When he was a boy, Washington Post Opinions contributor Abraham Jiménez Enoa's house in Havana was filled with photos of Fidel Castro and Che Guevera. His grandfather served as their bodyguard, and Guevera was the best man at his wedding. "Che Guevara was at my house, mojito in hand. I used to be a great believer, which is precisely what happens to many people," Jiménez Enoa says. "It wasn't that I believed that Cuba was a dictatorship since the day I was born. I opened my eyes little by little." The awakening came as he was detained by secret police, beaten and placed under house arrest simply for reporting the truth. Last year, after the largest protests in a generation rattled the government's control, authorities warned Jiménez Enoa to leave the country or they would "finish" what they started. He fled to Barcelona, which is where filmmaker Parjanya Christian Holtz sat down with him to record what would become "Outside the Revolution," a new Post Opinions short documentary premiering on the one-year anniversary of the July 11 protests. Holtz filmed Jiménez Enoa cobbling together a new life while grappling with how to help Cuba from so far away. He found activist and art historian Carolina Barrero in Madrid, facing similar questions. Their insight into the tactics the Cuban government has used to silence and control people for 60 years is chilling. Through our short documentaries, we aim to shed light on both the real and intangible threats to freedom that are pervasive globally. We produced this project in both English and Spanish to leave as many viewers as possible with an appreciation of how risky it can be to confront official narratives and correct the record. (Yamil Lage/AFP via Getty Images) In Cuba, hundreds of innocent people are in prison because they dared to demand freedom. Exiles are still fighting from abroad. By Parjanya Christian Holtz ● Read more » | | | |
No comments:
Post a Comment