Witch Hunting Revisited in Cuba

[naaman fletcher]

...

An example of this is the unfortunate occurrence experienced by one of our most prominent figures in the visual arts: the painter, national arts award-winner and teacher Pedro Pablo Oliva. He has just published an excellent essay on the web site El Diario de Cuba, where he clearly describes what happened and expresses his firm and commendable position of being no more than another Cuban with the right to free expression.

The artist, who was also a member of the Provincial Legislative Assembly of Popular Power (what made him part of the politocracy of the island), has been expelled from those ranks accused of dissidence and high treason for the simple act of having agreed to an interview with Edumundo Garcia, on his program “La noche se mueve” and a letter published in the blog Generation Y, the site of Yoani Sanchez, the blogger classified by the inquisitors as the most infamous witch=dissident in the country.

Pedro Pablo Oliva and one of his works.

He was also questioned about his friendship with people and institutions satanized by government leadership. His arts workshop in Pinar del Rio was closed and a chain of events have begun that are condemning the famous creator to social isolation and discredit.

The mechanism functions like it did in the Inquisition, but here its principal target is not the practitioners of witchcraft, but heretics. For them, witchcraft didn’t initially turn out to be as great a danger as the other medieval heresies.

http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=44211