14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo, Havana, 15 June 2024 — With Milei, Netanyahu, Hitler, the CIA, Trump and the other “usual suspects,” in addition to a good number of commonplaces – swastikas, missiles, Mickey Mouse – the cartoonists who aspired to participate in the first Political Humor Biennial in Havana had their work cut out for them.
The limits of “political humor” were set this Friday by the cartoonist and cultural commissioner Arístides Hernández (Ares): the event aspires to the “plurality of speech,” as long as no one offends the leaders – historical or current – of the Revolution. “In Islamic countries it is impossible to paint a caricature against the prophet Muhammad, and in the case of Cuba there are limits to humor in relation to the historical figures of the Revolution; that type of satire does not appear in the media here nor in Spain, with the kings,” Hernández alleged.
Cartoonist Alen Lauzán, exiled in Chile and one of the most recognized Cuban graphic humorists of the moment, agrees completely with Ares. “The Islamics would never call for a Festival of Humor about Muhammad; nor in today’s Cuba could one be held satirizing Fidel Castro or the Revolution. As far as I know, we Cubans are not Muslims, nor was Fidel a prophet, nor is the revolution a religion,” he said ironically.
According to Lauzán, one of the pencils behind the Mazzantini* magazine – a reference for the graphic humor of Cuban exiles – “humor should not have limits, only those that each humorist creates according to their moral and political values, not those that governments and institutions impose. From there to whether it is good or bad, correct or profane, is something else. Even the worst humor has its audience.”
Hernández, for his part, was right to put tolerance for critical humor in Cuba at the level of Muslim countries such as Iran, but he was wrong to reference Spain, where artists are free to
