WEBVTT - From Camp to Code: Queerness in Cuba 0:00:05.440 --> 0:00:11.000 It happened somewhere else a while ago, and also somewhere 0:00:11.000 --> 0:00:16.120 else now ish several days ago. What a great title 0:00:16.160 --> 0:00:20.159 for a show. I love, I love how snappy and 0:00:20.280 --> 0:00:23.560 remember and memorable. That is that look, we can we 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:25.000 we can, we can go and we can go into it. 0:00:25.320 --> 0:00:27.040 A tiny bit of pulling back the curtain, which is 0:00:27.080 --> 0:00:28.639 that you can't do too many good intros because if 0:00:28.680 --> 0:00:30.400 you do too many good intros, and everyone expects you 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:32.400 to constantly have a good intro, So every once in 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:33.519 a while you have to just make you have You 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:36.120 have to lower the overall quality of the intro so 0:00:36.159 --> 0:00:38.320 that when you are truly desperate, have just been dragged 0:00:38.320 --> 0:00:40.360 out of bed at like three am and you have 0:00:40.400 --> 0:00:43.600 to record a podcast, just sort of a tonal noises 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:46.839 will be considered normal. That's why I script all my intros. 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:52.560 But I'm just I'm just I'm just built. Yea different 0:00:53.159 --> 0:00:55.680 is that could happen here? What are we what are 0:00:55.680 --> 0:01:00.320 we doing here today? Chris um? We are talking about Well, actually, 0:01:00.360 --> 0:01:05.440 admittedly we we had planned this episode before this happens. Yeah, 0:01:05.480 --> 0:01:10.480 we were on this episode before the referendum in Cuba 0:01:10.640 --> 0:01:14.400 about the new family code. But yeah, we're we're gonna 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:18.040 be talking about the kind of bleak but sort of 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:25.080 gets better history of homosexuality in Cuba and how things 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:29.480 went from very bad to getting a lot better, and 0:01:29.520 --> 0:01:33.480 then also how a lot of American leftists like picked 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:35.880 up a version of the history of this that is 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:40.440 just sort of nonsense. And here here with us talk 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:45.360 about this is Andre's Petira, who is well doing doing 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:47.640 many things, one of which is studying for PhD in 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:50.800 Latin American history at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. On 0:01:50.800 --> 0:01:53.480 today's Welcome to the show. Oh, thanks so much for 0:01:53.520 --> 0:01:56.080 having me. It's great to be here. Yeah, like I'm 0:01:56.080 --> 0:01:59.480 excarted to talk to you about this. So okay, I 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:01.680 guess the the place that I want to start is 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:05.920 I want to go back to the sixties and I 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:09.399 want to go back to something that I I don't 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:14.240 think a lot of people understand very well in terms 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:18.360 of what happened in I just happened in various ways 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:20.800 over a lot of sort of these new sort of 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:25.560 revolutionary socialist states, which is that you get this attempt 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:29.800 to like form of like a sort of like like 0:02:30.000 --> 0:02:33.200 a new revolutionary subject. Sometimes it's it's like, I mean, 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:35.399 the Soviet one was like the new Man. They're they're 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:38.200 sort of different versions of this across there's sort of 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:41.440 various social revolutionary states. I guess I wanted to ask 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:45.880 you to talk about how this kind of got really 0:02:46.000 --> 0:02:52.200 really homophobic in Cuba, like pretty quickly. Yeah, so, I 0:02:52.240 --> 0:02:54.480 mean and and and one of the interesting parts about 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:58.640 the story in Cuba is that it actually is look 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:03.440 in part important from the USSR and ideas in the USSR. 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:05.920 And that's actually one of the connections which in the 0:03:06.000 --> 0:03:08.960 literature isn't in the academic literature at least isn't always 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:11.920 that well explored because Cuban is tends to be very insloyed. 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:15.240 We don't really tend to learn Russian. I'm I'm kind 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:19.480 of crazy. I actually am learning Russian, but but no, 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:24.119 so so um. You know, there was obviously lots of homophobia, 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:28.400 lots of you know, all like lots of bigotry against 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:32.440 LGBT people before nineteen fifty nine, not unlike the United 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:35.720 States of the nineteen fifties, like you could live privately 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:38.880 or maybe in certain safe spaces, you could live a 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:42.800 kind of okay life, but you know, it was definitely 0:03:42.920 --> 0:03:46.600 very marginalized position lots of biggotry and lots of personal 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:50.960 danger in addition to a lack of basic rights. Um. 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:55.440 After nineteen fifty nine, Uh, you know, you have this jettison, 0:03:55.680 --> 0:03:58.920 jettison ing of the Catholic Church and kind of religious 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:03.520 reasons for being being bigoted, with the coming of the revolution, 0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:07.560 which is a secular communist revolution. Um. But what what 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:11.440 ends up happening is they And this is something that 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:17.560 Abel Sierra Mario's recent book on on U on these policies, 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:20.279 talks about a lot. Is this kind of attempt to 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:24.479 remake human men into the man that's needed for this 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:28.839 communist society in the future. And as part of this, 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:31.120 they engage in a sort of social hygiene. We don't 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:33.640 want people who are lazy, we don't want people who 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:38.240 are degenerate, but you know, bourgeois degeneracy by you know, 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:41.720 that kind of stuff. And within this, you know a 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:45.360 persecution of people who are seen as either out, either 0:04:45.440 --> 0:04:49.080 as gay or at least as soft and they need 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:51.680 to be made into real macho men for the revolution. 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:56.599 And um, this started out in a very series of 0:04:56.640 --> 0:05:01.040 isolated things. Right. You would have like Vihitio Pinieta was 0:05:01.040 --> 0:05:05.839 who was a dramaturge. He was um, he was jailed, uh, 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:09.040 and he basically he was being targeted because people wanted 0:05:09.080 --> 0:05:11.520 his house, and so if he was jailed and his 0:05:11.640 --> 0:05:14.880 belongings were separated from him, then like someone could get 0:05:14.920 --> 0:05:16.920 to keep his apartment. Like that seems to be why 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:20.080 he was originally targeted. And he was detained twice for 0:05:20.120 --> 0:05:24.480 basically walking while gay. That's how basically what the incident 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:27.320 boils down to. He was walking effeminately in people and 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:30.000 he was detained by police, and he was free because 0:05:30.040 --> 0:05:32.000 he had like he was an important person. He was 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:35.279 you know, he had some protections. But then as the 0:05:35.320 --> 0:05:37.960 decade rolls on, as the nineteen sixties rolled on, that's like, 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:42.359 that's nineteen sixty one year after the revolution. Nine sixty five, 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:47.039 you have the creation of a series of forced labor 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:50.560 camps and there's not really any way to get around that. Um. 0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:54.320 We don't know exactly how many were sent there, um, 0:05:54.400 --> 0:05:56.960 but it seems to be in the thousands, maybe tens 0:05:56.960 --> 0:05:59.200 of thousands. We again, we don't know because the government 0:05:59.240 --> 0:06:02.040 hasn't the class by that information. So it's still a conjecture. 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:06.240 But it's not because people don't want to investigate the details. Um. 0:06:06.360 --> 0:06:09.240 And these are thousands and thousands of people who are 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:14.080 being set for all sorts of reasons. Jehovah's witnesses, um uh, 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:16.839 people who listened to rock, people who are seeing as 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:22.960 hippies uh lvi spresleanos so Elvis presleyan's so people who 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:25.320 listened to Elvis Presley because that was seen as too 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:29.640 effeminate and too yankee. Um and and so they were 0:06:29.680 --> 0:06:32.719 sent to the camps and to forced labor. But the 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:36.160 camps weren't just about forced labor. They were about remaking 0:06:36.400 --> 0:06:39.960 through labor, these men into real men, because hard labor, 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:44.280 proletarian labor, would you know, remake their spirits and their 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:46.360 ethics and a ha ha. I mean it's kind of 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:50.080 not unlike what we're seeing in the nineteen sixties in China. 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:53.760 I think, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's a very explicit like 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:55.760 one one of the thing well yeah, well one of 0:06:55.800 --> 0:06:58.159 the things that is just going on from the culture revolution. Also, yeah, 0:06:58.160 --> 0:06:59.800 it's like that they had that they had this sort 0:06:59.839 --> 0:07:03.160 of re education through labor. The thing that starts and 0:07:03.200 --> 0:07:07.360 it gets it doesn't. Yeah, Like I've seen conflicting accounts 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:10.960 of the extent to which like people were directly targeted 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:13.680 for being gay. I it definitely did happen, And there's 0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:15.320 a yeah, and you get a lot of this sort 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:18.280 of same thing of like these people are like spiritually 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:21.080 un pere and like they have to be like re 0:07:21.240 --> 0:07:23.840 educated and they have to be sort of like turned 0:07:23.880 --> 0:07:27.160 into like proper like subjection. There's a lot of the 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:30.280 especially like there's a lot of sort of like there's 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:32.520 a lot of people like being forced to hold science 0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:37.800 and say sodomite and ship yeah, which is a funnily enough. 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:39.560 And the weird part about this is that like in 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:42.000 the Chinese case, so the cultural revolution is like not 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:44.320 a great time to be gay, but there's also this thing. 0:07:45.560 --> 0:07:47.680 There's this thing kind of like it's kind of like 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:51.520 like Nies Berlin, where like there are there is some 0:07:51.600 --> 0:07:53.920 really bad stuff that happens, but there's also this sort 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:56.120 of like there's a kind of general political chaos so 0:07:56.160 --> 0:07:59.080 you can get away with some stuff too that there's 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:01.840 actually there's another and pain in China in starts about 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:05.080 nineteen eighty three. Yeah, it's called the Strike Hard Campaign. 0:08:05.840 --> 0:08:08.800 Interestingly that there's there's actually two Strike Hard campaign So 0:08:08.800 --> 0:08:10.600 there's one of the eighties that's supposed to be this 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:13.440 campaign against like crime and stuff, and so like they 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:15.960 target a bunch of people who are like supposed to 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:18.640 be like social criminals, and then that winds up being 0:08:18.680 --> 0:08:20.480 a lot of like there's just there are just mass 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:22.640 arrest of gay people. They're in prison for a very 0:08:22.720 --> 0:08:26.680 very long time. Um yeah under Although that one's also 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:29.760 interesting because it's like you have very similar kind of reasoning, 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:31.760 but it's like but it's in this sort of like 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:36.880 dang like kind of revolutionary like phase where it's like 0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:39.000 instead of being instead of being a danger to the revolution, 0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:41.320 they're like sort of a danger to like traditional Chinese values, 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:46.160 which is interesting and bleak. Yeah, well, because like this 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:47.480 is one of the one of things happens in China, 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:49.880 writes it like in in you know there there is 0:08:49.920 --> 0:08:52.319 an attempt to sort of do more egalitarian like gender 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:54.400 relations during the Drean culture revolution between the sort of 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:57.319 like revolutionary period and then when Dane takes power, part 0:08:57.320 --> 0:08:58.679 of this thing is like, no, we're going back to 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:01.800 traditional gender relations. All of this egalitarian stuff was a mistake, 0:09:02.440 --> 0:09:03.760 and like this is part this is part of whether 0:09:03.800 --> 0:09:06.560 when child policy comes from But then also you get 0:09:06.600 --> 0:09:09.760 a really homophobic crackdown in like eighty three, like like 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:14.040 three or four years after sort of like he's actually 0:09:14.120 --> 0:09:17.400 weirdly almost exactly the same time that like the real 0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:20.240 sort of market reforms hit like like it's it's it's 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:22.280 like a year later is when the package that's sort 0:09:22.320 --> 0:09:24.840 of like really brings the market back to try to happen. 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:26.920 Is I don't. It's it's a very weird. Yeah, we 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:29.199 we have gotten gotten very off topic, but it's it's 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:32.000 a very weird and interesting sort of like social flip 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:35.439 that happens. Yeah, I'm sure, and that definitely makes me 0:09:35.600 --> 0:09:38.840 want to read more about like China during this period. Yeah, well, 0:09:38.920 --> 0:09:41.640 I think it's interesting, like like the over thing that 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:44.480 you're talking about earlier, that is interested, Like it's so 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:46.400 much to me as I've talked to like people from 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:49.520 Vietnam and they have a very similar story about like 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:51.160 like I mean there was homophobia before, but they have 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:53.280 a very similar story to the Cuban story about how 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:56.880 like there is this sort of importation of like Soviet 0:09:56.920 --> 0:10:00.199 homophobia and how that made everything like when then this 0:10:00.200 --> 0:10:06.280 starts out between the eighties and it gets just significantly worse. Yeah, No, 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:10.280 it's uh and in Cuba, Um, what's it called? Like 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:13.920 the whole idea that this is a form of bourgeois 0:10:14.000 --> 0:10:19.000 degeneracy and the gayness gayness is specifically bourgeois is like 0:10:19.320 --> 0:10:21.760 was really surprising to me as I dug into this, 0:10:21.960 --> 0:10:25.840 Like there's comics I in this thing I wrote, I 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:28.880 include a couple of them, but it's basically like it's 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:32.559 put up there with wanting to be in so leave 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:34.880 it at like free society in the West, and so 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:38.040 the West is it's like it's almost like a factionary 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:39.760 I mean, it is reaction, but I mean it's like 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:42.560 it's it's like a very weird, weird mirror of like 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:46.440 far right discourse because it's like the degeneracy of the West. Meanwhile, 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:49.680 here we have masculine values. I mean, did you even 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:52.640 see that type of rhetoric with We were talking about 0:10:52.679 --> 0:10:56.719 Alexander Dugan recently and he he is. I suppose there's 0:10:56.720 --> 0:10:59.480 a lot of that type of stuff as as as 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:01.360 well as the one who is you know, a fascist 0:11:01.400 --> 0:11:04.280 writer who's pulled on some of the national Bolshevik type 0:11:04.320 --> 0:11:08.560 stuff before. Um, yeah, you can attack attack gayness as 0:11:08.600 --> 0:11:12.360 it's like a sign of liberalism in the West as 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:16.440 like this like almost like a bourgeois tendency. Yeah, I forget, 0:11:16.480 --> 0:11:18.480 I forget who it was. There was someone on Twitter 0:11:18.520 --> 0:11:20.200 who was talking about there's like it's it's very interesting 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:23.680 thing like yeah like in in like in the US, 0:11:23.800 --> 0:11:26.000 like I don't know, like being like for a very 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:27.480 very long time. It's so kind of now you get 0:11:27.520 --> 0:11:30.240 this versus like like being gay, like is is you know, 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:31.960 like being queer as a sign of like you're a 0:11:31.960 --> 0:11:35.400 communist and you're like like a degenerate communistic et cetera. 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:38.480 And then you go to like Vietnam and it's like, oh, yeah, 0:11:38.480 --> 0:11:41.800 this person is gay there. They're they're they're degenerate Western 0:11:42.080 --> 0:11:44.840 like kind of revolutionary, and it's it's it's it's like 0:11:44.880 --> 0:11:48.479 it's always the same. The actual sort of like homophobic 0:11:48.520 --> 0:11:51.280 thing is the same. It's just like the signs are 0:11:51.280 --> 0:11:53.600 flipped of like what the other is and who you 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:56.440 can accuse them most sort of having the values of 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:00.520 I wonder if the unifying factor here is is and 0:12:00.559 --> 0:12:02.400 this is something I'm thinking of a lot, a lot 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:07.920 because of Other's book, which is that I mean greatness 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:11.720 as a disease, Yeah, an illness and so like that, 0:12:11.920 --> 0:12:14.320 so it allows you to glump onto it anything you 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:19.320 don't like from your own ideological prism. So I also 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:22.720 wonder a lot about how nationalism plays into it, because 0:12:23.480 --> 0:12:25.040 that's one of the things that happens in a lot 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:27.000 of these sort of revolutionary projects is like, yeah, like 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:28.760 the sort of ideal of the new man is sort 0:12:28.800 --> 0:12:32.880 of like a communist thing, but it's also like very 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:36.040 specifically something that you get with like with nationalist revolutions, 0:12:36.040 --> 0:12:38.040 where it's like, well, okay, so we like we we 0:12:38.040 --> 0:12:39.280 we have to like like part of part of it, 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:41.920 like the basis of our national identity is like we 0:12:42.000 --> 0:12:45.080 are these like incredibly sort of masculine hard man or whatever. 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:50.679 And then this like, I don't know, it strikes me. 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:55.240 It strikes me as interesting that like the further that 0:12:55.320 --> 0:13:00.000 sort of nationalism becomes entangled in like these revolutionary projects, 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:04.520 like the more you start to see this kind of stuff. Yeah, 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:08.160 and and definitely part of this is nationalism because it's 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:11.440 it's not just homophobia in Cuba in this context in 0:13:11.480 --> 0:13:14.760 the sixties, it's not just homophobia for the sake of homophobia. 0:13:14.960 --> 0:13:18.320 So there is that too, but it's it's also that 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:22.560 I don't think Fiddel Castro is entirely lying when he 0:13:22.640 --> 0:13:24.880 says that it was part of the need to mobilize 0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:27.840 as much of society as possible for the economy. What's 0:13:27.840 --> 0:13:30.480 happening in Cuba in the nineteen sixties is basically the 0:13:30.520 --> 0:13:35.080 economy is going into a meltdown. Um. The economic policies 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:38.880 that they're enacting have not been working. They've burned through 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:43.640 any surplus they had in nine including good will surpluses 0:13:43.720 --> 0:13:46.800 and a couple of respects. Uh. And I think that 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:49.880 like some people point to like the new Man and 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:53.680 people will work for moral incentives, not material incentives, as 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:55.960 just this naive thing. And then I think the most 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:59.000 convincing counter argument is they didn't have anything else to 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:01.800 incentivize people. Yeah, people, people mate this this this is 0:14:01.800 --> 0:14:03.960 a this is like basically there's an identical like argument 0:14:03.960 --> 0:14:06.080 that you get about the culture Revolution, where like you 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:09.400 start to see these like incentives are like maw will 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:11.800 like give you a mango or something, or like you 0:14:11.840 --> 0:14:13.720 have these like pins that you get and and like 0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:15.760 it it's it could like yeah, it's it's it's very 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:17.079 it's like the same thing of like you have these 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:20.000 rewards that are sort of like, yeah, there's sort of 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:24.040 like spiritual almost or sort of like a spiritual ideological 0:14:24.040 --> 0:14:26.960 rewards and then eventually like kind of just stops working 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:28.560 because it turns out that's not actually a very good 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:33.920 basis for economic system. Do you guys know the old 0:14:34.000 --> 0:14:36.920 joke about check Givada when he was given a sign 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:40.960 to become the Minister of the banks. I don't know 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:45.200 the joke. I know the thing about like he was 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:49.440 my my my vague memory is like the story that 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:50.880 I heard was like he signed his name like really 0:14:50.880 --> 0:14:52.800 sloppy on it because he was piste off that like 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:55.160 he had to put his face on money or something. 0:14:55.200 --> 0:14:57.280 But I have no idea that's that's that's that part's 0:14:57.280 --> 0:14:59.360 actually true. He did. He hated money so much he 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:01.120 refused to sign his actual name. He just signed his 0:15:01.200 --> 0:15:04.720 nickname as like just to show his disdain for for 0:15:04.720 --> 0:15:08.960 for economics. But at a meeting that the old jocos 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:10.960 And this is something that Chad apparently like to tell 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:13.760 as well, even if it's not necessarily true that at 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:15.560 the meeting where they were deciding who's going to become 0:15:15.600 --> 0:15:19.840 the minister of what, uh they said, uh, who here 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:22.600 is an economist and he raises his hand and everyone 0:15:22.600 --> 0:15:24.880 goes to Chay. But you're a doctor, You're not an economist. 0:15:25.000 --> 0:15:29.120 Is this Oh I thought you asked for a communists 0:15:29.720 --> 0:15:35.040 like so yeah, no, I mean chair and and I 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:37.360 think I've heard arguments. I'm not an expert on chat, 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:39.800 but I've heard that he was actually pretty heavily influenced 0:15:39.840 --> 0:15:42.200 by China, really compared to the U. S. S. R. 0:15:42.240 --> 0:15:46.560 Helan closes in China. Yeah, that actually that actually gets 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:47.760 and make I think I think, I guess that kind 0:15:47.800 --> 0:15:51.120 of makes sense given his sort of like like the 0:15:51.520 --> 0:15:53.720 way his military strategy seems to have worked, which is 0:15:54.000 --> 0:15:57.120 very very much like a lot closer to sort of 0:15:57.160 --> 0:16:00.760 like MAOIs strategy than Wow, okay, I mean, I'm gonna 0:16:00.800 --> 0:16:03.680 put Soviet strategy and quotation marks because oh my god, 0:16:03.880 --> 0:16:10.200 is there like the I have. I have a very negative, 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:13.240 a very dim view of of sort of the military 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:16.760 strategy of people who are of like guerrilla organizations who 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:18.840 are taking their military trying directly from the Soviet Union. 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:20.600 It's a lot of like We're gonna build up one giant, 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:21.840 I mean in a place and one day they're going 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:29.800 to roll into the capital and it's like this okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:16:29.920 --> 0:16:34.400 that make that makes sense? Um, okay, yeah, raining, raining 0:16:34.440 --> 0:16:37.760 myself in a little bit. We have these basically labor 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:40.760 camps that gay people are getting put into. We have 0:16:41.920 --> 0:16:45.880 kind of a material basis for it, which is and 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:47.480 this is one of the things that like people actually 0:16:47.600 --> 0:16:49.880 use as a defense of sort of like like, well, 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:51.840 we had to put these people in these camps because 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:54.960 of our matrial conditions, which I think, like I feel 0:16:54.960 --> 0:16:56.600 like that makes it worse. Like I feel like the 0:16:56.600 --> 0:16:58.480 fact that there's a there's a material basis for your 0:16:58.480 --> 0:17:01.160 homophobia like makes it harder to get rid of and 0:17:01.160 --> 0:17:03.720 makes it like a more entrenched part of the system, 0:17:03.760 --> 0:17:07.440 which I don't know, bizarre defense to me. But yeah, 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:09.640 can we talk a bit about like because like how 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:12.240 how did this actually end and to what extent did 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:13.920 it end? And did it sort of like have this 0:17:14.000 --> 0:17:19.439 like half life afterwards? Sure? So, so these last for 0:17:19.480 --> 0:17:21.639 a couple of years. This is not like a flash 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:24.480 in the pan like oops are bad kind of like 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:27.080 you know, six months in This is like a series 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:31.560 of multiple work camps across the province of Come a Way, 0:17:31.600 --> 0:17:34.480 which is in central Cuba, and they last for three 0:17:34.600 --> 0:17:39.720 years and there's pushback during this period, domestic pushback, international pushback, 0:17:39.800 --> 0:17:43.199 like people have been complaining about it for exactly what 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:47.600 the definitive thing that got them the few mock closed 0:17:47.600 --> 0:17:50.600 specifically close sort of. The UNIDA is mely that is 0:17:50.680 --> 0:17:53.800 the au Ala rugs showing military units to aid production. 0:17:54.520 --> 0:17:58.600 So the Umak themselves, which are open from nine sixty eight, 0:17:58.960 --> 0:18:02.040 they do eventually get close and sixty eight people are freeding, 0:18:02.119 --> 0:18:05.040 you know, like you know, the camps are closed and 0:18:05.520 --> 0:18:11.280 uh people are sent home and um. There are varying stories. 0:18:11.520 --> 0:18:15.320 I have looked through like trade tried to trace as 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:19.280 many stories as I can get um uh and even 0:18:19.400 --> 0:18:22.119 even people who like we're participants have different stories. So 0:18:22.160 --> 0:18:25.119 like I remember Carlos Frankie, who was one of a 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:28.600 position figure. He has one story that centers himself in 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:32.640 the closure. Other stories say that it was the international pressure. 0:18:32.960 --> 0:18:36.240 Other stories say that it was the Right Writers and 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:39.320 Artists Union, the official one, the state one, the NIAC, 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:42.560 which filed enough complaints and that convinced Fidel to get 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:47.240 it closed down. UM. That anecdote is actually from Maddie 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:53.800 Glass Iglesias Dad Josse Glesias, who wrote about Yeah his grandfather, 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:59.000 his grand his communist grandfather. Um. But he who actally 0:18:59.000 --> 0:19:00.560 who wrote a book about the six It's he's an 0:19:00.600 --> 0:19:04.760 interesting guy. But anyway, so the camps get closed one 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:06.680 way or another, and I don't think we're gonna ever 0:19:06.760 --> 0:19:11.040 know the definitive answer until like there's actually classification. But 0:19:11.880 --> 0:19:16.080 they're closed. But the thing is um. While the camps 0:19:16.119 --> 0:19:21.840 get closed, we have reports from different people, including some 0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:24.960 of the sources that are used as apologia for the 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:31.240 MOP saying wait wait wait. Social disgrace units keep existing 0:19:31.440 --> 0:19:34.280 well into the early nineteen seventies, and so we do 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:38.360 have sporadic reports of things like this happening where seminarists 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:41.240 are sense to religious people for for being atheists, are 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:44.280 certain for not being atheists. Uh, you know, gay people 0:19:44.320 --> 0:19:47.640 are being sent other people mighty one ados, So people 0:19:47.680 --> 0:19:50.920 who spoked smoke pot, you know, anyone who's seen as 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:54.640 like not conforming into this ideal new man you're sent 0:19:54.680 --> 0:19:57.000 there in the labor is supposed to reform you. And 0:19:57.040 --> 0:19:59.000 that's that's a key part of this. It's not just 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:05.119 as punishment's labor as ideological reform. There's even one of 0:20:05.160 --> 0:20:07.400 the people, some of the people in one camp say 0:20:07.440 --> 0:20:11.640 that there was a sign that says work will make 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:19.240 you men Jesus. Oh no, yeah, like work will set 0:20:19.280 --> 0:20:22.679 you free. Yeah, it's uh so, so the camps do 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:27.600 contain seem to continue and Um, it's it definitely seems 0:20:27.600 --> 0:20:31.240 to be the case that, uh, you know, gay people 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:34.960 do continue to be arrested for being gay, even though 0:20:35.400 --> 0:20:38.800 the intensity of this does die down by the nineteen seventies. 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:42.600 There's something pretty bad that also happens in the nineteen seventies, 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:45.480 but it's a slightly different project. It's not as centered 0:20:45.480 --> 0:20:51.080 on force labor. So yeah, and I guess so the yeah, 0:20:51.080 --> 0:20:53.199 the thing that you wrote this piece about that I 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:55.320 actually probably mentioned that is one of the things we're 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:57.679 talking about is you you wrote a very long piece 0:20:57.800 --> 0:21:04.080 about Um called factually Based, which is about sort of 0:21:04.200 --> 0:21:07.480 the kind of mythology that developed in the US about 0:21:07.520 --> 0:21:10.439 like how these camps were closed and the sort of 0:21:10.480 --> 0:21:14.480 like apology around it, and a lot of this is 0:21:14.600 --> 0:21:20.239 based on Leslie Feinberg, which is depressing in a lot. 0:21:20.680 --> 0:21:25.359 Leslie Feinberg, people who don't know, is like one of 0:21:25.440 --> 0:21:30.040 one of the most important like trans authors ever. UM 0:21:30.400 --> 0:21:33.720 wrote Stone, which Blues, which is like if you've ever 0:21:33.840 --> 0:21:38.720 been in like any sort of like queer trend scene 0:21:38.840 --> 0:21:47.240 you probably know about or possibly have read, And she wrote, 0:21:49.359 --> 0:21:53.119 m M, not a great account of this. Yeah, do 0:21:53.119 --> 0:21:54.960 you want to talk a bit about what what this 0:21:55.600 --> 0:21:57.800 was and how people have sort of used it in 0:21:57.800 --> 0:22:01.960 different ways? Sure? So, Like for years I heard like 0:22:02.320 --> 0:22:04.280 arguments from this book and I didn't know they were 0:22:04.320 --> 0:22:07.560 from this I just saw people sharing online online and thinking, 0:22:07.600 --> 0:22:09.600 where the hell are people getting this? This is not 0:22:10.320 --> 0:22:13.199 this is not true, And eventually I find out that 0:22:13.240 --> 0:22:16.320 it's It dates back to this book called Rainbow Solidarity 0:22:16.400 --> 0:22:20.639 and Defensive Cuba by Leslie Finberg, was written mid to 0:22:20.720 --> 0:22:25.800 late two thousand's UM. Really it's not a book, it's 0:22:25.800 --> 0:22:30.880