: In a recent article) the boom of narcomoda beginning with Chapo”) the Mexican journalist Eduardo Febbro informs us that the” boss of the Sinaloa Cartel, El Chapo Guzmán has also become a fashion role and a registered label. One of the daughters of the Mexican drug lord (…) and two of her former schoolmates (…) achieved from the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property, the MIP to patent the label El Chapo to sell several products. Of the 24 requests presented are in four classes: precious Metals and alloys, leather, imitation leather, animal fur games and toys, sports articles, publicity, business management and commercial administration/// el Chapo Guzmán is not only the supplier of a fruitful river of legends but also of all an esthetic that goes from narcoclothing to t shirts with his face, toys, masks, piñatas, dolls and costumes. The narco esthetics is a business that goes beyond the borders of Mexico//. The Queen of the Pacific a name that refers to the drug trafficker Sandra Ávila is patented since 2004 and the label can be used to sell coffee, sugar, cacao, honey, salt, vinegar, mustard and even ice. With the tequila label Don Neto the same occurs… made with agave blue honors the memory of Ernesto Omelas Gazcón on of the founders of the Guadalajara Cartel”. [Note that in this wide range of products apart from the omnipresent publicity are games, toys, sports articles, cereals, pastries and ice creams, in other words products for children and adolescents. A more tolerant individual could think that this hardened tequila drinker Don Net has his world of values already formed that the label “narco” does not bother him; but what about the children who play with the toys, eat ice cream and cereals of “La Reina del Pacífico” or “El Chapo”.] - “The narco names as a trade mark or narco esthetics are a sound buisiness [Febbro continues saying]. The popular stories, legends written by the media or the narco soapies seem extracted from these names with negative connotations (…) The day after the Mexican press reveals the content of the SMS exchanged El Chapo and the Mexican actress, Kate de Castillo, a t shirt and cap with the romantic exchanges between the drug lord and the actress. “I will care for you more than my eyes”. Since 2006 the idea of certain public opinion changed with the transmission of television product in which the narcos are heroes, primarily Colombian and Mexican”. [A good image of the drug traffickers is added among the most traditional “famous” lists and the alleged or real philanthropy. [Revived is the legend of Robin Hood] “The brother of the Colombian drug dealer Pablo Escobar, Roberto [Febbro continues] organized large tourist tour to the elands where the legend of Escobar grew (…) [Another] son of Pablo Escobar popularized the clothing label in Argentina, Escobar Henao that carries the father of the designs. The t shirts were stamped with the identity card of Pablo Escobar, a legal certifícate without pending causes and even his credit card (…) [And Febbro reaches the following conclusion:] There is no book, report, special edition in the dailies or magazines that does not recognize the positive effects of the narco tales. Perhaps the people prefer them with name and surname to the assassinations, embezzlers and thieves in the shadows of bank operators or financiers who act in a world causing shocking famines with the manipulation of the markets or the prices of raw materials. The narco esthetics and its impact are much more than a sign of mere frivolity or a reflection of the lightness of the media. - [This idea is truly worthy of thought and discussion. Would the narcos be the eyes of the people more direct and honest if the large thieves that govern and the corporations? This factor pointed out in the article has a certain weight, undoubtedly. But in my opinion what is decisive id the category of “famous” whatever the cause of this fame rules today in the cultural and spiritual climate of the “world colonization” as Frei Betto calls it. Remember the turn of US public opinion regarding Oliver North when he was processed for the Irán-Contra scandal. A pawn of Reagan had broken the laws of his country to promote the dirty war in Nicaragua with money from the sale of weapons to Iran suddenly became a “famous” a hero. Of course in that financing of the Contras a lot of money flowed from the drug traffic authorized by the CIA.] - In this manner, fame, money, empty entertainment, hedonism, “pure” technology is installed as blues over any ethical requirement. The “spiritual guides” of the new generations, the “famous”, haven’t much to say. They only exhibit real or fictional details of their private lives and philanthropic gesture that are frequently mixed with publicity and marketing. When they give”alms” it is never “in secret” and the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing: millions of fans find out. The parallel “educational” machinery has a formidable power. - What to do? Lenin asked. What to do? We ask ourselves in Cuba, in the meeting of UNEAC and AHS that I mentioned at the beginning. Here, in Cuba in the midst of serious economic problems and the blockade intact we have some advantages over other countries. We conquered illiteracy in 1961 and designed very ambitious coals to gradually raise the educational level of the population. I already mentioned the general schooling of Cuban children as a conquest. We have more than 3 thousand cultural institutions (museums, libraries, book stores, culture houses, galleries) throughout the country. Some with constructive problems but today there is an ambitious plan for repairs. The mass media are in the hands of the State and revolutionary civil society. This phenomenon that is so dangerous and accelerated of concentrating media power in the hands of corporations does not exist and never will in our country. However, as I said before there is a cultural crisis in the contemporary world that contaminates daily. We suffer the effects of cultural sub products that come from abroad and cultural sub products Made In Cuba that imitate the worse of the hegemonic models. Many years ago Fidel said we cannot intend to form citizens of today and the future as if we lived in a glass urn – and he said that when there was not even talk of the TIC. - There is a consensus among us that culture and education must be more articulate, more coherent, masters and professors, art instructors, writers and artists radio and television programmers, information, journalists, cultural promoters who work in the communities, the student organizations, in general, all those who influence one way or another the new generations to promoted participation in the cultural processes, cultivate historical memory and combat the now and demonstrate (not in pedestals nor marble statues) the real paradigms, the men and women that made their contribution to our nation and humanity. We must achieve a cultural policy of the Revolution that should be present in all public spaces, belong to institutions or function under the non state managements. We must make a deep effort to offer our and young people attractive recreational options to use in the TIC. Begun is a new production of educational videogames in an effort that must increase and become alternatives. We should intervene without inferiority complexes in the war of symbols. We have had for many years a personage in the comics, later as protagonist of cartons that destroys for many generation those of Walt Disney: the mambí Elpidio Valdés. We have enough talent and creativity for this battle. - At the same time, with the generation of alternatives we must form a capable critical receptor to prevent being dragged by the pseudo cultural wave. For this purpose ICAI is coordinating with MINED and MES, in the universities of the José Martí Brigade of art instructors, the Institute or Radio and Television, of UNEAC and the AHS, the student organizations, a Program to Promote Audiovisual Culture. In the Houses of the Young Creator of AHS and in some university that soon will be included in all there is a magnificent collection of hundreds of films of quality that can be downloaded free of charge. Alfredo Guevara, founder of ICAI said that he did not believe in the elites but in the vanguards. We are promoting a vanguard of art films, of the great universal cinematography and the vanguard has a mission to irradiate and multiply. Soon there will be in the Cuban television a program of analysis of manipulative and fraudulent logic of the reality shows. - A group of models and cultural paradigms must be designed alien not related to the market which the human being is really in the center. We should be lifting a large fence (“trench of ideas”, Martí would say) against the suicidal, selfish arrogance of those who could destroy not only humanism but the human species itself. - I remember that idea of Fidel in which he said that the best antidote to consumerism is art, culture, full Development of the spirituality of the human being. Martí to Maria Mantilla, his biological or spiritual daughter (of course that is secondary) and he tells her of inferior or useless people that “sacrifice all” for “wealth and arrogance”: …elegance (…) is in the good taste and not in the cost. Elegance of a dress, large and real is in the pride and strength of the soul. An honest soul, intelligent and free, gives the body more elegance and more power to the woman than any of the wealthy fashion shops. Those who possess much inside need little outside. Those who wear much outside have little inside and want to conceal their poor. Those who feel beauty, interior beauty does not seek borrowed beauty (…). Feel clean and light like the light. Leave for others the frivolous world: you are worth more. Smile and pass.” (Cabo Haitiano, April of 1895) - How can we make our young people “clean and light as the sunlight”, to smile and pass by a gallery of the “famous” who have much outside but very little inside? How to achieve they not be ashamed of their roots, not feel inferior, to not believe that a sports shoe of a label or a pullover grants some kind nobility must not forget history and not lose sensitivity for the rest? - Martí also said “Homeland is Humanity” one of the phrases of Martí that ideal repeats most: for what is undoubtedly the Cuban who can see in this battle of ideas, symbols, values, something restricted to our borders. Two days ago, on the 16th we met in the ALBA House a group of writers, musicians and editors invited to the Book Fair ad spoke of strengthening the Network of intellectuals, artists and social movements “In Defense of Humanity” a broad movement, spiritual, alien to any sectarianism that was founded in 2003 to confront the imperial offensive and fascism, wars of plunder, neo liberalism, colonization of consciences and manipulation by the media and promote a culture of resistance and emancipation. For this Networked the new technologies of information and communication are indispensible. One of the pillars of the system of cultural domination relies on convincing the unbeliever that se live in the only social an economic order possible and any who want to change it is but a tragic and solitary Quixote. The Network is itself a lie to this fatalism. - We must identify the core of the culture of resistance that exists in different regions of the world and do whatever possible to establish connections with them, promote exchanges, inform of our authentic cultural process and the “fame” and “talent” will someday march together (from that slogan by the Cuban filmmaker Julio García Espinosa). We can boost rigorous criticism of the legitimate mechanism of the “famous” in the traps with which it deceives its fans and all the parallel “educational” machinery. - It is of utmost importance to apply that method that the great Cuban poet José Lezama Lima called “the scratch in the rock:. We are forced to open the cracks of the all powerful wall of massive hypnosis. New technologies must be used with more creativity to save the humanist legacy accumulated by so many generations. The people cannot give up thinking, reasoning, analyzing, and the environment in which we live. Not even think of themselves. They must contribute to give reason for life beyond consumerism and ephemeral enjoyment. The utopias cannot disappear dragged by whirl will “full of noise and fury without any purpose”. And if we work together through the social networks to recruit followers for examples for the ideas of Martí or of Martin Luther King? I remember that in a meeting of the board of the Martí Youth Movement we spoke of using the TIC to promote among the young people the thoughts of Martí. And if we work to gain fame for those large spiritual leaders that very few people know? It would be an unforgivable strategic error to watch with crossed arms the march of those gods who have nothing to say. Thank you

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