A Concert for Peace in Havana

The attacks of extreme right groups in the Cuban exile community against the
Colombian singer Juanes for his decision to perform a concert “peace without borders”
in Havana brings to mind the story of the woman who called her husband, worried about
the report on the radio about a crazy person driving against traffic. The husband
responded that it was not only one person, but thousands, and that he has spent hours
on the freeway avoiding the cars coming towards him.

These exiles—many with justified complaints against the communist system—haven’t

noticed that the Cold War ended, nor do they understand that policies of
desideologization and engagement are what brought about the end. Despite the failed
strategy of isolationof the last fifty years, and the new foreign policy approach of
president Obama—a focus that includes alternative ways of approaching the Cuban
issue—, these individuals continue driving in the opposite direction of the entire world.
And they are oblivious.

Some in the press, for their part, has made the histeria of those ever more isolated
groups the headline news. But this is a distortion of reality. The majority of Cubans in
the island and outside Miami supports the concert. In Miami a majority of exiles do not
question Juanes’ decision to perform in Cuba, and a significant number of the youngest
is travelling to the concert. That is proof that a more tolerant viewpoint is gaining ground
there.

The intransigent factions have the clocks; the new generations, the time. The respect
for Juanes decision to hold a concert in Cuba is shared by Cuban exiles of the broadest
political and demographic spectrum: in Miami, New Jersey, Toronto, Madrid and Puerto
Rico. Most also recognize the right of any one to smash discs in the street, but lament
these medieval behavior because of the damage it does to the image of the entire
community.

Without borders

Juanes idea emerges when president Obama is exploring various initiatives to address
the hostility. The Colombian singer clarified that such an idea it would have been
“unthinkable” during the Bush years. The angry reactions of the intransigent exiles are
more about their lossing power than protesting an inoffensive concert,. They are

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attempting a Mccarthy style lynching of the Colombian singer and those in the
community who supports the concert because they have no power to challenge Obama.

Juanes will not go to Cuba against the will of U.S. authorities, but rather with their
blessings. The singer met with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who said that U.S.
policy encourages these contacts. In contrast to the Bush administration, when artists
and academics from the island were denied U.S. visas, and cultural contacts with Cuba
were discouraged, now the intransigent exiles lack that support of the current State
Department. Without a doubt this is fresh air for those who believe that peace and
dialogue between Washington and Havana will contribute to Cuban national
reconciliation and.

Juanes’ concert is just the beginning. The philharmonic orchestra of New York, which
traveled to Pyongyang last year to play a concert for peace, plans several concerts in
Cuba. The general rumor in Washington, among the diplomatic corps, academia, and
U.S. cultural exchange organizations is that we are returning to the “happy days” of the
Bill Clinton era, when the number of humanitarian, religious, cultural, and academic
licenses to travel to Cuba multiplied.

But in contrast to Bill Clinton who wasted years before adopting promotion of people-to-
people contacts as his main approach to Cuba, Obama has picked up where the
previous democratic president left off. Nongovernmental actors have received positive
indications from the State department that an increase in cultural, sports, and scientific
exchange is in the making. Facing the rigidity and obstacles inherent in government-
government negotiations, the stance of artists such as Juanes to go about dismantling
the standoff of permanent confrontation helps the creation of a more friendly
atmosphere to détente and dialogue.

Peace and justice

“Everyone is crying out for peace, none is crying out for justice” sings the
Jamaican reggae star Peter Tosh in his 1977 hit Equal rights. Correct are those who
remind Juanes that peace requires human rights, such as established by the Universal
Declaration: interdependent, indivisible, political and civil, economic, social and cultural.

But no concert can do so much. To achieve peace with human rights is the result of a
process, not an event. Beyond ideological positions, the United States should prepare
in a bipartisan way for a long, incremental and gradual process of dismantling the

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authoritarian culture that permeates the Cuban government and the intransigent sectors
that oppose it. It is not with friends but adversaries with whom we make peace. The
Obama Administration’s support and the respect for Juanes’ decision by a considerable
portion of the exile community is a sign that in U.S –Cuba relations "The times- as
another singer for peace said- they are a-changin".

Arturo Lopez-Levy is a doctoral candidate at the Josef Korbel School of International

Affairs of the University of Denver. He is currently an International Visiting Fellow at
the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy in Taipei.