LavenderRed_Cubabook

elieve to be evil, but that it makes them followers of the concept given to us by our Comandante
when he says that ‘The Revolution is about equality and full liberty, it’s about
being treated by everybody else as human beings.’” (Puyol)
This is revolutionary process
No one, of any sexuality, was of one mind in Cuba about “La cara.” However, those
who brought the series to television screens did not shy away from the debate. On the
contrary, widespread public debate with leadership was the whole point, and it has been
eminently successful.
The Cuban health-care system website “Infomed” garnered viewpoints about the television
novella. So did Cuba’s National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX). E-zine
La Jiribilla devoted an entire issue to the topic.
Journalist Ricardo Ronquillo concluded, “It would be worrying if we thought of ourselves
as a wholly agreeing society with neither competing arguments nor opposing positions
in face of its most intimate conflicts; or even worse, that silence prevailed.”
La Jornada correspondent Gerardo Arreola wrote, “This discussion has become the
most relevant signs of public impact on the matter since the motion picture ‘Fresa y
Chocolate’ (‘Strawberry and Chocolate’) shook sectors of Cuban society in 1993 with its
statement against intolerance through the story of a homosexual character.” (Arreola)
The Miami Herald, an unlikely source for any supportive news about Cuba, reported
in November 2006, “Now, as the show draws to an end, Cuban gays and lesbians say the
show is symbolic of the communist island’s government and people becoming more accepting
towards them.” (See bibliography: “Cuban soap operas”)
It is this process of popular education with leadership, in which consciousness is raised
through mass participation, discussion and debate, that is the revolution and the “unfettered
thought” it liberates—not overnight, but with ongoing labor, without which nothing
is produced.
CENESEX continues to be at the forefront of that important work, including backing
the television novella that sparked such controversy.
80 Rainbow Solidarity in Defense of Cuba