The 10th Congress of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (Uneac), to be held in Havana from 1 to 2 November, will become a platform for debate and reflection to promote greater coordination among all the country’s creators.

The president of the organisation, Marta Bonet de la Cruz, assured that the congress will be a space for the confluence of ideas, in which the maxim «Culture is the Homeland», expressed by the renowned Cuban intellectual Don Fernando Ortiz, will guide the essence of the exchanges.

«We are thinking of the Congress from the base, with all the proposals and agreements that have been debated in each of the spaces of confluence of writers and artists, from San Antonio to Maisí; therefore what we are going to do in the upcoming meeting will be the process of concluding all these meetings and debates, which will be attended by a very large representation of writers and artists from all over the country, who were elected in the assembly process of sections, branches, and provincial committees that we began to do in January last year».

The musicologist also reflects on how the organisation is arriving at the 10th Congress, and explains that, with an important group of agreements and proposals fulfilled, some of them in notable progress and others still pending. «It has been a very intense work in all the provincial committees and in our national headquarters to respond to the proposals of the previous Congress».

Bonet also said that the work has been intense, not only from the national associations, but also from the provincial committees themselves and with the system of permanent commissions that Uneac has.

«We are talking about the Aponte Commission against racial discrimination, which was one of those that contributed a great deal to the creation of the Color Cubano Programme; the Commission against discrimination against women, which was also very important in the national programme that was later implemented; the Programme against cultural colonisation, which is one of the important debates that we will have at the Congress and which will be the focus of the plenary session National Identity and Cultural Colonisation. Artistic Education is also a commission that has worked intensively. Our dear Corina Mestre, who passed away recently, was at the head of this committee, and she has worked very hard to defend the processes of arts education throughout this time.

The president of Uneac underlined that the 10th Congress of the organisation will articulate the approaches and concerns expressed in the spaces developed from the grassroots, while allowing for an evaluation of the interrelation between the artistic vanguard and cultural institutions.

«We have felt very much accompanied during all these years. Since practically the closing of the IX Congress, meetings have been held with our First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez; with members of the National Council where many of the issues that have emerged from all the meetings of our creators have been debated».

In this sense, he also thanked the Vice Prime Minister Inés María Chapman; comrade Roberto Morales Ojeda, Secretary of Organisation of the PCC; the Party and Government officials themselves throughout the country in each province and, of course, the institutional system of culture, for accompanying Uneac in the search for solutions to a series of questions and concerns that artists have today.

«The country’s institutional system has not been oblivious to this either. We have had many meetings with the Ministry of Finance and Prices, with the Bank for banking issues, which is among those that have been addressed the most, with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Higher Education, with the Minister of Transport, with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to try to ensure that in that vocation of service that characterises the organisation, we artists can do more to work on the international projection of the work of our creators to other countries».

Just hours before the 10th Uneac Congress takes place, Marta Bonet de la Cruz reaffirms her conviction that the event will consolidate the social projection and the renewed role of the organisation.

«We hope that the meetings by associations and then the plenary session will serve as a platform to establish a working strategy with the Uneac of these times, with the Uneac that our country needs in such complex times for our country».

«I believe that it is precisely in these problems that the country is experiencing, everything that has happened in Guantánamo with the passage of Hurricane Oscar, that the service vocation of our writers and artists has once again become evident. There, right now, there are brigades from Granma, the Andante theatre group, the Guerrilla de teatreros and a group of important artists who will join from all over the nation».

«We hope that the 10th Congress of Uneac will be a profound, broad debate, where it will once again be reaffirmed that the Cuban intelligentsia is revolutionary and that culture is the homeland and that we are going for it».

(Taken from Radio Enciclopedia)