Pablo Milanés, who died in Madrid on Tuesday (22nd) at the age of 79, was a cultural reference for the Cuban socialist system and the Latin American left.
Founder of the Nueva Trova movement along with Silvio Rodríguez and Noel Nicola, he devoted part of his musical repertoire to the ideas generated by the 1959 revolution led by Fidel Castro.
But although the Castro regime lasts to this day, support for one of its reference artists has waned.
Over the years, Milanés has labeled the island’s government “repressive”, called socialism a “failure” and called for a transition from the current oneparty system to democracy.
A “too liberal” revolutionary
Milanés, who has been prominent in television programs and singing groups since childhood, witnessed the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in his early teens.
Pablo Milanés in June 2022 at his last recital in Havana
Image: Getty Images
The son of a military man and a seamstress, he turned, like many young people of his time, to the ideals of humanism and social justice proposed by the new regime after the fall of the dictatorship of Fulgêncio Batista (19521959).
“The origin lies in what Cuba meant to the world in 1959. I was 15 years old and immersing myself in the social reality of Latin America, I became a revolutionary,” he explained in a 2015 interview with the Spanish newspaper El País.
In the 1960s, marked by the intensification of the Cold War between the United States and the USSR (Soviet Union), Cuba adopted the Soviet model and with it its inflexible cultural policy.
“Pablito was among those who defended the originality of the Cuban Revolution; an originality that was questioned after the alliance with the Soviet Union that marked the end of critical thinking,” Cuban political scientist Carlos Alzugaray tells BBC News Mundo, the BBC’s Spanishlanguage news service.
“Although they supported the revolution, these people saw things differently, they were more libertarian and focused on individual rights,” he adds.
forced labor camp
So one day in 1966, agents of the regime turned up at the home of Pablo Milanés.
“They deceived me and told me that I was drafted into military service. And in fact I was sent to a concentration camp,” the singer recalled in a 2020 documentary about his musical career.
He was one of tens of thousands of young people sent to the UMAP (Military Units for Production Aid), forced labor camps where homosexuals, religious people, artists and rebellious intellectuals were imprisoned; finally those who, in the words of Milanés himself, were considered “despicable”.
The singer recalled the UMAP where he fled to be arrested again as a “brutal” period in which he was the victim of abuse and forced to work tirelessly from dawn to dusk.
Decades later, he repeatedly berated the Cuban government for never apologizing.
most revolutionary phase
In any case, after his release, Pablo Milanés consolidated not only as a singer and founder of Nueva Trova, but also as one of the main voices of the Latin American left movement that promoted and defended the regime of Fidel Castro.
“Bolívar gave birth to a star that shone with Martí / Fidel paid tribute to him / Wandering through these lands,” says his famous 1976 Canción por launitad latinoamericana, which toured the continent.
Rightwing military dictatorships in countries such as Chile, Argentina and Uruguay shaped the 1970s in Latin America, which is why leftwing ideas with Cuba as a reference captivated a large part of the youth in the region.
Many of them listened to Milanés, Silvio Rodríguez and other Nueva Trova singers, who devoted part of their music and efforts to promoting socialism, establishing themselves as references of the socalled “protest song”.
Milanés (second from left) with Joan Manuel Serrat, Luis Eduardo Aute, Kiko Veneno and Silvio Rodríguez in Madrid in 1983
Image: Getty Images
Though most of his songs speak of love and only a minority allude to politics, the next decade of the 1980s was one of Pablo’s growth and consolidation, not only as an artist but also as a cultural icon of the Cuban cause.
“It will be better to sink into the sea / than to betray the glory lived,” he sang in “Cuando te encontré” (1989), a song iconic to the revolutionaries of the island at the time.
disappointment
The 1990s were a turbulent time for Cuba, which, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, its greatest benefactor, plunged into a deep economic crisis — and for many, an existential crisis — known as the Special Period.
Although he was a member of Cuba’s National Assembly of People’s Power (parliament) earlier in the decade, Milanés soon began to openly express his differences with the regime.
“I’m a flagbearer for the revolution, not for the government. When the revolution gets stuck, becomes orthodox, reactionary, contrary to the ideas that produced it, you have to fight,” the artist said in one of his first critical statements.
Milanés in Cuba in 1998
Image: Getty Images
He later explained this change of position, which came as a surprise to many: “In 1992 I was convinced that the Cuban system had definitely failed and I denounced it.”
“I was disappointed as a revolutionary because they insisted on proceeding with an issue that hasn’t worked and hasn’t worked until now,” he claimed.
final round
After the special period, Milanés continued to criticize the Cuban government, but he never stopped considering himself a leftist, and even in 2006 he sent a message of loyalty to a recovering Fidel Castro (who eventually recovered and would not die ten years later). .
“I promise to represent you and the Cuban people as this moment deserves: with unity and courage in the face of any threat or provocation. A hug, Pablo Milanés,” he wrote to the President, according to the official Cuban newspaper Granma.
Pablo Milanés in the Plaza del Zócalo in Mexico City in 2000
Image: Getty Images
In the decade that followed, the artist expressed his admiration for more moderate leftwing leaders in the region, such as former Uruguayan President José Mujica.
At the same time, the winner of two Latin Grammys for best album by a singersongwriter (2006) and musical excellence (2015) sharpened his tone in his criticism of the Cuban authorities.
“Stalinism is still in force and repression prevents street protests; the strike is impossible because there are no independent unions and the Cuban press is either silent or complicit,” he said in a 2015 TV interview.
The Cuban government, however, did not retaliate through the entry and exit bans it frequently imposes on other critical voices and Milanés, who lived in Madrid in his final years, often visited Havana, where he did what he did last June belonged to last show on the island.
Cuban President Miguel DíazCanel even dedicated an emotional obituary to him.
There is death, Pablo, we read to wake up this Martes #Russia y el dolor llega con la noticia.
One of our greatest musicians is physically disappearing. Voice inseparable from the soundtrack of our generation.
My condolences to his widow and sons #Cuba🇧🇷 pic.twitter.com/fZzJ0mqb1V
Miguel DíazCanel Bermúdez (@DiazCanelB) November 22, 2022
For political scientist Carlos Alzugaray, Pablo Milanés “is a very important figure for Cubans and the government has realized that it has no choice but to embrace him, even though some of the things he said worry him.”