How ‘Patria y Vida’ became the anthem of anti-government protests in Cuba

(CNN) – “Country or Death”. It is a phrase stamped on Cuban pesos, which was frequently invoked by former leader Fidel Castro during the dawn of the country’s communist revolution.

Now, the well-known saying has been reused for the protest anthem “Patria y Vida,” a subversive song by some of Cuba’s most popular musicians that criticizes social repression and a serious economic crisis in their home country.

“Let’s no longer shout ‘homeland and death’ but ‘homeland and life'”, sing the artists Yotuel, Descemer Bueno and the reggaeton duo Gente de Zona, among others. Who told you that Cuba belongs to you if my Cuba belongs to all my people? “

Cuban anti-government protesters have adopted the song as their mantra. Music can be a powerful tool of protest, and ‘Patria y Vida’ is perhaps the closest that no song in modern Cuban history has come to inspire such a massive response.

CNN spoke with researchers who specialize in Cuban history and Latin American protest music about what makes the song so powerful and why protests that have it as a soundtrack are unlike anything the country has seen in decades.

The makings of a great protest song

There are some common ingredients that powerful protest anthems share, said Christina Azahar, an ethnomusicologist at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies Latin American music.

Significant protest music denounces unjust acts. It calls for direct political action and provides an alternative account of history from the perspective of marginalized groups, he said. It helps if the song uses metaphors and allegories to spread its message, so that it is not censored or buried, and it moves people in some way. A great protest song creates a sense of community among its listeners.

“Patria y Vida” fits those points, because: it criticizes the Cuban government’s attempts to censor artists and detractors who oppose its policies, as well as the economic crisis that is leaving much of the country without a constant supply of food, funds and medicines. It has inspired protesters from all corners of Cuban society to rise up against the government, protest in the streets, and risk arrest for expressing their opposition. It doesn’t hurt that it’s also a danceable reggae track, either, Azahar said.

“Music and art allow social movements to imagine the world in which [los manifestantes] they want to live, either by validating or developing a sense of shared identity or history, or by imagining future forms of coexistence, “Azahar told CNN in an email.” Among groups that have suffered constant dehumanization and those who have been denied their basic civil rights, finding collective joy and dignity through music is a powerful form of protest. “

It’s a new twist on a well-known Cuban phrase

The phrase “homeland or death” evokes strong memories in the Cubans who grew up with it. It originated in Cuba’s communist revolution in 1959, when the late Castro asked Cubans to “sacrifice their livelihoods and even their lives” in the service of the revolution, Azahar said. The phrase is still in common use today.

“‘Patria y Vida’ criticizes and reworks this national motto asking Cubans to imagine a form of self-government based not on austerity and homogeneity, but on sustaining the lives of all people, not just the political elite,” he said. .

The phrase defines a period in Cuban history that many residents remember as marked by suffering and economic hardship, against which anti-government protesters continue to demonstrate today, said Lillian Guerra, a professor at the University of Florida who studies the history of Cuba.

By alluding to “homeland or death” in his song, Guerra said, the artists behind “Patria y Vida” “gave shape and passion to what Cubans want: the sovereignty of their country and their ability to prosper, grow, live. “.

It was released at the right time

“Patria y Vida” was launched in February, just a few months before the frustrations over the shortage of food and medicine in the country, the problems aggravated by the covid-19 pandemic and the United States sanctions on Cuba, reached its heyday.

The feeling of “Homeland and Life” – that artists love their country very much but cannot bear to see their compatriots struggle to eat, work and survive – hit Cubans. And although Yotuel Romero, one of the song’s main artists, said in an interview in February with Billboard That the song was quickly criticized by the government, it received more than 2 million views the month its video was released. It has now been viewed over 7 million times on YouTube.

“Cubans have a clear political vision of what is wrong and they have never had a way to do anything about it. They still do not have it. That is why they have taken to the streets,” Guerra said. “They have lost the fear that dominated them, which told each one of them that they could not challenge the system because they would do it alone and pay the price. Now they see that they are not alone and they feel the power of that solidarity, that pride of being. the true nation. “

“Patria y Vida” put those grievances and demands into song.

The singers belong to a movement of artists and activists

Romero, Bueno and Gente de Zona singers Alexander Delgado and Randy Malcom are members of the San Isidro Movement, a collective of artists created in 2018 to protest against the regime’s growing cultural censorship, Azahar said.

His participation in the San Isidro Movement “has almost certainly helped to give authenticity to the message of ‘Homeland and Life,'” Azahar said.

The movement was raised in opposition to Decree 349, a law that prohibits artists from performing in public or private spaces without the approval of the Ministry of Culture of the Cuban government, according to International Amnesty, an organization that fights against human rights abuses.

“These musicians-intellectuals gave voice to the feelings of the majority of Cubans,” Guerra said.

Amnesty International, together with the artists who make up the San Isidro Movement, claim that the decree could limit the artistic freedom of Cuban artists and the ability of residents to participate in the exchange of ideas.

In “Patria y Vida,” the artists criticize the Cuban government’s attempts to limit artistic expression, Azahar said.

“We are the dignity of an entire people trampled on,” Bueno sings, “at gunpoint and words that are still nothing.

It’s also worth noting, Azahar said, that the San Isidro Movement and the popularity of the artists involved helped the song skyrocket on social media, which in turn has helped amplify the voices of protesters across the globe. country and world.

The interpreters are black Cubans

It is also significant that the song taken up by the anti-government protesters is performed by a group that includes Afro-Cuban men.

Cuba for years has been considered “an ally of black rights around the world,” Azahar noted, from sending troops to aid various African nations in conflicts throughout the 1960s and 1970s to granting asylum. to black radicals in America the era of civil rights. But black Cubans continue to face racism and harassment in their country, including from their government, Azahar said.

As the artists behind “Patria y Vida” sing about experiences they hope most Cubans can relate to, they knew from an early age how scarce resources can devastate communities. The artists grew up in low-income neighborhoods of the country, reported the Miami Herald in February.

Well he told the Miami Herald in February that “always thought that the impulse [de cambios en Cuba] it would come from the most resentful of people. It has always been known that in poor neighborhoods, we have been living with the bare minimum. “

“Patria y Vida” has been adopted by anti-government protesters of different racial and socioeconomic origins in Cuba. Its popularity reveals a “sense of solidarity among listeners who identify with the song’s criticism of the government’s hypocrisy regarding racial and socioeconomic equality,” Azahar said.

Protests in Cuba are the largest in decades

Guerra said the most recent protests are “unprecedented historic” events because of their scale, sustained momentum and the attention they have attracted internationally. Some protesters are speaking out against the recent economic difficulties, but others are using the protests to call for greater freedom.

“Cubans are tired of not being able to change their leadership, of not being able to say that nothing in the state is working, of not being able to have control of any aspect of their lives,” he said.

Bueno echoed that statement in his interview with the Miami Herald, calling the myriad crises facing the country in 2021 “the moment that many people like me have always waited for,” the moment they took to the streets to make their voices heard.

Guerra said he believes that “the movement will gain in number and credibility, even if it is suppressed through arrests and repression.”

It remains to be seen whether “Patria y Vida” will continue to be the soundtrack for future demonstrations, but it speaks both of decades of opposition to a government that protesters consider oppressive and of the specific events of 2021 that led Cubans to take to the streets in big scale.