by Francisco Rodriguez Cruz, from his blog
A CubaNews translation by Walter Lippmann.
Time passes and people are getting old. Not me, of course. From next week we will be back in the center of the maelstrom of another Cuban Day against Homophobia, the tenth. Amazing.
It seems like it was yesterday when I was filled with astonishment and excitement at the Pabellón Cuba in 2008, and I listened for the first time to other gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual, transvestite people, speaking in public – and loudly – about what was always hidden before In Cuba: our lives and problems.
I did not dream at the time to have this blog – I was short a little more than a year and a half to its birth – nor could I assume that I would have the opportunity to approach first and be a part of the organizing committee of these celebrations from 2010.
With that experience, so intense that makes it difficult to discriminate between the greater relevance of one fact or another, I propose what will undoubtedly be an incomplete selection of moments or key contributions by each of the previous Cuban Conferences against Homophobia and Transphobia .
I must admit that, at the beginning, I thought of doing so only from my (bad) memory, as well as from a review of the texts I wrote in this blog and the photographs I had kept; But then I realized that was not enough.
Memories are often imprecise. I ran the risk of mixing some events and details from year to year. So I took the trouble to check each event with the reports of the Cuban and foreign press that I kept throughout these ten years.
I should also like to thank Dr. Mariela Castro, director of the National Center for Sex Education, who agreed to review a first version of this chronological summary and made several pertinent suggestions to enrich it.
Although I tried to emphasize the elements of newness or rupture in each annual edition, it is very probable that even in this selection there are issues or nuances that someone might also consider important or central. I invite you to propose and add.
I am sure that we could enrich even more this brief tour for this first decade of the day, based on the experiences that each one keeps.
My humble intention is for everyone to remember and treasure for themselves, their first, most intimate or revealing participation in this endeavor, result of the work, persistence, creativity and daring of so many good people.
We will see each other from 3 to 20 May at the Tenth Cuban Conference against Homophobia and Transphobia.
Here I leave the most recent, almost final version of the program for this year:
A CubaNews translation by Walter Lippmann.
For the 100 congressional senators, an unusual meeting will be held on WEDNESDAY 26, on the situation in North Korea, said some members of the Senate teams, according to the Reuters Agency.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, National Director of Intelligence, Can Coats, and General Joseph Dunford, Chief of Joint Chiefs of Staff, will speak at the meeting.
It should be borne in mind that TUESDAY (TODAY) is one more anniversary of the formation of the North Korean armed forces, which they regularly celebrate by launching some missile or performing a nuclear test.
I hope that sanity reigns over all things.
NESTOR.
Breaking News From GOP Insider Brief
A rare White House briefing for all 100 senators will be held on the North Korean situation on Wednesday, senior Senate aides said Monday, according to Reuters. The briefing will be by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the aides said.
A CubaNews translation by Walter Lippmann.
24 April 2017
Only 14% of Russian citizens support the destruction of Lenin’s statues, according to a survey by the Levada center published by the daily Kommersant.
Sociologists say that, for many Russians, he is a historical character with a lot of symbolism. Lenin’s role in history is viewed positively by 57% of the people who participated in the survey, which is 17% more than 11 years ago.
Every year the number of Russians who show a favorable attitude towards the revolutionary increases, they said in the Levada center.
In the polls of 2006, 2016 and 2017 there is a slight increase in Lenin’s popularity. More and more people are seeing it in a “completely positive” perspective. While 17% consider Lenin to have played a “rather negative” role in Russia’s history and 5% consider their actions to be very negative.
Andrei Petrov, executive secretary of the Russian Historical Society, told the Kommersant daily that the increase in the number of citizens who believe Lenin played a positive role in history is “a completely legitimate trend.”
“There is a decline in the intensity of the controversy over events that occurred a hundred years ago. For the people Lenin is the founder of the Soviet period, the first leader of the Soviet state, “he said.
This year about a quarter of respondents say that they do not believe that anyone will try to follow in the footsteps of Lenin, while a similar number says that “he came to the country on the path of progress.” For a fifth, “Lenin’s followers distorted their ideas” while another 20% believed Lenin led the country into a “brighter future.”
One-third of the Russians are in favor of keeping Lenin’s body in the mausoleum of Red Square. “Those who want to keep Lenin in the mausoleum are always a minority (in 2012 it was 25% and in 2006, 38%). The question is where to bury it, “says Alexei Grazhdankin, deputy director of the Levada center. Among the most popular places are the St. Petersburg Volkovski Cemetery and the Kremlin.
“The most common is that respondents say that the burial place of Lenin are the walls of the Kremlin and that corresponds to the role it represents for citizens. People think they played a big role and their burial emphasizes that symbolic role, “says Grazhdankin.
According to the survey only 4% fully agree with the statement “Lenin’s monuments should be demolished”, while 10% are “more or less in agreement”. The vast majority do not agree. According to Grazhdankin, in recent years the attitude of Russians toward Soviet symbols is improving. “Even in Moscow the majority support, in one way or another, that the monument of the Felix de Acero be restored (referring to Félix Dzerzhinski, revolutionary founder of the Cheka),” explains the sociologist.
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