In Arabic, Al-Shabaab means "The Young People." But we are not talking here of a youth organization in the North African world, but of a terrorist group linked to Al-Qaeda, which as is known was founded in 1985 by Osama bin Laden and several associates during that nefarious Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Its mission is the same as the reader can guess beforehand: "war to death against the enemies of Islam," a task they undertook by affiliating themselves to one of the most puritanical aspects of fundamentalism: Wahhabism, which flourished in Saudi Arabia after the discovery of oil in the 1930s. This allowed the Saudis to undertake a substantial capital investment to expand it around the Arab world, taking advantage of the fact that the Mecca and the Medina, two of the holy places of Islam, are located in their territory. The emergence of Al-Shabaab is a consequence of the power vacuum that followed in Somalia after the end of Siad Barre's government (1969-1991), which caused a high social fragmentation and the resurgence of traditional and religious authorities that, among other things, focused on regulating in their own way the "traditional" social relations. Also from the reaction caused by Ethiopia’s...

During the 1990s, two of the three popular religions of African origin in Cuba underwent institutionalization processes with the emergence of the Cuban Yoruba Cultural Association (ACYC) and the Abakuá Bureau, grouping, in the first case Santeria followers, and in the second, Ñáñigo practitioners, frequently associated to criminal activities and marginality and therefore stigmatized from the social point of view and marked by classist and racist damaging remarks strongly inherited from the colonial era. These institutions constituted a break with the traditional forms of worship, which especially in the case of Santeros work at a horizontal level and without the need for structures for the practical-spiritual life of believers. It is not a matter of cathedrals or administrative structures of faith, such as those of the Catholic Church, but undoubtedly its very existence introduced a change, not only to deviate from custom, but also to consider itself an expression of the ruling government. Both arose in the context of the 4th Congress of the Party (1991) and the reform of the Constitution (1992), which defined the Cuban State as secular, resuming an active tradition from the 19th century Cuban Constitutions, but in effect discontinued with the practice of the so-called...

Barack Obama came back after almost two years of absence to energize the Democrats’ bases and try to mobilize his vote for the midterm elections, to be held next November. It is true: as a rule, the outgoing presidents have not interfered or criticized the policies of their counterparts, at least while they are in office. But this is no longer the case. He has put on his armored suit again and not resorting to euphemisms or ellipses but rather naming the things from his perspective, which is like saying from the other side of a divided country. A strategist has said it: “This election is going to be all about Donald Trump. If you’re going to enter the ring, you have to name your enemy.” And that’s exactly what he has done. Calling him a trafficker in fear, a demagogue who promises “simple solutions to complex problems.” But, at the same time, making it clear that Trump is “the symptom, not the cause” of one of the problems that Americans are witnessing today: authoritarianism. https://www.facebook.com/HuffPostPolitics/videos/291338415027318/?t=0 His Party’s high command has commissioned him to lay on his charisma and with this contribute to rolling back the defeat in a presidential...

In the mid-1950s Tropicana Cabaret was big, but the Sans Souci was at the height of its takeoff, competing with the cabaret in Marianao in splendor and cosmopolitanism. It was going through a process of changes and remodeling that had begun in 1955 and was concluded a while later at an approximate cost of a million dollars. The management of Norman “Roughneck” Rothman, a mafioso married to Cuban star Olga Chaviano – the star of the cabaret between 1953 and 1955 – had given way to that of William G. Buschoff, better known as Lefty Clark, from Miami Beach, and one of the men of Santo Trafficante, who a report by the Department of the Treasury written in Havana considered a suspect in drug trafficking, like his boss. Santo Trafficante in San Souci's bar Santo Trafficante in Sans Souci’s bar. There was a reason for the remodeling and investments: one of the principal problems of the casino in the Sans Souci (Carretera Arroyo Arenas) was related to the unfair gambling practices, leading to complaints and denunciations in the U.S. embassy as well as the press of that country and the Cuban Tourism Commission, presided over by Marcial Facio. Especially the...

In 1999, another Cuban colleague and I were talking with a U.S. professor in Amherst, Massachusetts. I had been invited to Johns Hopkins University; my colleague was a poet and literary critic who at that time was enjoying a research sojourn in Hampshire College. This dialogue led to the idea of creating a cultural exchange program between Hampshire and the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC). It would be impossible to not refer to its main raison d’être: the students. Before their departure they study a semester about Cuba which provides them with the essential minimum of information to not fall into one of the holes of all those who arrive for the first time to the island (or any other place): entering an unexplored territory with certain preconceptions or knowing nothing (or almost nothing) about the country. That course thus places them in a comparatively advantageous position. It offers alternative visions – not exempt of critical elements – about a historical-cultural process that cannot be understood based on Eurocentric perspectives, stereotypes and common places. And once on terra firma, they interact and meet in different socialization spaces with persons of all social strata and conditions: young people,...

On June 26 Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won the Democratic primaries for the 14th District of New York. She did it with a radical program, considering the political-cultural circumstances in in the United States, where the word “socialist” is usually likened to totalitarianism, the Soviet system and other evils. That was the logic that made it possible to label Barack Obama in that band of pepper and lonely hearts. As well as the Canadians, among other things because of their health system and social medicine. And lastly, a great deal of the “old Europe.” The government must be small and the economy as deregulated as possible. Period. Alexandria’s agenda contains five central items/problems: Medicine for all, minimum wage of 15 dollars per hour, zero assault weapons, free university enrolment and dissolution of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or immigration police. Furthermore, she expresses herself as a determined spokesperson for the LGTBI community, and in foreign policy against Israel’s role in the Middle East. The daughter of a Puerto Rican woman and a New Yorker from the Bronx – chambermaid and bus driver -, her electoral base led her to supplant Democrat Joseph Crowley, who had 10 successive terms in office....

U.S. films’ fascination with Cuba and Cuban things is almost as old as cinema itself. First the island was a landscape, an open lens to shoot diverse scenarios of the Spanish-American War. Then it was epiphany, music, tourism and romance, perhaps Hollywood’s most used historical perspective, typical of movies like Weekend in Havana (Walter Lang, 1941), with Alice Falle and Carmen Miranda; Guys and Dolls (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1955), with Marlon Brando, Jean Simmons and Frank Sinatra, and Habana by Sidney Pollack, with Robert Redford (1990). More recently, Chico and Rita (Errando, Trueba and Mariscal, 2010), an animated cartoon whose action takes place in several of the world’s capitals, a sort of peculiar turn of Buena Vista Social Club. Cuba was also favorable ground to reflect social and revolutionary upheaval, such as We Were Strangers (John Huston, 1949), an anti-Machado drama that logically culminates in what is probably one of the most disastrous attempts at political cinema in the world like: Cuban Rebel Girls (Barry Mahon, 1959), a soap in the very middle of the Sierra Maestra starring an Errol Flynn who’s Robin Hood cape was by then too worn out and his elbow too broken. But the empire of...

  It is said that one day André Breton said to Luis Buñuel that “In our times, my dear, no one is surprised anymore.” I’m afraid that something similar is happening with the new measures of the Trump administration toward Cuba, those that took effect last November 9 when they were printed in the Federal Register. One step in tune with the words “roll back” and “cold war,” practically key since the new mandarins came to power. And it’s not surprising, first, because of the times: they took five months instead of the 90 days announced at the beginning, and it wasn’t only because of the “Havana deafness” and all the associated environmental noise, which as is known served as the background for the withdrawal of 60 percent of its personnel in Havana and the expulsion of almost two-thirds of the Cuban embassy in DC. That delay is also a sign of the island’s place among the priorities of this administration, consumed by the Russian uterine fire, intra bureaucratic struggles and the syndrome of multiple dysfunctions. Second, because of a double pattern: it is reiterated that apparently there are tolerable and intolerable, good and bad communists for the current occupants...

In late 1992 the Congress of the United States legislated the President John F. Kennedy Records Collection Act ordering that the documents, filmed materials and recordings related to the assassination be disclosed in a period of 25 years, unless the president at the time determined the contrary due to damage identifiable to the defense, intelligence or foreign relations, among other aspects. Signed by President Bush (father), the act in turn also ordered the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to establish a specific and differentiated collection about the Dallas crime, which, as is known, is a real turning point in the history of the United States. The act operated under certain preconditions, one of them the social and psychological impact of JFK (1991), of the well-known and controversial filmmaker Oliver Stone, a film that put a perfect finish in a collective imagination to an idea present since the beginning: Kennedy was executed by a conspiracy that involved actors like the FBI, CIA, the mafia, the Cuban exiles and the military high command. Twenty-two years later, on the 50th anniversary of the assassination (2013), a national poll carried out by Gallup revealed that 61% of Americans thought Kennedy’s death had been...

In its process of interaction and engagement with Cuba, the former U.S. administration gradually modified the regulations of the Cuban Assets Control (CACR) to work in favor of its own objectives: “to get involved with and empower the Cuban people,” and “to increase the contacts to support Cuban civil society.” This was done several times since 2009. The last one was on March 15, 2016, before President Obama’s visit to Cuba. In this context the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and the Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) announced “significant amendments” to the CACR in several senses, one of them: to allow “non-tourist personal trips,” a measure to clear the way for commercial flights, which had already been announced in January of that year. Starting then going to the island would be simpler: it was no longer necessary to do so in groups or packages, but rather individually – the self-certification -, a variant that some named face-to-face. You only had to fill out an application form declaring the person’s educational purpose to be able to travel to Cuba. In fact, with the regular flights it was possible to book a ticket to Cuba online, as...

In the mid-1990s a young Cuban academician landed for the first time in Miami. That same day a friend picked him up for a tour of the city: from Calle 8 to the Chapel of Our Lady of Charity. When entering a shop, all of a sudden he saw a sign on the shop window: ENGLISH SPOKEN. His first reaction was not verbal but rather gestural, a quick glance at his friend and classmate, one of those looks with wide-open eyes. Wasn’t it supposed to be the other way around? Where were we? Sometime later, continuing what is called the process of cultural immersion, he ran into other realities. In Miami people didn’t return your call but rather llamaban pa’ atrás; they di not pay bills, but rather biles; the ACs and the faucets did not leak, but rather liqueaban; they did not file a lawsuit, but rather a sue, something that language experts call loans, one of the results of the contact between two cultural bodies that had already culminated in Spanglish, to which the Puerto Ricans from New York and the Chicanos from New Mexico had sufficiently contributed. But the young man also witnessed other processes. Two of...

Golf clubs don’t have an edifying connection to Cuba. In April 1959, three months after the establishment of revolutionary power, Fidel Castro traveled to the United States as a guest of the American Society of News Editors, which was understood as an act of “singular bad behavior” in a meeting of the National Security Council for not having consulted it with the Department of State. President Eisenhower, who seriously considered denying the visa to the unpredictable and heretic bearded young man, finally decided to not receive him and instead put him to speak with Vice President Richard Nixon. The story started off badly from the beginning. Eisenhower had decided to go golfing. A short time later golf would function like a sort of boomerang when Fidel himself, Che Guevara and Antonio Núñez Jiménez played a game in the fields of the Colinas Villarreal, to the east of Havana, but not dressed with the traditional attire of shorts or white slacks, golf shoes and dark glasses, but rather with their respective olive green uniforms and black boots. The unprecedented event was captured by the lens of Korda, the photographer that would go down in history for shooting one of the world’s...

The Daily Caller is not a very influential and prestigious news website. Neither in Washington DC, where it is based, nor in the entire U.S. territory. Founded seven years ago by editor Neil Patel, former Vice President Dick Cheney and Tucker Carlson, current political commentator of Fox News and protagonist of the show “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” of the same chain, it is a conservative response to the liberal The Huffington Post, and is not precisely known for making incursions into Cuban affairs. The fact that it did so on May 29 with a very conspicuous headline, “Exclusive: Trump Set to Roll Back Obama’s Cuba Policies,” could have different readings. One of them is that over there the opinions of sectors within the GOP opposed to that roll back or the more or less partial dismantling of the Obama policies toward the island are being amplified. This is more significant if it is taken into account that, according to a poll, the majority of its readers (64.8 percent) identify themselves as Republicans. It could also mean that, from the corporative point of view, some elephants from up there have aviation, cruise, telecommunication and hotel businesses that have already invested a certain...

Curves and sensuality are perhaps the two words that best define women’s fashion of the 1950s. While World War II (1939-1945) had brought modesty and contention in these dominions, during the postwar era the new look of designers a la Christian Dior and Givenchy moved the other way, a return to the glitter and splendor, but, at the same time, with explicit social messages. “Women,” wrote a specialist, “had to concern themselves with their beauty, their aesthetic and their way of dressing. They had to be excellent housewives, wives, mothers and women at the same time.” Dresses were worn tight and clinging, at times with thick belts to highlight the hips. The skirts were worm below the knees, with high heels for the figure’s greater visibility. Makeup highlighted the eyes, well-outlined in black, and lips absolutely red, as if to not leave any doubt about what it was all about. Frequently, handbags and furs were added to the portrait, together with pearl necklaces and diamond bracelets. A sensuality recreated in the TV series Magic City (2012-2013), of the Starz network, which tells the story of a Miami Beach hotel magnate married to an ex Tropicana chorus girl and with numerous...

One of the results of the historic relationship between the United States and Cuba was the existence of an entire infrastructure to transport merchandise and persons, a history that can be traced back in time and which reached its highest point in the 1940s and 1950s. Toward the first half of the 20th century, the changes in communications and means of public transportation made it possible for a substantial increase in the transportation of passengers, in as well as outside the United States. There were, for example, more trains and lines connecting Key West to Tampa, New York, Washington DC, Chicago and other points of the Union, at times in an express way for a hop to Cuba: a train and ship combo. That was what President Calvin Coolidge used to attend the 6th Pan American Conference, held in Havana in 1928. Moreover, there were more ships devoted to the “smokeless industry,” phenomena all related to the greater availability of free time of persons as a consequence of the reduced workday and more vacations. As a destination, Cuba combined two insular dimensions: exoticism – a different culture and language – and proximity almost at the reach of your fingertips, which...

Trump is operating in the context of a divided and polarized society. He took over the White House thanks to the mechanism of the electoral college, questioned by the popular opposition (and its surroundings) for being old-fashioned and, ultimately, antidemocratic. The president and his team came to power with a string of executive orders in their hand, the first to start dismantling Obamacare, and one of the last to block the entry into the United States of persons from seven Muslim majority countries with visas or permanent residence, all of this under the mantle of national security. It was the first blow, a measure that was stopped dead by the judicial power and which fuels, among other things, the allegations of unconstitutionality that from then until today is reverberating in U.S. society. Protests by the Muslim community in New York. January 2017. Photo: Joe Hill / Round Room Image. The result of these and other moves redounded in a violation of the social contract in a range of economic, social, cultural and political actors which are reacting from their respective spheres with statements or acts against the presidential power, beyond the media, the new Satans that however just simplify the...

“Fifty years is enough,” he said in early September 2016. “The concept of opening to Cuba is OK,” “I think it’s OK,” he repeated. However there was a distancing: “But we have to make a better deal.” For starters, this is one of the problems in Donald Trump’s thinking, if it can be called that. He frequently doesn’t have clear and precise definitions. He uses and abuses the tweets, valid spaces to communicate, but which he floods with simplistic and clumsy messages that contradict any complexity of a politician. His alluded condition of an outsider consists in this, among other things. His populist style is not as spontaneous as is frequently assumed: he has people talking into his ears. And he will continue using it as he has done until now, for the wall as well as to fire a woman official and to discredit a federal judge, speaking of fraud or emphatically rejecting the polls that reveal he is the most unpopular incoming president in the modern history of the United States. At the time it was unknown for sure what that “better deal” consisted of. Analysts and academicians asked themselves, for whom and for whom? For the U.S....

Another stripe for the tiger. An additional executive order, one of those that had been planned with all the anticipation in the world, this time to produce another hard-line act: to ban the entrance into the country of refugees and immigrants from seven nations with a Muslim majority. Its name is high-sounding: “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States.” A ploy planned, in fact, during the presidential campaign. A new congruence between the discourse and facts that does away with the idea – rather common – that one thing was with a guitar and another with a violin; that is to say, that the White House’s Trump had to necessarily be different to the one from the electoral campaign. In a singularly acid editorial, The New York Times said it was the first step of a long legal road. But no matter how important that was – and it is -, the point now consists in that those regulations related to immigration and refugees are not just a rupture, but above all a clear and different sign of what’s in the head of those raptors, who in their arrogance did not know or could not or...

While, as affirmed, Donald Trump is unpredictable, his inauguration was not. Absolutely not. His inaugural speech sums up, as a sort of very well-coordinated tablet, his hardcore political philosophy, if it can be called that: first, an explosive mixture of protectionism and nationalism. After – and correlatively – a renewed isolationism, consisting in focusing on domestic affairs, prosperity and the security of the United States. His strategists call all this Make America Great Again, a mantra taken from Ronald Reagan during a famous 1980 Republican Convention. He again displayed an anti-establishment that is – to say it in Cuban – more talk than facts, denied, among other things, by the selection of a cabinet made up of conservative millionaires from institutions and octopuses like Wells Fargo, Exxon Mobil and other transnational companies; the real power behind the scene, be they Republicans or Democrats who install themselves in the White House. He is also predictable for his Manichaeism, identical to the electoral tournament. The people against the elites. The country against foreigners, a specific concretion of that isolationism and one of the corsi e ricorsi of U.S. politics since the nation’s founders. And civilized versus uncivilized world, which presents the problem...

Inaugurations are a mixture of political-institutional rituals and shows. In 1993, Bill Clinton’s first term in office inauguration included Michael Jackson, Barbra Streisand, Elton John, Fleetwood Mac, comedians Chevy Chase, Bill Crosby and Jack Lemmon. Bush Jr.’s had Ricky Martin, Mohammed Ali, John Secada and Larry King. And Barack Obama’s had Aretha Franklin, Jennifer Lopez, Lila Downs, Marc Anthony, Paulina Rubio, Alejandro Sanz, Shakira, Beyonce and James Taylor. If analyzed as a whole, beyond their differences, even with Republican presidents, their common factor consists in underlining the idea of diversity and inclusion, two of the pillars preconized by the melting pot, even when the reality of the facts not always follows that road. Beyonce singing the U.S. anthem during Barack Obama’s inauguration, January 2013. Photo: AFP. But you can bet this January 20 festivity will represent a rupture with that norm. Not because the organizers are not seeking it but rather because of the difficulties in incorporating renowned musicians and artists. It is at least difficult to lend oneself to the show based on everything that happened with Trump in a race that was as dirty as divisive, and on his “legacy,” deeply associated to racism, misogyny and exclusion. Evidently,...

The appointments for Trump’s cabinet have been consistent with the nominee’s electoral platform and the pressures made by the grassroots that took him to the presidency. The president-elect and his team have been covering those posts with a gallery of personas whose conservatism is as solid as what they donated and their business position, the latter point putting in crisis his status of outsider and practically leaving in the open the criticisms of Hillary Clinton for her links to Wall Street. This is the nature of the game: corporate power, the foundations of a building today in full existential crisis. But, evidently, it is a question of a foreseeable move of the pendulum, a U turn toward the extreme, which began with the appointment of Steve K. Bannon as White House chief strategist, spokesman of the so-called alternative right, the new euphemism to name that white supremacy that is now running wild in several points of the Union. One of the new moves in this sphere was placing Scott Pruitt at the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Pruitt’s connections to the world of fossil fuels are little less than those of a marriage contract, and with the same...