Havana commemorates 30th Anniversary Of Unesco's Program on Slavery

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TeleSUR collaborator Belén de los Santos brings us details on the international conference to commemorate 30 years of a program between the Cuban Ministry of Culture and Unesco to break the silence on slavery and its traces that. teleSUR

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00:00And now changing topics, the Cuban Ministry of Culture and UNESCO has an international

00:06conference in Havana to commemorate 30 years of program destined to break the silence on

00:12slavery and its trends that continue to the present.

00:16Collaborator in Havana Belen de los Santos brings us the details.

00:20New narratives, memory, resistance and vindication.

00:25That is the title under which Cuba is hosting an international conference in celebration

00:29of the 30 years of UNESCO's program The Route of the Enslaved People, dedicated to the building

00:36of a common memory of resistance that breaks the silence over one of humanity's largest

00:42tragedies that continues to shape today's world.

00:46We are commemorating these 30 years of creative and educational work to educate people against

00:53all traces of racism, racial discrimination and xenophobia.

01:00Slavery also hit us, it's part of our history and it is present in literature, it's present

01:06in art and in Cuban writers, in essayists, in narrators, in poets.

01:14And visual artists have also had it as a reference.

01:19It is a scourge that is still latent.

01:23The Vice President of the Scientific Committee of UNESCO's program, Dudu Dien, highlights

01:28the importance of this collective memory as the spirit of slavery persists in the modern

01:34world.

01:35In this context, the creative resistance of Afro-descendants continues to offer possible

01:41answers to present challenges.

01:44The ideological pillar of slavery is still there.

01:50It is being now expressed by the neoliberalism system, which puts the market at the centre

01:55of life.

01:57And what is interesting for me, the lesson I am drawing, is that Afro-descendants, and

02:03this conference is showing it, by their history, by their very intelligent, creative intelligence

02:12of resistance, have represented one of the forces of the modern world who can neutralise

02:24the dehumanisation of the neoliberal system.

02:29Among the program's objectives is the need to deconstruct previous discourses that continue

02:35to support a system of racial oppression.

02:38According to Nigerian Nobel Prize-winning author Wole Soyinka, art plays a significant

02:44role in this battle.

02:46Art is a sanctuary, not just individual alone, but collective.

02:52As you can see when you visit galleries, when you go to theatre, when you go to a music

02:58hall, a concert hall, you see that it's both individual and collective.

03:04That's why I think that despite all the pains, all the frustrations, sometimes even failures,

03:13to be engaged in that occupation for me is one of the greatest gifts to mankind.

03:20In this context, the program, organised by Cuban Ministry of Culture, UNESCO and the

03:25Fernando Ortiz Foundation, included a visit to an exhibition of Cuban artist Manuel Mendibe.

03:32According to Cuban Museum of Fine Arts director Jorge Hernández, Mendibe's work is an example

03:38of the possibility of resignifying the past that shaped the Cuban and Caribbean culture

03:43and transforming it into new forms of resistance.

03:47Mendibe's work is not a work that incites hatred, that incites rancour.

03:55As his exhibit's name says, Bread with Guava, a Happy Life, which by the way is also a snack,

04:01a typical meal for any Cuban, in a time of emergency, you prepare a piece of bread with

04:06guava and you kill your hunger and you say, well, I'm over hunger now, which is a feeling

04:11as agonising as thirst.

04:14But that hunger and thirst, in Mendibe, is made into happiness.

04:19He has always been for unity, for national unity, for cultural unity, for unity of colours,

04:25for racial unity.

04:28This is very important, because we all have to get together and love each other, so that

04:33we can continue to love one another and make our neighbours also love as much as we love

04:38ourselves.

04:39Just as Manuel Mendibe's work speaks of unity, Cuba continues to be an example in the world

04:48of the people's capacity for solidarity and resilience.

04:53That is why, in the words of Waldo Soyinka, Cuba is to this day a part of Africa.

04:59Cuba is something for us, even on the African continent, to point out as possibilities,

05:07despite all the difficulties, despite the inhuman privations, and I'm talking about

05:13sanctions, despite all of that, Cubans have kept their dignity.

05:20So it's one of the reasons why we cannot let Cuba go from Africa, because it represents

05:26certain values which are important to us also as human beings.

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