“Patria y vida”, the song that prompted Cubans to fight against Castro’s dictatorship

“We no longer cry Fatherland and Death, but Fatherland and Life!, “The people demand freedom, more doctrine” and “Cuba belongs to all the people”, are some of the phrases that provoked the furious reaction of the Havana regime, which was enraged by the song “Patria y Vida », Interpreted by several artists. These two words have become in recent months the main protest slogan of Cuban dissent., who mobilized this Sunday in different cities of the country to demand “freedom” and to face a dictatorship overwhelmed by the advance of the coronavirus on the island.

The song “Homeland and Life”, blatantly contrary to the island’s regime and its policies, contrasts with the revolutionary Cuban slogan “Homeland or death”. He alludes to recent events like the demonstration last November of the San Isidro Movement, which ended with the expulsion and arrest of artists and activists locked up on hunger strike to protest the arrest of the rebel rapper Denis Solís.

After the issue was published, the dictatorship felt the impact it had on Cuban society and increased the persecution against some of the artists who participated in the project, such as the case of Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara, who was held against his will for a month in a Havana hospital after going on a hunger strike, and is constantly persecuted by the regime’s security forces.

In the popular song there are also references to the partial dollarization of the Cuban economy in the midst of the severe crisis the country is going through, where the state has been marketing for months a good part of the food and basic products. in foreign currency, despite the fact that the population does not invoice in this currency and cannot acquire it through official channels.

“There is not even the slightest hint of ingenuity, not a hint of intelligence in the crude conversion of the motto Patria o Muerte, into Patria y Vida, the title of the diatribe,” said the newspaper Granma – official communication organ of the Communist Party of Cuba-, which called the song “Miami Operation”. According to the article, which is titled “Sing for the country, not against it”, “the alliance of the protagonists is not surprising either.”

The text acknowledges that the song’s authors are “famous, some with talents trained in our educational system” and that they have had commercial success in Cuba, but adds that “dazzled by the desire for higher profits, seduced by the celebrity of Florida linked to the anti-Cuban industry (…) they tore their clothes and showed the precariousness of their ethical principles, if they had any ”.

He also accuses artists of “rewriting their personal stories” once they are “comfortably” settled in Miami.

“No more lies. The people demand freedom, no more doctrine. Let us no longer cry fatherland or death but fatherland and life”, these artists sing in song. The chorus uses the domino game, which is very popular among Cubans, to send a message of change: “It’s over, you five nine me double two. It’s over, sixty years locked in the dominoes, look it’s over, you five nine me double two. It’s over, sixty years blocking the domino ”.

“You are already gone, you have nothing left, you are already going down. People got tired of hanging on. We are waiting for a new dawn, ”says the song in reference to the regime that emerged after the triumph of the revolution in January 1959. Gente de Zona, Yotuel Romero, Descemer Bueno, El Osorbo and El Funky sing their support for the San Isidro Movement, formed by young artists who demonstrate peacefully against two laws of 2018 and 2019 that restrict freedom of expression and have awakened the solidarity of ordinary citizens.

The letter mentions the storming of State Security agents on November 26 at the group’s headquarters to crack down on barracks reading poetry and participating in a hunger strike to demand the release of rebel rapper Denis Solís. “They broke our door, violated our temple and the world is aware that the San Isidro Movement continues to be in place”, sing the performers, all very popular in Cuba and Miami, where most of the political exiles and a large community of emigrants from the island are found.

The impact of the song is undeniable. Since its discovery, there has not been a march, both in Cuba and abroad, where freedom is not claimed under the slogan “Homeland and life”. The demonstrations of this Sunday, the most important since the so-called “maleconazo”, when in August 1994, in the middle of the “special period”, hundreds of people took to the streets of Havana and only left ‘when the then Cuban dictator arrived. Fidel Castro.

Shouting “Freedom”, “Fatherland and life” and “Free Cuba”, the demonstrators mobilized throughout the country amid the serious health situation facing the island due to the advance of the coronavirus. But again, the dictatorship’s response has been repression, violence and arrests. Miguel Díaz-Canel himself called the “revolutionaries” in the street: “We are not going to allow any counter-revolutionary, mercenary, sold to the American Empire, to provoke destabilization (…) There will be an answer revolutionary. This is why we call on all communist revolutionaries to take to the streets where these provocations are going to take place and to confront them decisively ”.

“The order of the fight is given, to the street the revolutionaries”, he dangerously voiced in a special television appearance.

Despite the regime’s threats, people continued to take to the streets, with a clear message: “We are no longer afraid.

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