Cuban Vice President Díaz-Canel: “The Cultural Policy Of The Cuban Revolution Is Unique”

Havana/A few days after the censorship of Juan Carlos Cremata’s production of The King is Dying, cultural policy has been the topic of discussion on Monday at the National Assembly commission dedicated to these issues. The first vice president of the Councils of States and of Ministers Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermudez, participated in the debate.

The parliamentarians discussed the implementation of cultural policy in public spaces, which led to Díaz-Canel to warn that “the enemies of the Cuban process are trying to use culture as a platform of capitalist restoration. Therefore they insist on the trivialization and vulgarization of culture.”

Also present at the commission were Abel Prieto, adviser to President Raúl Castro on cultural issues, and the Minister of Culture, Julian González, along with officials of the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television and the Ministry of Domestic Trade. The normalization of relations with the United States prompted the first vice president to claim that “in the new scenario (…) Cuba should take advantage of the economic opportunities that circumstance offers, but must also assume the ideological challenge.” According to the official, “in that sense, the role of culture is unquestionable.”

Díaz-Canel said that “at a time when the contents, their distribution and impact take on a great importance in the political landscape, the political culture of the Cuban Revolution is the guarantee of national sovereignty (…) and is unique.” The Ministry of Culture, he added, “is the governing body of its application, but all government agencies must participate in its application.

Abel Prieto, for his part, specified that “it is not about imposing one culture, but promoting it, to guide people’s taste.”