[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”116621″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]Fifty years ago today, the Cuban poet Heberto Padilla made a dramatic public confession at the Union of Artists and Writers of Cuba under the watchful eye of State Security agents.
In his auto-da-fe, Padilla denounced himself, his wife and several close friends as counterrevolutionaries.
The confession sent shockwaves around the world.
Two days earlier, Padilla had been released from a 36-day detention at Cuba’s State Security headquarters.
Padilla had fallen foul of the island’s authorities after his return from an extended stay in the Soviet Union, where he opened Cuba’s first press agency in Moscow and befriended dissident poets.
Padilla’s ritualised public penance sent ripples across the literary world while the Cuban government tried to use his “confessions” as proof of its right to imprison the poet.
Internationally, Padilla’s confession was seen as Cuba’s version of a Stalinist show trial – footage of the confession was suppressed by the authorities.
However, his supporters were conflicted. Index wrote at the time how the feeling began to grow that Padilla’s confession had been forced in some way and that perhaps he had been subjected to brainwashing techniques or possibly even torture.
“A majority of the original letter’s signatories seemed to share this view and signed another letter of protest against the whole affair while a minority accepted the confession at its face value and supported the government position. As a result, progressive left-wing literary circles were split in their assessment of the affair and this led to a series of charges and counter-charges that continued for many months,” we wrote.
Whatever the reason for his confession, it served as a harbinger of what was to follow: a period known as the Grey Five Years in which dozens of Cuban artists and writers were banished from public life.
The Cuban government’s treatment of Padilla made its protocol for handling intellectuals and artists visible and has since functioned as a warning to those that seek to challenge the primacy of state authority.
The passage of five decades means that Padilla’s public show of defiance has been largely forgotten internationally but the words he spoke retain their power even today.
Cuba’s government is once again cracking down again on a new generation of Cuban artists and intellectuals, portraying them as lackeys of foreign powers.
It is against this backdrop that Padilla’s words are again being spoken as part of Padilla’s Shadow, a project of MSI and 27N, which protest against state censorship of artistic freedom in the country.
Twenty Cuban intellectuals and artists, including Hamlet Lavastida and Cuban poets Néstor Díaz de Villegas and Katherine Bisquet , will today livestream a choral reading of Padilla’s confession under the direction of Cuban American artist Coco Fusco.
Many of the project’s participants have told Fusco that they are shocked by the text, that it has provoked bouts of anxiety, sleeplessness and nightmares.
Néstor Díaz de Villegas said, “In stark contrast to History Will Absolve Me, the self-defence speech that Fidel Castro gave in court in 1953, Heberto Padilla indicted history by incriminating himself with his auto-da-fe. His confession is the definitive comedy of errors of the Cuban Revolution.”
Hamlet Lavastida, who has designed the commemorative project, said, “Heberto Padilla’s confession represents the irruption of Sovietism in Cuban cultural life. In order to create ‘perfect literature’ it became necessary to purge from the creator everything that was antagonistic to the great disciplinary story of the State.
“Skepticism, disenchantment, cosmopolitanism and existentialism had to be extirpated. This form of cultural repression was undoubtedly and absolutely novel in the Latin American cosmos. Never before had State Communism been so effectively virulent within Latin American culture. This was its contribution, its regrettable contribution, one contribution that is ongoing.”
Katherine Bisquet said, “The confession is disturbing. It plunges you into a desolate time, not because of its vitality, because of its existential nullity.”
“Those words tell me emphatically that we have had to stop feeling everything we could feel, which is to say we had to fake madness in order to survive the real induced madness, the madness from which we do not return.”
The last words of George Floyd are really beyond comprehension for most of us. The sheer horror of struggling to breathe not because of an awful illness but because of the actions of another human being. The very thought is devastating, the reality is so much worse.
The video of a police officer kneeling on the neck of someone they have detained, for over nine minutes, rightly shocked the world last year. This horrendous action has forced the world to recognise the fact that racism is still far too prevalent, that people lose their lives and their livelihoods daily because of it and that some people genuinely don’t believe that all lives matter, that black lives matter.
George Floyd’s heinous murder permanently changed the world. It reinvigorated a demand for equality, it made the current civil rights movement a global phenomenon and it reminded us all of why our own voices become so much more powerful when they are one of many. George Floyd’s murder demanded change from every one of us, at an institutional level, at a human level. Change that we must strive together to deliver.
George Floyd’s murder serves as a constant reminder of the ultimate right of free expression, of free speech. The right to speak is only feasible if you have the right to breathe. Free expression is more than just your right to media freedom and to say and do what you want within the law. It’s also the safety and security to walk on the streets you live in, to buy the food you want to and to say what you want to without fear or favour. That is free expression. That’s what Index seeks to defend, that’s why we care and it’s why we exist. Within an American context it is the ultimate civil right – the right to live and be free.
But this week was about more than civil rights, more than the right to protest, more than the fight against racism. It was about justice and it was about George Floyd’s family and friends.
I, like many of you, waited anxiously for the verdict of Derek Chauvin’s trial on Tuesday. Glued once again to CNN praying for the right result. Hoping that justice would be done, and that George Floyd’s family could finally have a little peace. It was with relief that I watched the three guilty verdicts, relief for George Floyd’s family, relief for his friends, relief for the communities who have been directly affected by his murder and relief that we can now continue to fight for positive change in our communities rather than campaign against yet another injustice.
There is a Jewish saying on bereavement – may his memory be a blessing. It is now for all of us to make sure that George Floyd’s memory is a blessing and a catalyst for positive change. Using our rights to free speech in his memory.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You may also want to read” category_id=”41669″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”116608″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]Today Index’s friend and former colleague, Andrei Aliaksandrau, will spend his 100th day in detention in Belarus. As we renew our calls for his immediate and unconditional release, we are joined by Christine Jardine MP who will become his honorary godparent as an expression of her solidarity with him.
“The conditions in which opposition activists like Andrei are being kept are not acceptable. Our Government must work with our European partners to put pressure on the Belarusian Government to release those held on political charges,” Jardine said. Jardine is joining more than 160 politicians from across Europe as they stand in solidarity with political prisoners in Belarus through the #WeStandBYyou campaign.
Belarusian authorities accuse Aliaksandrau of financing the protests that have rocked Belarus since President Alexander Lukashenko returned to power after the fraudulent elections last August. According to the authorities, Aliaksandrau paid the fines of hundreds of protesters who were detained between August and November 2020, using funds sent to him by the London-based BY help fund. By mid-November, Belarus had ordered banks to freeze any money sent from the fund.
“Andrei is a fearless human rights defender, and he should not have to spend one day – much less 100 days – in prison,” Jessica Ní Mhainín, Index’s policy and campaigns manager said. “Andrei is one of 357 political prisoners currently being detained in Belarus. They need us – whether we are members of parliament like Christine Jardine or ordinary citizens – to use our voices in defence of their right to use theirs.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You may also want to read” category_id=”172″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Tim Hetherington’s mission to create a better understanding of the world cast him in many roles: photojournalist, filmmaker, human rights advocate, artist and a leading thinker in media innovation. He was killed in Libya by a mortar in in April 2011.
On 20 April 2011, photojournalist Tim Hetherington was killed by shrapnel from a mortar blast in Misrata, Libya.
Born in Liverpool on 5 December 1970, Hetherington was a prominent photojournalist whose work was acclaimed by his peers. He was once described as one of ‘brightest photojournalists of his generation’ and his work included co-producing the Oscar-nominated Restrepo, a 2010 documentary film about US soldiers in the war in Afghanistan.
His passion for his work was rooted in developing a relationship between his audience and the events portrayed in his work. He once said: “I want to record world events, big history told in the form of a small history, the personal perspective that gives my life meaning and significance. My work is all about building bridges between myself and the audience.”
A clear passion for people is what led him to the Libyan civil war and to the front line between rebel forces and those of Muammar Gaddafi, where he met his death.
After a degree in photojournalism from Cardiff University in 1997, Hetherington pursued his photography career. His coverage was extensive and ranged from the aftermath of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, to the events during and after the Liberian civil war.
Director of the Tim Hetherington Trust, Stephen Mayes, shed a light on where his appetite for his work came from. He wrote: “His family talks about a child who was playful yet intense, perpetually curious and seeking new experiences, pushing the proper boundaries of an English adolescence, characteristics that later served him well as a journalist.”
“It was never enough to simply witness events, he had to experience the lives of his subjects”
After Hetherington’s death, Sebastian Jungar, the director of Restrepo and someone who worked closely with him released the film “Where is the Front Line from Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington”, a documentary about his life and work.
Junger told Index of his work with Hetherington and his unique way of thinking.
“In my mind he was some ways a brother. We were in combat together and it builds a kind of experience of brotherhood that is hard to find anywhere else,” Junger recollected.
“When he was killed, I was devastated like I had never been devastated by anything. Among other things, I decided to stop combat reporting.”
“He really thought out of the box. He said to me ‘I only use a camera because that is the easiest way to tell a certain kind of story. If I could tell that story without a camera I would drop it in a second’.”
During the filming of the pair’s co-project, Restrepo, Junger recalls a moment that typified Hetherington’s approach to his work.
“There was a lot of combat, but when there wasn’t, the guys [US infantry] would basically sleep as much as they could.”
“One day everyone was asleep, but Tim was sort of creeping around and I asked him ‘What are you doing? It is like 100 degrees and everyone is asleep’.”
“He said ‘Don’t you get it? They look like children. This is how their mothers see them’.”
Tim Hetherington’s name lives on not only through his work but also through an eponymous fellowship with Index on Censorship, established in 2016 in conjunction with Liverpool John Moores University and the Tim Hetherington Trust. The fellowship sees a student from the university join Index for a year as editorial assistant on the magazine and website, gaining valuable journalistic experience.
Steve Harrison, journalism lecturer at LJMU’s Liverpool Screen School, who manages the fellowship, spoke of the how Hetherington’s work continues to be a good example to his students.
“His main media output was documentaries, so it is of particular interest to people looking to go into that. But it was his journalism roots that is relevant to all students and an example of a way in which journalism can be put to a very powerful use,” he said.
“It is not just journalism, it is art as well, the intersection of journalism and art. It is our view that Tim’s work was an inspiration for current and future journalists and one of the main reasons we thought naming [the fellowship] after him was so appropriate. An ideal fit.”
The fellowship has helped a number of former LJMU students gain a foothold in the industry. Last year’s recipient Orna Herr, now a communications officer for the British Science Association, said: “The Tim Hetherington fellowship gave me incomparable experience of working in journalism and the confidence to pitch and write my own stories. Being a member of the team at Index allowed me to be part of the process of editing and publishing articles from all over the world, working closely with the journalists themselves and the editorial team.
“I left Index with a portfolio of work I’m very proud of.”
Lewis Jennings, the 2018/19 fellow, said, “I learned a lot about the craft of journalism and also what it means to be an advocate for free expression. It opened my eyes to a lot of things that go on in the world in terms of threats to the media and free speech. It has enabled me to pursue a career in journalism, both in print and radio. It was an honour to carry on the legacy of Tim Hetherington through the fellowship. Tim’s work as a visual storyteller and human rights advocate continues to inspire ten years after his death.”
