This campaign is carried out in two directions. One aims to break our spirits, to confuse some Cubans, to incite us to violence, to make us believe and rationalize the theory that the embargo does not exist, that there is no blockade, that the Cuban government is to blame for everything. In both cases, I think this is a criminal use of a technological instrument that in other circumstances should serve to bring people closer, to sow the seeds of peace. Obviously, this is not in the interest of those who wish to reconquer Cuba.
Not to be influenced by all the campaigns, the lies, the misinformation that — both through social networks and through the hegemonic disinformation media — are disseminated throughout the world. To try to stay informed and spread that information among your friends, your acquaintances, and try to stir worldwide solidarity with the Cuban people, against the criminal policies of the US government.
The blockade has been a brutal act of war, intensified over the past four years by the Trump administration. The assault on the Cuban economy has been brutal, even before the pandemic came along. With the connivance of the Latin American right, specifically the presidents of Brazil and Ecuador, the medical programs that brought several billion dollars a year to enter Cuba were dismantled.
That was a brutal economic blow. They attacked the Cuban family and cut remittances to relatives in Cuba, inflicting another blow to the heart of the Cuban family economy.
The pandemic added to all this. After the other blows I described, the Cuban economy was counting on tourism, but the pandemic has practically paralyzed the tourism industry and we have had to do without that income, which is what allowed the development of normal life in Cuba. The result has been that some people have become desperate and have lost their perspective on the real impact that these measures have had on Cuba. Under these conditions, the government has had to deal with the pandemic — and the resources are simply not enough for everything.
If we lived in a just world, the Trumps and Bidens would be prosecuted for this criminal policy. It is imposed by the largest political, economic and military power in human history against a country of 11 million inhabitants which gives the rest of the world only solidarity, love, and peace. But our all-powerful neighbors have decided to set us against each other.
They continue to dream — as it was set out in the s — that through hunger and despair Cubans will end up desperate and will kneel before the US government. As a former US political prisoner, what would you say to those who say that Cuba is a dictatorship or a totalitarian regime? I think that the repression within US society is visible to the whole world. I am amazed when some people take lessons on human rights, on the rule of law, from the US government.
The US government has been repressive from its inception, and that has not changed. The US government considers that it has the right to decide that each country must do what suits the US government — and, if not, it will have to face the consequences. The trail of death that it has left around the world in recent decades just because a government decided not to do what suits US capital is appalling — and that is what they are looking for in Cuba.
To speak of repression, and to do so in the name of the US government, is the most blatant cynicism. I think that has a lot to do with the experience that we [the Cuban Five] had, especially in the legal process to which we were subjected.
If the annals of American legal history are studied one day, the trial that we went through would be right up there for its cynicism, for the use of lies, by a government that considers itself the arbiter of human rights and legality around the globe. We saw the prosecutors blatantly lie. Blatantly put people on the stand to lie knowing that everyone knew it was a lie — knowing with tremendous confidence that the jury was going to believe all those lies. We saw the prosecutors blackmail witnesses, threaten them with prosecution if they testified.
In the trial, we saw the prosecutors threaten an American general that his pension would be taken away if he testified in favor of the defense. We saw all kinds of violations, mockeries of due process. Really, I think the trial taught us to better understand why an individual like Joe Biden, who is painted, presented or sold as liberal and moderate, can stand in front of a camera and say no to reopening family remittances because the Cuban government supposedly going to appropriate them. You have to be cynical, you have to be hypocritical, to say such things.
I do not know if Biden is a lawyer — he is probably also a lawyer. I think he has learned from the cynicism that colors those who represent that imperialist, criminal, genocidal government. Our experience as political prisoners left a mark on us and quickly taught us to be able to identify such people.
The majority of the Cuban people continue to defend this revolution. Set in the broken-down, post-industrial landscape of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, following the struggles of a group of local African-American kids, it certainly makes for a nerveless and remarkable debut, shot through with just a hint of Malick's laconic grace. Right now, Green is still ingenuous enough to blush when you tell him so.
But he's learning fast - at least when it comes to the media. Already, there's a growing band of industry types who, following various snot-nosed broadsides in the American press, probably aren't quite as fond of Green as the critics - David Mamet, for example, or fellow director Kevin Smith, whose technique Green recently described as "the Special Olympics of film".
There's a wince at his own vitriol. Which I'm learning But it's not like I've ever attacked anyone personally. I've attacked their work. And a lot of people don't like my work, which is fine. At least it's not some breezy charmer that people can sit through thinking about something else.
At least they hate it. My only criteria is that if I ever make anything clever Incoherent is fine. Clever, who needs it? When you consider quite how inventive Green's film is, with its meandering pace and painterly beauty, it's hardly surprising it creates hostility. For audiences weaned on the deep south as baroque home to monied eccentrics and cross-burnings, Green's America, with its rusted steel and burnt-out warehouses, could easily seem unsettling, alien even.
To me, these decrepit environments are pretty. Beverly Hills is not. I mean, the south is always thought of as gothic mansions and overweight maids, but that's not the south I grew up in. That's for weird, rich people. To further evade the mainstream, there's a central role for children in what is definitely not a kids' movie, played by a non-professional cast plucked from youth clubs and churches.
Plus, I don't necessarily think year-old white guys are that interesting. So why would I want to make another movie about their coffee shops and romantic pratfalls?
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