III: An experience to build future Between 13 and 15 March III Critical Observatory performed annually organized by the Chair Haydee Santamaria in coordination and in sponsored by the Association Hermanos Saiz (AHS) in Havana Province. The camping "Boca de Jaruco, on the banks of the river wetland Jaruco, on the north coast, 70 km east of the capital, a piece of original nature in the midst of oil fever has triggered the Cuban State in the area-was a coherent scenario for the purposes of the Centre as the main issues focused on tangible and intangible heritage, local actors and social management of environmental issues in contemporary Cuba.
Driven by the intention of assembling the exercise of critical culture, knowledge of social sciences and socio-cultural management, in order to get in touch and coordinate a network of young managers and promoters, teachers of the humanities, researchers social, creative and active community activists, with practical resources, not waiting for better times, the Observatory was reaffirmed as one of the most healthy living and non-competitive spaces generated by Criticism and Research Section of the AHS in the country.
There were four sessions. The first morning focused on the social management of environmental issues, featuring "social and environmental impact of oil wells in Santa Cruz del Norte" student Carlos M. Gonzalez Ramirez, who analyzed the implications of these new productions on communities and the nature of the region, operating cycles that end, state efforts to mitigate and potential non-polluting alternative energy in the region.
then presented Marfrey Leyva Youth Environmental Network, whose perspective is to articulate the environmental thought and action in the Cuban context, it works more than 5 years along with others, an opportunity that was also used to analyze in depth the environmental policy of the Cuban State, contradictions , structural constraints and ideological similarities with the industrial development in its variants and bureaucratic capitalists.
After a frugal lunch and an active break with the cool waters of the river, began the afternoon session, with the presentation of the documentary "The Stone of Mercy: Rescuing a popular tradition in Melena del Sur", by Yoel Rodríguez Enrique (And Luanda Hernández, who could not attend), originally a thesis project at the Faculty of Social and Cultural Development of the municipality, these activists were discovering their potential not only to revive local traditions, weakened by years of official atheism - but also to encourage new local cultural venues.
"Local Development Project from rural tourism" was the paper presented by Yaditza Montoya Rodriguez, of the Agrarian University of Havana, who addressed the socio-economic potential of the region from a rural tourism-oriented urban worker vacationer . It is widely reported multiple benefits of such activity, but also were discussed by the attendees the necessary policy changes that should be encouraged with regard to municipalities, tourism and leisure, now managed centrally and homogenizing.
The teachers of History at the Pedagogical Institute of Guantánamo Yudelis Aymara Fernandez Echevarria Brook and brought to the Centre's presentation, "The cultural imprint of the Catalans in Guantanamo," a track that led to a broad dialogue about the region-known for Most Cubans, "where events took top rankings in the history of Cuba: the persistence of a strong Aboriginal cultural heritage, the literary movement that led Regino Boti early twentieth century, the peasant uprising of Realengo protolibertario 18, or Trotskyist current Guantanamo remarkable, perhaps unique in the country. Participants stressed the need to study the cultural processes from the wider social conflicts that cross into Cuban society at all periods, taking into account that the Catalan presence at Guantánamo was simultaneous with other immigration invisible by the Cuban cultural colonialism: the of Haitians, a key sector in the formation of popular culture and proletarian Guantanamo.
The afternoon session ended with the teacher talk Fyodor Rodríguez, Professor of American History at the School Latin American Medicine, who addressed an issue seemingly disconnected from those previously discussed: the State's action in history in the Andean peasant from pre-Inca times to the emergence of Shining Path guerrilla movement in Peru, and the role of peasant communities in the Ayacucho region in self-management of conflict resolution that led to guerrilla activity inside it. This presentation made a difference, because it allowed us to articulate an alternative information flow about the realities and Latin American history that transcends the governmental use, allowing us to locate our local issues in a regional international perspective.
Then we take the completion of the session to give the prize Chair Haydee Santamaria three young teachers, artists and cultural activists for their work customary in 2008: Willay Mendez, Erasmo Calzadilla and Heredia Nayibis
The night could have been more useful, but was unable to give it another dynamic, beyond the standard bachateo camping, as most of the participants of the Centre became the minority stayed in Havana and coexistence with other attendees on site, which was not an obstacle to interact from person to person and exchange ideas and experiences.
Morning day 15 showed promise and sunny after a night that brought a slight drizzle. 10:30 am Before the bus arrived with participants at the second day of the Critical Monitoring, Saturday, at last, almost doubling the attendance of participants and wishes to interact and dialogue were in the air.
Around 11:00 am, we agree on an agenda for the third session of the workshop and decided to start with the presentations of the Ranger, boat, and the little train. Many things distinguish these projects, but rather unites them: the will to exercise autonomy in the projections, even on the basis of tight labor agreements explicitly instantiated www.cubarte.cult.cu hierarchical as in the case of boat, or the Provincial Directorate of Culture in Havana for the Ranger. This last resort and the train, in different ways, reached important common ground. The first began as a valuable alternative newsletter, produced by Isbell Diaz on ecological depredations that occur daily in the country, as well as promotion of ecological thinking, which inevitably led to the need to localize such efforts in the framework huge urban area of \u200b\u200bSan Agustin in the municipality of La Lisa, last year celebrated there on Earth Day, which involved to local children in planting trees and a children's party for the day.
The Project Trencito from the house of Yadira Rubio and Ernesto Lopez, a housing site adjacent to the Almendares River, in the Vedado peripheral again participated in the Centre to give an account of the development for more than 15 years, a sustained and enriching experience working with children from non-competitive games that promote solidarity, creativity and work collectively. This is all a source and a critical reference to multiply efforts in this direction, at a time when signs of exhaustion growing school system in the country, from the uniform trend, and instructivists competivives.
These issues led the session directly to the presentations of the work of visual artists and Damian Bandin Rodolfo Peraza. The first game piece with Formal Education Manual, a work that makes the already "classic" book in a gaming experience accessible to children and adults that allows them to deconstruct the textual and symbolic scaffolding that organizes the social disciplining of children . The player must shoot with a "gun" against the text of the manual. A job that drew applause to show surprise and excitement in the present, while said the need to socialize the work, despite being inserted, assessed and recorded in the international art circuit, which precludes their total free distribution.
Alamar, a city of the future is the name of the documentary by Damien Bandin and was presented at the Centre, almost parallel to the time when the Festival of Documentary Santiago Alvarez of Santiago de Cuba, the play received several awards in that event. The relevance of this work to the discussions of the Observatory was total, when considering a look at the historicity of Alamar project anchored in the perspective of the neighbors who lived from the beginning, revealing a story interwoven with the unexpectedly large Cuban state plans in the decades of 70 and 80, making palpable in a very concrete case the effects of these processes in the socialization of several generations of Cubans.
The presence of collective Americas Study Group, also was felt in the III Centre, with the introduction of Australian documentary Shamans of the Amazon, which above shows different views that are behind the conflict between the companies (state and private) predatory the environment and American indigenous communities, a conflict that involves an understanding of the nature antagonistic, the place of humans in the cycles of life and forms of interaction society and nature are at stake, what the documentary was revealing from conflicting understandings that native peoples on the one hand, and national governments and companies have around one of the most legendary Amazonian plants such as knowledge ayahuasca.
The virulence of this clash, which documented a very experienced and that this material was reviewed at the meeting, is increased even more if we consider the profound crisis, officially recognized by several governments in the region, which have the government policies to combat drugs, on the one hand, and the comprehensive plans for economic growth, on the basis plunder the large and fragile ecosystems of the region, which is being revived in the area, including governments like Venezuela, involved in an escalating conflict with indigenous Yukpa, Bari and Wayuu de la Sierra de Perija.
The last two sessions of the Centre were condensed into a single organic. The original idea of \u200b\u200bthe organizing team was a session of presentations on various topics, which would realize the different trends and thematic lines of research within the field of AHS. Fortunately, the creative chaos did his job and the mere presence of the presentations and Ahmed Correa Dmitri Prieto, two seemingly unrelated issues such as the revolution transdominación Haiti and the incidence of burglary in the juvenile prison population in Havana, created an atmosphere of dialogue that led directly to the workshop on the teaching of social sciences in Cuba today, evaluating positive experiences that are occurring in the municipalization of the university, who are ignoring the basic spray and formalism rampant with operating our institutions. The need to articulate a community base to connect the local and national emerged as something urgent. The session closed with the presentation of audiovisual Road to Coco Solo Mario Castillo and Henry Morato, documenting work with children in this neighborhood recover based on local historical memory.
Critical Monitoring The third is an example of the potential of AHS as space for creation and articulation of the collective work of young artists in the country, as well as project sustainability denotes Chair Haydee Santamaria, a generation change avocado , and a restatement of his work for almost 8 years of its creation account of enlargement and deepening.
Mario Castillo & Dmitri Prieto, members of the Chair Haydee Santamaria
