IDEALS

MONTEVIDEO, (May 19, 2009) IPS/GIN – The literary oeuvre of
Uruguayan author Mario Benedetti, who died Sunday night, is
enormous and diverse, comprising dozens of books of poetry, songs,
novels, short stories, chronicles, essays, plays and humor. As he
himself used to joke: “The only thing I never wrote is an opera.” Read the rest of this entry →

COLOMBO, (Apr. 29, 2009) IPS/GIN – As the latest round of Asia’s
longest-running guerrilla war winds down, scores of journalists
here are facing intimidation and harassment for criticizing the
military campaign against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam (LTTE).

N. Vithiyatharan, editor of the Uthayan and Sudar-Oli newspapers,
spent two months in detention until his release on Friday after a
local magistrate in Colombo ruled that there was no evidence to
link him to a Tamil rebel air strike in Colombo in February 2009.

Vithiyatharan, a member of the Tamil minority community, said in
a newspaper interview on Saturday that he was detained by the
government to prevent him from highlighting the grievances of
displaced Tamil civilians in the north. Read the rest of this entry →

MONTEVIDEO, (May 19, 2009) IPS/GIN – The literary oeuvre of
Uruguayan author Mario Benedetti, who died Sunday night, is
enormous and diverse, comprising dozens of books of poetry, songs,
novels, short stories, chronicles, essays, plays and humor. As he
himself used to joke: “The only thing I never wrote is an opera.”

On his long journey through the world of letters, he enjoyed
commercial success, the praise of many colleagues, translations
into dozens of languages, prizes and the unconditional affection
of his readers. But he also had to face harsh critics, writers and
professors who did not appreciate his work, or condemned his
political positions. Read the rest of this entry →

DURBAN, (May 20, 2009) IPS/GIN – Valerie Tagwira, a Zimbabwean
doctor living in London, chose Operation Murambatsvina as the
backdrop for her first novel, a painful story of domestic abuse,
poverty and the fragility of survival in Zimbabwe’s high-density
suburbs.

In 2005, Zimbabwe’s government unleashed Operation Murambatsvina
(“clean out the filth” in Shona) on cities across the country. In
less than a month, an estimated 700,000 people lost their homes,
their livelihoods or both as goods were seized and structured
deemed illegal demolished. Read the rest of this entry →

RIO DE JANEIRO, (Mar. 24, 2010) IPS/GIN – The “favelas” or shanty
towns of Brazil are a uniform red ochre, the color of unplastered
brick walls. But two visual artists from the Netherlands want to
paint them every color under the sun, a facelift intended to
showcase the colorful soul of these poverty-stricken neighborhoods.

Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn started with Vila Cruzeiro, a favela
in the north of Rio de Janeiro where violence is a daily reality.

Proof of how routine violence has become can be seen in the mural
painted by the community at the artists’ instigation. Read the rest of this entry →

KARACHI, (Jun. 29, 2009) IPS/GIN – In this South Asian nation,
people fondly remember a pop-singer who stole many hearts.

One of the most unexpected tributes to Michael Jackson after the
superstar’s sudden death in Los Angeles came at a session of the
provincial assembly of Sindh, Pakistan’s southern-most province on
Jun. 27, 2009.

‘Sindh Assembly approves Rs327 billion budget’, ran a prominent
headline in the Karachi edition of daily The News the following
day, sub-headlined: ‘One-minute silence observed for Michael
Jackson’. Read the rest of this entry →

CHANDIGARH, India, (Nov. 18, 2009) IPS/GIN – Imagine writers,
scholars and folk performers from eight South Asian countries
coming together to share their common heritage and culture while
promoting peace and harmony at the same time.

That is precisely what 200 members of the South Asian Association
for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) did early this month, prompted by
a collective aspiration to pursue their common objectives. Read the rest of this entry →

NEW YORK, (Jan. 18, 2010) IPS/GIN – New York City recently hosted
its first Cuban band in five years, after the group Septeto
Nacional became the first to win a visa that allowed it to accept
a booking there.

The group performed at the Hostos Center for Arts and Culture in
the Bronx in early November. It was the first Cuban band to play
in New York since 2004, when the George W. Bush administration
began systematically denying Cuban musicians cultural exchange
visas.

The concert kicked off a month-long tour that was taking the band
to Puerto Rico, Chicago, Miami and California.

Politics seemed far from the minds of fans as they sang along to
the Septeto Nacional classic “Echale Salsita” and clapped to the
beat of the clave, the percussion instrument that anchors Cuban
rhythm. Indeed, some in the audience made no connection between
politics and music.

“Forget about that stuff, Bay of Pigs and all those things, come
on man! Give ‘em a break,” said an energetic retired music teacher
who asked to be identified only as Papa Frita, or French Fry.

Though no fan of longtime ex-Cuban leader Fidel Castro, he credited
Castro for investing in music education.

“Here we’ve got all this rap and people don’t know much. Over there
people know how to read music,” he said. “The best music comes from
Cuba.”

“I don’t see any reason why we should keep them out of the
country,” listener Jim Buoie said of Cuban musicians. “The music
isn’t dangerous; it’s not a threat. So I think that’s one way to
build up understanding between the two countries.”

Thaw?

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Cuban musicians like the
Mu§equitos de Matanzas, the Buena Vista Social Club and Los Van Van
played regularly in the United States. The Hostos Center brought
“maybe 10 groups” from Cuba between 1996 and 2003, according to
Director Walter Edgecombe.

Then, in early 2004, the Bush administration stopped approving
cultural exchange visas for musicians, without ever announcing an
official policy change. The measure coincided with general
tightening of the half century- old U.S. trade embargo against
Cuba. Cuban-Americans’ ability to travel to Cuba or send money to
relatives living there was restricted, and long-ignored laws
prohibiting the Cuban government from circulating the dollar began
to be enforced.

“After that, we didn’t bring any Cuban groups up,” Edgecombe said.
“Since they were employees of the state, they were deemed to be
Communist or anti-American or whatever, I don’t know.”

Likewise without announcing any shift, the Barack Obama
administration began approving Cuban cultural exchange visas in
October 2009. The U.S. State Department approved Cuban folk singer
Pablo MilanÇs’ visa to play a concert in Puerto Rico.

Singer Omara Portuondo became the first Cuban ever to come to the
United States to receive a Latin Grammy award, after her album
“Gracias” was awarded “Best Tropical Music Performance”.

U.S. government officials have not clarified whether these changes
augur a broader reevaluation of U.S. policies toward Cuba.

“We are neither actively promoting nor actively impeding these
artistic exchanges,” a State Department official told The New York
Times last fall.

Cuba, with Iran, Sudan and Syria, is one of four countries on the
U.S. government’s “state sponsors of terrorism” list for allegedly
supporting rebels in Colombia and Spain, and for refusing to
extradite U.S. citizens wanted by U.S. authorities.

The blacklist status makes applying for a cultural exchange visa
tedious, according to a report music scholar Ned Sublette produced
for the Cuba Research and Analysis Group (CRAG), a group that
supports U.S.-Cuba cultural exchanges.

Cuban musicians must first present an application to the U.S.
Interests Section in Havana, the diplomatic mission the U.S.
government maintains in Cuba instead of an embassy. The sponsoring
venue generally pays $1,000 to expedite the process, though it can
still drag on for months. Then the application is turned over to
the State Department for security clearance. Since 2004, most such
applications have died there.

San Francisco attorney Bill Mart°nez, who ushered through Septeto
Nacional’s visas, called the group’s approval “a breakthrough”. But
Martinez, who has specialised in Cuban cultural exchange visas
since 1983, is cautious about what that augurs for future visits.

“We’re glad we can finally get anybody in,” he said. But he “had
nail-biting moments” with Septeto Nacional, whose visa too eight
months to secure. He said the group had nearly been rejected on the
grounds that it wasn’t “culturally unique”.

The long legacy of the Cold War has set the entry barrier higher
for Cubans than for visitors from nearly anywhere else, said Robert
Browning, of New York City’s World Music Institute.

“We’ve consistently brought in people from the so-called ‘Evil
Axis’ countries,” he said, referring to Bush’s notorious label for
Iraq, Iran and North Korea. The Cuba policy is “just kind of left
over” from the 1960s, he said.

Clubs and theatres are reluctant to promote shows that might be
canceled if visas are denied, or approved too late. So, despite
apparently thawing U.S. policy, Cuban bands aren’t seen as likely
to flood into the United States any time soon.

“I think that the Obama administration has made it clear that they
would like to see more cultural relations,” said Sublette, in a
telephone interview. But until the “arcane system” of approvals is
changed, it will always be financially hazardous for U.S. venues
to work with Cuban musicians, he added. “One can only hope that it
will get a lot easier.”

*Special to IPS from from NYU Livewire