‘Carcassage’ and letting bygones be bygones
HAVANA – The “Carcassage” appears to be at an end. At least in its “pure state,” the Internet’s social networks, where only a few Cubans coexist, full of messages of every kind about the “events” related to musician Robertico Carcassés.
Yesterday, and only because troubador Silvio Rodríguez served as a spokesman, it was learned that Culture Ministry authorities talked with the musician and they all agreed to lift the sanction that Carcassés himself had made public one day earlier through a message.
In his blog, Silvio Rodríguez, stated on Sept. 17 at 5:45 p.m. – an important precision because it cautions us that something else might happen at 5:46 p.m. – that “authorities from the Ministry of Culture met today with Robertico Carcassés and the talks were so positive that they decided to void the sanction.”
The statement added, as a shirttail, tagline or colophon, a conciliatory moral: “They say that people understand one another by talking. May this be forever true.”
Carcassés, 41, told [website] Oncuba yesterday afternoon that he had never lost hope and confirmed that “the reversion [of the measure] is already in progress.”
Carcassés was the protagonist of a controversial “soneo” [sung improvisation] – as described by Visitante, a member of [the Puerto Rican band] Calle 13 – that included criticism and petitions directed at the government during a concert in homage of the five Cuban agents imprisoned in the United States.
Most of the reproaches and condemnation Carcassés has received for his action are related to his sense of opportunity. Silvio Rodríguez himself described it as “clumsiness,” but that was not the roughest opinion. Carcassés was also described as an “opportunist” and someone even lowered him to the level of “traitor.”
The authorities have not commented directly. Nobody knows the exact nature of the sanction being revoked. The rumors included an indefinite ban from radio and television. Was the ban lifted efficiently? Or will there be some censorship fanatic who will “rather prevent than lament”?
[The official websites] Cubadebate and La Jiribilla have contributed part of the debate, the most critical of Carcassés, by publishing a compilation of articles that artists and bloggers have contributed to the debate from Cuba. But that discussion has taken place only in virtual space. The major communications media have paid no attention to the brouhaha. Again.
Readers of Cubadebate complain: “But what did he say? The interruptions, the absence of pace, the chaotic succession of figures and personalities [in the concert] drove me to fall asleep, and I couldn’t watch Interactivo.” Another reader confirms it: “Where can I read or see what Carcassés said? Because at that moment I was in bed, sleeping, and now I can’t find it in any medium.”
For their part, sectors of the dissident movement have been unable to display their entire arsenal or profit from the event. Let’s not forget that the concert was an act of mass solidarity with the cause of the five Cuban heroes, at the end of a day when Cuba blossomed with yellow ribbons.
A certain press (the same that we’ll get to know better in October), which shamelessly attacks The Five and demonizes them, had to make contortions to profit from Carcassés’ saga and at the same time disparage the Cuban mobilization and the campaign launched by René González to defend his brothers.
At the end of the “carcassage,” the explanation given regarding the sanction does not include a public accounting (neither virtual nor digital) about the “list of demands” that Carcassés issued. Apparently, both “the affront” and its content will be forgotten. Something similar to the baby and the bath water flying out the window.
Looking into the archives of the Internet, we find an open letter signed in 2007 by the leader of Interactivo and sent to the musician Harold Gramatges, at the time director of the music section of the UNEAC. Among others, Carcassés demanded an end to the blockade and the self-blockade. Six years ago.
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