U.S. efforts to discredit both the Cuban Revolution and its socialist system are currently going beyond the unjust blockade and the series of unilateral, coercive sanctions imposed by Washington on our country, in an attempt to deploy soldiers with no rifles in the field of communications.
This front is emerging as a spearhead in the new type of conflagration the United States is unleashing against Cuba, and requires an immediate, strategic response by the Cuban government and the national union of communicators.
According to Humberto Fabián Suárez, first vice president of the Cuban Association of Social Communicators (ACCS), the world is facing a U.S.-led cultural war which seeks to impose Yankee-style thinking globally. This is a cultural war in which Cuba plays a leading role.
"For the U.S. government, Cuba is the crown jewel. Destroying the Cuban Revolution - not only economically, but ideologically - as well as dismantling the entire history of the Cuban Revolution and our identity, are at the center of this confrontation," he stressed.
Fabián, who is also a university trained historian, stated that the essence of our response to this cultural war, which uses popular culture to inculcate the ideology they intend to export, lies in the development of Cuban social communication - not only in the media, but also in the role played by Cuban institutions and government structures which are obliged to publically report all their activity and achieve greater transparency in their work.
This reflection coincides with the vision of Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, who constantly refers to social communication as a strategic resource for the country's leadership.
Likewise, Rosa María Pérez Gutiérrez, head of ACCS’s National Council, has highlighted the way in which the Cuban President has noted the potential of the discipline, in our response to the battle launched by the U.S. in this field.
For his part, Fabián insists that this struggle against U.S. cultural imperialism must be waged in both Cuba’s system of conventional media system and digital platforms, as well as the communication strategies of all Cuban institutions.
“If we can guarantee that every Cuban institution has its own communications strategy, we will be erecting a barricade against this cultural industry so full of fetishes and symbols alien to our identity.
In this regard, Fabián noted that communication for political purposes is one of the disciplines included among ACCS missions, and that institutional communication is eminently political in Cuba. "Communication for public good, aimed at generating values, is also considered a political weapon of the Cuban Revolution and of our socialism, so both provide a political avenue to confront the war we are referring to," he stated.
In terms of commercial communication - another aspect of Social Communication - Fabián noted: “Ours is not focused on consumerism, but on responsible consumption, respectful of the environment and our own capacities for development, confronting the lifestyle and the system they are attempting to impose on us.”
The disproportionate nature of this unconventional war, unleashed by a powerful nation, that plays dirty and combines hard power (blockade, Helms-Burton Act, unilateral coercive sanctions, etc.) with soft power (fakes news, cultural infiltration, ideological diversionism) against a nation like Cuba, calls for creativity and consistency in the country’s response. It is critical, therefore, to develop strategies that enable us to stop hitting back - so to speak - and make our reality the truth the world sees.
Fabián insisted that such issues demand investigation, since we often work ad hoc, in specific situations, and that our communication practices must be evaluated, to measure their impact and effectiveness with targeted audiences.
He noted that a promising expression of the Association’s views, on promoting practices based on national experience, is the poster collection “Pensar Como País,” (Thinking as a country) designed by young Cuban artist Rogelio Carmenate, which avoids " the tendency to be excessively theoretical and uncritically assume models that do not coincide with our reality,” and visibilizes a brave, multigenerational, and united Cuba.
Photo: Rogelio Carmenate
