Re: [Marxism] Unusual Exposure (Mapplethorpe show opens inCuba thisweek) - another opinion

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I think John O'Brien's doubts about the Cuban revolution and its
leadership -- his insistence that the revolution did not advance on this
issue but was purely :"forced" against its will and better judgement to
accept rights for gays -- should be accepted as part of the political
overhead of the antigay policies the Cuban government carried out in the
1960s and early 1970s.  These included roundups and attempts at
"re-education" and was also a major factor in such damaging incidents as
the harassment of the poet Miguel Padilla.

These incidents cast a shadow over the revolution and its leadership,
and gave the imperialists and other opponents of the revolution the best
kind of ammunition against it -- facts and truths.

It is inevitable that some people will continue to view the revolution
and the revolutionary governnment with skepticism given this background.

I am very glad that the president of Cuba says: "I don't
consider homosexuality to be a phenomenon of degeneration. I've always
had
a more rational approach, considering it to be one of the natural
aspects it... I am absolutely opposed to any form of repression,
contempt, scorn or
discrimination with regard to homosexuals. That's what I think."

He may well have always thought this but he did not say so publicly at
the time, did not protest the undemocratic actions and few people knew
what he thought.

Perhaps he was in a minority in the government at the time, as has often
been the case -- contrary to the images of Fidel as someone whom all
fear except doughty "dissidents" fear to contradict.  But the facts
about the debates that led to these actions are unknown.

In any case the actions happened, they were violations of human rights,
and they pushed away supporters and allies of the revolution at home and
abroad.  Cuba paid a price for this and is still paying a price.  The
lesson is that if you don't want to pay that price, don't do the acts.

John says that the Castro government was "forced" by the international
gay movement to change course, though he does not demonstrate how this
happened or why it left the revolutionary government no choice.  In
fact, I think the movement did play an important role in the
re-education process. Also women's rights in Cuba advanced, and this
often has an impact on the rights of gays.

However, I think two broader political factors helped CONVINCE -- not
force -- the leadership of the Cuban revolution to drop the bad
policies.  One was the ever-growing stress on the need for national
unity against US imperialism.  How could they miss that forcing gays
into opposition, exile, alienation, prison, etc. was a purely divisive
act (that's partly why its in the interests of the imperialists to
persecute gays, since they have an interest in dividing the people).
Another was the need for a united policy of mutual support and
cooperation to limit the spread of the AIDS virus. Being off the antigay
course enabled Cuba to have considerable success in this.  Continuing
the course would have decisively sabotaged the effort.

Actually, I see no evidence that the Catholic Church in Cuba is waging a
US-style crusade against gay rights, abortion rights, etc., and JOhn
presents no evidence of this beyond the official position of the papacy
as an institution.  There is no evidence that opposition to gay rights
and abortion rights have the kind of powerful interests pushing them in
Cuba that they have behind them in the United States.

The fact is that the antigay actions in Cuba took place when Cuba had
very bad relations with the Catholic church, and was officially an
"atheist state."  An atheist state is not a fully secular one since the
government claims the right to determine a purely religious question
(one that is imply irrelevant to science) for the society as a whole --
namely, whether God exists.

The improved situation for gays in Cuba has developed along with the
rejection of this wrong posture, which represents state interference in
private religious beliefs.
There is no reason to believe that a crackdown on the Church, which John
appears to favor, would benefit gays at all.  While John is a militant
atheist and an irreconcilable foe of the Catholic religion and church,
some gays in Cuba  are Catholic and feel more included politically and
socially when their religious rights as well as their right to their
sexual orientation is respected.
Fred Feldman
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