BY CATHARINA TIRSÉN
STOCKHOLM - "Welcome to the Writers' House here in Stockholm. We hope you will feel at home among all the books here," said Anna-Lena Lofberg, international secretary of the Swedish Writers' Union. She was welcoming Norberto Codina, poet and editor of La Gaceta de Cuba, the journal of the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC), during his tour in Sweden.

Codina's December 8 presentation to an audience of 25 people at the Writers' House here, as well as his talks at other meetings in Stockholm, included a background on culture in Cuba today. He discussed the cultural explosion of the first years after the 1959 revolution in Cuba, when culture was brought out to all workplaces and schools, including the campaign against illiteracy, to the gray period during the 1970s, influenced by ideas from Eastern Europe. At that time anticultural prejudices and dogmatism among a cultural bureaucracy had been dominant.

"In 1988," Codina said, "a man in his 30s was elected chairman of UNEAC, which we can characterize as symbolic for the 1980s. He did not have a great career behind him, either as an author or as a politician. He was a supporter of Bob Dylan and had long hair. From that moment authors began to take upon themselves their own role and responsibilities." The new chairman was Abel Prieto, recently appointed minister of culture in Cuba.

Then came the economic crises following the collapse of the bureaucratic regimes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. "The writers' union lost 90 percent of our agreements for cultural exchanges with other unions internationally. Most of them had been with unions in Eastern Europe. The number of new titles published each year went down from 2,000 to 200." At the same time, Codina explained, "the authors, like never before, themselves became the protagonists of their own affairs. Being used to the paternalism of the state, we now had to find our own ways to save and develop culture as part of the revolution."

Peter Curman, chairman of the Council of Professional Artists and Writers, and earlier chairman of the Swedish Writers Union for eight years, said that the union, formed in 1893, had a rule against poets reciting their own poems at their meetings. "There are literary societies and they play an important role," he explained. "But for the union it is important to see the role of the author in society and to protect freedom of expression, not only political but also cultural freedom." In Sweden today, he said, "We are experiencing what I call a moral panic around child pornography. Of course it is detestable - it has become obligatory to always say something so self-evident. But to limit freedom of speech with laws criminalizing artistic expression, even imaginary pictures, is a serious attack. Many of us would be arrested for our dreams."

Curman pointed to other factors influencing cultural life in a country, like the economic blockades aimed against Cuba and Iraq, and informed Codina about a meeting being planned as a parallel conference to a UNESCO-sponsored meeting of cultural ministers in March and April 1998 in Stockholm.

Responding to a question on how La Gaceta de Cuba could survive despite the economic squeeze of the 1990s, Codina explained that La Gaceta is self-financing, with a budget in Cuban pesos for labor costs and one in dollars to buy paper, ink, and other supplies available only in hard currency. "And the magazine is a lot better now, not just because it is self- financing, but because of changes in the cultural life, changes which have made society and culture richer."

Codina came back to the same theme during a class at the University of Journalism in Stockholm. "In 1989," he said, "we had more than 100 cultural and scientific magazines. They all disappeared in 1990-91. La Gaceta resumed publication in 1992 through the help of donations and self-financing. Now we have around 50 cultural and scientific magazines, half the number compared to 1989, but only one-fifth of the number of copies. But we have more of a debate, a richer exchange of ideas, including on more hot political subjects, and a higher quality." Codina also explained how this was a reflection of an even higher use of freedom of expression, including criticism, that took place in neighborhood meetings when elected delegates report back to their constituencies, or workers assemblies meeting to solve problems in their workplaces.

"The development of culture accelerated in the '90s," Codina told a final public meeting in Stockholm on December 9. "The task of the artist is not to give answers but more to provoke new questions and to be one step ahead of the rhythm of our society. The role of culture in Cuba," said Codina in reply to a question, "is a spiritual task to help us develop as human beings and help us exchange questions. It should reflect society, not be a copy of it."

Codina's six-day visit to Sweden also included poetry readings and public meetings in Malmo and Lund in southern Sweden.

Catharina Tirsén is a member of the Metalworkers Union.  
 
 
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