In this opening edition of Counterpoint, we asked selected Cuban scholars from different disciplines the following questions: Where do you see the role of the public intellectual in Cuba’s present and future? How may your academic or intellectual work (research, teaching, creation) be of relevance to society in general and/or contribute to a dynamic public sphere?
Our first interviewee is Mario Masvidal, Professor of Semiotics at Havana’s Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA), and affiliate faculty at the University of Havana’s School of Communication, and at the International Film and Television School (EICTV). He is also a radio and television personality, known to the public for his late night Manga show on Cuba’s main TV channel.
Ariana, Joaquin, and Cuba Counterpoints readers:
I don’t think that there will be a significant change in the life of the nation, at least not in the immediate future. So far, the conversations between Cuba and the United States have not lead to greater mutual understanding. Intellectuals are not participating in this process in any way, but I don’t think they should intervene right now. General expectations in the country are that the tourism industry and the economy will see the biggest changes and developments with the reestablishment of these relations, not to mention that Cuban migratory practices to the US will most likely be transformed abruptly.
Personally, I am more concerned and occupied with promoting, encouraging, stimulating and developing community participatory action, especially in the area of communication. It seems viable to me to promote changes and transformations from society’s base (the community, the neighborhood, etc.) and then work our way up from there. I believe in transformation through cultural development projects designed and utilized by communities themselves. These can and should be supported—but not controlled—by the country’s political and governmental institutions. There are already various community projects underway throughout the island, some of which are aided by the use of state media but practically unknown to most citizens.
Currently, I am trying to stimulate and orient my social communication and media arts students towards projects with community media, although unfortunately most are not taking these up. The students from these disciplines tend to aspire to work for institutional media or to become filmmakers that can one day work in Cuba independently. At the same time, they remain open to opportunities offered by big international film companies and/or television stations from the First World.
I think that an active and participatory community, reinforced through growing financial autonomy (to some extent self-sustaining and sustainable), and with a clear image of its own identity, should be in a better position to critically take on and benefit from the transformations and changes that will come forth—slowly?—from Cuba-US relations. To change community mentalities, professionals will need to stimulate, orient and guide community leaders and social forces. Those guiding professionals (gestores), who can be understood as what Gramsci called ‘organic intellectuals’, would foster new forms of negotiation and consensus both within the community and between the community and governmental institutions.
Other Latin American countries have had very positive experiences with cultural development projects and could guide Cuba’s, even though we are not starting from scratch. In Cuba, there are already institutions and organizations working on this front: the Center for Community Studies at University “Marta Abreu” of Las Villas; Televisión Serrana, the CIERIC (linked to the Union for Cuban Writers and Artists); the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center; the Network of Popular Educators; the Platform for the Audiovisual Universe of Children and Adolescents; and Misión Calle, among others.
The issue is to work toward a reconfiguration—and in some cases a reconstruction—of the social fabric, starting from the bottom.
The concept of community here is not restricted to geography, but also includes new forms of association like virtual communities that continue to grow among the island’s young people (e.g. the Cuban Association of Electronic Sports, Anime no Kenkiuu, Konoha no Fansub, Atsuki no Fansub, Cosplay Habana, Otakus a Full, etc.), and that grow and diversify today’s Cuban civil society. I think that intellectual action, that is, the work of academics and university professors, should move in this direction: towards a participatory and active democracy that succeeds in substituting and displacing the so-called representative, passive democracy. Perhaps it is a mirage, a utopian project, but it is worth trying.
— Mario Masvidal, May 15th, 2015
Translation: Samuel Ellis Ginsburg and Ariana Hernandez-Reguant
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