Cuba: Gap between state, youth is growing concern

South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com

By Ray Sanchez

Sun-Sentinel.com

7:49 AM EDT, April 3, 2008

HAVANA

The growing disconnect between the state and young people on Cuba is a hot topic in the closed congress of the government-allied union of writers and artists.

The union, known as UNEAC, is holding its first congress in 10 years in Havana's convention center.

In an lengthy article Thursday, the Communist youth daily Juventud Rebelde noted that only 1,453 writers and artists, or 17 percent of the union membership, were under the age of 40.

Just 3 percent of the 400 participants in the congress were under 40. "The numbers speak for themselves," the article said.

"The average age of the membership is 60 years," filmmaker and writer Victor Casaus was quoted as saying. "Where is the continuity of Cuban culture?"

Playwright and critic Norge Espinosa asked: "What is the relevance of the UNEAC to young people today? What is its impact?...The truth is that a lot of talent has been lost because [young people] have not found a space."

The congress, which ends Friday, issued a statement calling on the state to embrace rather than restrict technologies such as the Internet.

Cuba's new president, Raul Castro, and other ranking government officials attended the opening session Tuesday.

The event is closed to the foreign press.

"We have to understand that our revolution will only be strengthened by looking at it from the inside," artists union member Juan Carlos Travieso said.

Brian Latell, a Cuba expert and former CIA analyst, touched on the disconnect between the state and Cuban youth in his latest newsletter for the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies.

"Fidel [Castro] himself, in late 2005, during one of his last major speeches, warned an audience of Cuban youth that 'this country can self-destruct. The revolution can destroy itself,'" Latell wrote.

"A short time later his warnings were reiterated by foreign minister, Felipe Perez Roque, who expounded at length about the disaffection, alienation, and apathy of Cuban youth. He too warned that the revolution could destroy itself."

More than two years later, Latell added, Cuban leaders have no good options: "What they probably cannot yet be sure of, however, is whether they are experiencing an incipient rebellion of the country's youth."

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