By Dalia Acosta
HAVANA — Over a year a go Holly Near was in Cuba, and I was reminded of her on April 15, when a group of artists, intellectuals, and AIDS activists and professionals met with the public in the Juan David Gallery of the Yara Movie Theatre to talk about AIDS.
On that other occasion, the North American folk singer told me that there had been some very bold television campaigns in her country in which well-known artists, like Barbara Streisand, had held up condoms before the cameras. "People say that it is shocking, but it is more shocking that our children are dying", she told me then.
I recalled Holly because that gathering at the Yara was a true call to Cuban artists to join the campaign to prevent AIDS. Each in his/her own way: the graphic artists with their most agile and modern designs and paintings, the poets with their poetry, the troubadours with their songs. There are a thousand ways to say something, and no-one knows that better than the creators of art.
It's not a matter of promoting condoms, but of using art as an effective method of raising people's consciousness.
By the end of January, 719 people had been found to be carrying the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). More than half of the HIV positive patients are under 30 years of age. Although the epidemic hasn't witnessed the geometric acceleration in this country that it has in the rest of the world, its spread has not been halted.
As people said at the Yara, we Cubans have to learn to understand that AIDS is neither the plague of the 20th century — Middle Ages style — nor is it a disease exclusive to homosexuals or people with promiscuous conduct. To learn that people who are infected are just like the rest of us because, among other things, they might be us.
It's easy to say "It won't happen to me", to believe that because you have a stable relationship you are totally safe, to sleep peacefully because as long as there are sanatoriums, you think there is no danger. To forget that we are the only ones responsible for our lives.
Reynold Campbell's "This Isn't a Death in Venice" which is now showing at the Yara, doesn't focus on the causes of the disease but rather on its psychological effects on people.
[Translator's note: The title of the exhibit, which portrays sexually explicit gay love, is actually "Hardcore = Campbell". "This Isn't a Death in Venice" is the title of one of the paintings.] It is one more effort undertaken by various artists in coordination with the AIDS Prevention Group to speak openly, without prejudices, and with the direct participation of people who are HIV positive.
Last year there wa a concert by [Cuban rock singer] Edesio Alejando, and the "Rock vs AIDS" program at Maria's Patio [a popular hang-out for young rock aficionados]. This year, the Patio continues to have video-rock sessions, and the troubadour Jorge Garcia linked his "tea" at the Plaza Community Centre to activities to prevent AIDS.
Music critic Rufo Caballero called on us to avoid pity, because it denigrates both the recipient and the one who professes it, and instead to exorcise our ghosts, destroy machismo and free our feelings of sensitivity.
And I thought of Holly and her words: "It's really good for young people to be seeing so many stars saying good things all around the world."
[From the weekly Juventud Rebelde (Rebel Youth).]