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THIS summer offers a great opportunity to those of us who stand in solidarity with Cuba.
Last Saturday, in the spirit of Mark Ashton and Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM), we marched the banner Lesbians and Gays Support Cuba through the Edinburgh Pride parade, one of the first in a season that will last until November, with London, Leeds, Belfast, Glasgow, Newcastle, Brighton, Manchester et al. coming up in the next weeks.
Our banner was home-made, like the many cardboard signs, and unlike the corporate branding and commercial flags elsewhere. It was “definitely one of the biggest and most commanding in the parade” as one Pride-goer, Holly Welsh, co-founder of Dunfermline Creative Network, put it. “You were passionate and knowledgeable which made it easy to learn about the beauty of Cuban LGBTQ culture and the threats their communities are currently facing.”
We printed 1,000 leaflets with a simple description of the Cuban achievement.
“In September 2022, the Cuban people passed the most progressive LGBTQ legislation in the world. The right to marry. To inherit. To adopt… All of it! 67 per cent of the population voted for it in a referendum of the whole population. No other country has dared to do that and succeeded. Cuba is an example to us all!”
It also included information about the film A Week In The Sun that we made with the Cuban film-maker Hugo Rivalta at the time of the referendum vote, and which is available to watch and screen for free on YouTube.
And, as we marched, the astonishing thing was to discover how politically minded, how angry, and how eager to learn and stand in solidarity that vast, 40,000-strong crowd was. Many had re-purposed their Palestine solidarity placards into Pride slogans.
Pride, it seems, is dominated by a party spirit, by corporate branding (Lidl in Edinburgh’s case), and deafening music, and that is certainly how the mainstream media want you to see it. But it remains a political action. Everyone, from newbies to seasoned regulars are all marching with a shared cause: equality. These are the very rights that are now part of the Cuban constitution, but still piecemeal and contested everywhere else.
We had foreseen that from the outside, the banner would appear to show thousands marching in solidarity with Cuba. And so it turned out, with predictable results. Not one paper printed a single image of it (the Morning Star excepted), as though the notion that this vast crowd shared an international political agenda was impossible for them to stomach.
There is no desire in the media to recognise Cuba solidarity as a majority movement requiring government action.
So, the view from outside was censored.
But from within the perspective was completely different, as it must have been for LGSM in 1984: the message was both an example and a plea: Join us and support Cuba!
Speaking to fellow marchers, you could see how LGSM’s slogan and class politics resonated with the crowd. And when you get a crowd as big as that, its political instincts, willingness to learn, and ability to act cannot be underestimated.
What we did was to say: “LGBTQ rights in Cuba” and offer the leaflet, and it was plain that most people thought this must be about human rights abuse.
Then, when we explained that Cuba has the best LGBTQ legislation in the world because it had held a referendum and proved that the majority of Cuban people are tolerant, you could see the astonishment.
And then, when we explained that such a result demonstrated that in Cuba, if you have homophobic, transphobic or misogynist views, you are the minority. Imagine that. We are not the minority. They are the minority. Imagine the pleasure of explaining to a Pride parade that what the Cubans have done is to erase discrimination.
And now, of course, the whole country is being starved to death by the US.
“If you feel the solidarity, will you please sign the banner?”
The take-up and the enthusiasm were infectious, and the conversations extraordinary. We’ll never forget the Cuban who dived across the road to shake our hands, to raise his fist, and march alongside us.
I think we made his day, and he made ours, and by the evening we had retired to The Outhouse, a friendly bar that had agreed to knock the World Cup off their screens and show our film. It was surprisingly easy to do — and everyone is welcome to do it! — and it was gratifying to see Cuban faces and streets in an Edinburgh setting.
We set up the banner beside the screen, and Josephine, a trans activist, offered her view: “To present this message in this public arena is really important. It’s community arts. Everyone is taking it in, and thinking about it, and you know what: it’s for the first time!”
“The truth of what Cuba is has been lost in Western understanding. We have no clue — beyond cars and cigars — about everyday life in a revolutionary society. To see the film is a reminder that we share ambitions, dreams, and a common humanity. The revolution isn’t a historical fact. It’s ongoing. It’s a wake-up call!”
We had wondered how the slogan would go down with trans people when the struggle for trans rights occupies so much of the agenda of the march.
“I don’t have a problem with LGSC as a slogan,” she said. “Anything so strongly political stands there in its own right. I took it as inclusive. But…” she added, “it depends on who made it. The next banner might be different!”
Nicky, the manager of The Outhouse, asked us if he could keep the banner in the bar on permanent display. This was a simple piece of canvas that we had painted, marched, and asked people to sign, and suddenly, to our amazement, that process had turned it into a work of art.
The message caught the eye and “I do like the signatures,” he said, with a smile.
If you march with this slogan, or march in solidarity with Cuba, please share your photos by tagging us on our Instagram page: @lesbiansandgayssupportcuba
