By Leonardo M. Fernandez Otaño (El Toque)
HAVANA TIMES – On November 27th 2020, a group of young artists and intellectuals were supported by scores of citizens in a civil protest outside Cuba’s Ministry of Culture. The reason for the protest? To show solidarity with members of the San Isidro Movement, who had been evicted by police when holding a hunger strike at visual artist Luis Manuel Otero’s home, in Old Havana.
The protest – that came to be known as 27N in modern-day Cuban history – has had important wins for the island’s civic movement. This article focuses on determining the protest’s contributions and complexities, as well as assessing its influence on subsequent political events.
The second half of November 2020 was marked by different displays of solidarity from different Cuban civil society groups, who expressed themselves with open letters – both on the island and in the diaspora, communicating their concern for the situation of those holding the hunger strike. After the raid on the house on Damas Street, outrage on social media spilled into the public space. But the lead-up to the sit-in outside the Ministry of Culture reveals the first thing that encouraged civic engagement and the creation of movements in Cuba’s intellectual and artistic fields, especially of young people.
The network shared many common points: the effects of state-led censorshop on their creative work and research, participants coming from official academies (especially Universidad de La Habana and Universidad de las Artes), generational hyperconnectivity, migration of workers to other forms of unemployment outside the State’s control, very little credibility in the Cuban political regime’s discourse. Add to this the fact most participants were fed up, and aged between 20-40. I also need to point out the widespread dissatisfaction among citizens with regard to the national crisis, which became worse with the COVID-19 pandemic.
But beyond the way things
