Abel Prieto, Cuban writer and professor; To Live in the Passion of Truth. Photo: Resumen Latinoamericano-English/file photo.
By Abel Prieto Jimenez – Jul 6, 2024
1- The ethical crisis
We live in dark times. Irrationalism is flourishing. Hate groups, racism, xenophobia, misogyny, homophobia, and rejection of the “other” are growing. Far-right movements are stretching across Europe, the United States, even Our America. Before the eyes of the world, very serious crimes against humanity are being committed, and those responsible are protected under a cloak of impunity.
The movement of solidarity towards the Palestinian people by young people in the United States and in various cities in Europe and other regions has been encouraging. But it is not enough: we have seen social networks images of bombings of hospitals, schools, and refugee centers, and the atrocious results of the crimes that continue to be committed against Palestinian children, women, and elderly people. How is it possible that this genocide does not stop? The answer has to do with the very deep ethical crisis of the present, which contaminates everything.
The Chilean sociologist Marcos Roitman touched on a very revealing example of this crisis in his article “Drowned emigrants and the implosion of millionaires with a surname”, published in La Jornada of Mexico on June 25, 2023. There he made a sharp comparison between the media attention received by the five billionaires killed in a tourist submarine searching for the wreckage of the Titanic and the ultimate anonymity of the migrants who drown every day trying to reach the coasts of Europe.
To try to find the five missing billionaires, there was an extraordinary multinational operation:
• Navy, aviation, and intelligence services from the United States, Canada, and Western Europe joined forces in a crusade to find them. Radars, satellites, and drones—in short, state-of-the-art technology—was put at the service of the rescue.
To rescue the others, the anonymous migrants, no one does anything. On the contrary, says Roitman, “for decades, in the midst of an unequal world, NATO and first world countries have been promoting xenophobic policies. Their governments apply immigration laws reminiscent of those developed by the Third Reich.” He adds:
• In these days, while we followed with attention the rescue of the five billionaires, hundreds of people died in the waters of the Mediterranean who do not make headlines… They are poor, they do not deserve any attention, after all, they come from the Sahel. Blacks, women, with children or pregnant women. Are they people without names?
• For the damned of the earth, there are no means at their disposal. No government tries to save them but, rather, leaves them to die. And when they manage to reach the coasts or are rescued by NGOs, the survivors end up crowded in concentration camps—euphemistically called centers—or are interred until their repatriation. They are mistreated, denigrated, and expelled.
Roitman’s reasoning represents a moral slap in the face for the elites who reign in this debased world; for those who control media corporations, financial institutions, international organizations; for those who accumulate mountains of beautiful words and speak of mercy, altruism, dignity, honesty, and love; for political and religious leaders, movie and television stars, influencers, artists, intellectuals, academics, etc., etc. It is very difficult for an honest person to read Roitman’s text without feeling ashamed. As Alyosha Karamazov used to say, “we are all guilty.”
2- The cultural crisis
This bitter and painful ethical crisis is accompanied by a very evident cultural crisis. Art and literature have been degraded to an empty and puerile pastime and pure merchandise. Today, the indispensable humanistic message of authentic culture is omitted or caricatured.
Advances in information and communication technologies have not built a more cultured, more tolerant and inclusive, wiser world, better prepared to face global challenges. Quite the contrary.
Thanks to technologies, the powerful entertainment industry has gained greater influence on a global scale. Today, more than ever, it imposes fetishes and colonizing paradigms, sweeps away the identities of nations and communities, erases historical memory, encourages the rejection of any complex intellectual challenge, and the exaltation of a “fun” lightness and the philosophy of “living for the moment”. It also creates an invincible fondness for stereotypes and trivial fables, the intimacies of “celebrities,” the fragmentation of stories, the overwhelming invasion of pseudo-cultural products to amuse and stultify.
The impact of this machinery extends far beyond art: it manages to hijack the subjectivity of millions of people and decisively influences emotions, behaviors, habits, hopes, and goals—the very meaning of life.
Social networks collect users’ personal data, their affinities, interests, illnesses, sympathies, anxieties, projects, everything imaginable. And they exercise a refined espionage on them, with the collaboration of the victims; and, from this information, they design profiles to use them in advertising or electoral campaigns and send messages “a la carte,” modeled according to the recipients.
At the same time, there is widespread alarm among parents, educators, and psychologists about the setbacks of children, adolescents, and young people addicted to cell phones in their ability to learn, to express themselves orally and in writing, in what they call “reading comprehension,” and about the difficulties they have in leaving the virtual environment and in dialoguing and communicating. Studies by specialists associate the growth in adolescents of episodes of depression and suicide attempts to the effects of cyberbullying and the permanent need for approval that becomes more intense on social media.
If, on the one hand, the new generations suffer the consequences of this unprecedented drug, on the other, adults obsessively consume the worst junk culture and react to it like children. That is why scholars of the cultural industry have been talking for years about the “infantilization of audiences”.
3- Goebbels’ ghost
Perceptions of reality, people’s feelings, fears, and nightmares are manipulated in an increasingly sophisticated and effective way. The so-called “post-truth” is a way of legitimizing lies, slander, and infamy. Ruthless campaigns work around the clock to discredit progressive Latin American leaders and governments and sow hatred against them.
It is attributed to Goebbels, Hitler’s minister of propaganda, that evil advice of so much validity in these times: “repeat a lie until you make it true.” After repeating, over and over again, the same repertoire of deceptions, finally these deceptions are taken as certainties that no one would dare to refute. In this way, blockades, unilateral sanctions, torments, and suffering for peoples who have committed the sin of defending their sovereignty are justified. On the other hand, analysts who have recently reviewed Goebbels’ Eleven Principles of Propaganda have found chilling analogies with the logic of social media networks.
Politics has taken on the aesthetics of the reality show. The programs and ideas of the candidates mean very little now. It is the dominance of the stage that can lead a supposed “leader” to victory: the gesticulation, the poses, the effective and simple phrases, the blunt insult against the opponent.
MartĂ said of Patria, the organ of the Cuban Revolutionary Party: “To gather and love, and to live in the passion of truth, this newspaper was born”. ALMA PLUS TV was born with a vocation similar to that of MartĂ’s newspaper. It has not been created for hate, but for love. It does not want to divide, but to unite. It will not be stained by lies: it will live “in the passion of truth”.
The communicational battle is today of the greatest tactical and strategic importance. For all of us who, against all odds, keep alive the dreams of emancipation, humanism, social justice, and genuine democracy and believe in the urgency of “globalizing solidarity” and offering the world “doctors and not bombs,” as Fidel claimed, the creation of the new information network ALMA PLUS TV is, without any doubt, very encouraging news.
From Cuba, from Casa de las Americas, we congratulate the ALMA PLUS TV team and wish them much success in their transcendent mission.
(Resumen Latinoamericano – English)
Abel Prieto
Abel Prieto Jiménez (born 11 November 1950) is a Cuban politician. Abelito, as he was called as a child, is the son of Abel Prieto, a Cuban educator who for several years pre and post Castro ran a preparatory school on Pinar Del Rio. From 1997 to 2012 and from 2016 to the present he has served as Minister of culture. In March 2012 he was appointed as advisor to Cuban President Raul Castro.
