11J: The Cuban exile keeps the cry of 11J alive in Madrid

Madrid/Five years after the protests July 11, 2021some of its protagonists found themselves again far from the streets where it all began. This time it was in Madrid, in a room in the Malasaña neighborhood, but with the same urgency as then: to remember the largest social outbreak that occurred in Cuba since 1959 and to denounce that the repression unleashed after that event has not ended. Under the motto “Today could be 11J”, Cuban civil society in exile calls for three days of activities in the Spanish capital to talk about memory, resistance, political prisoners and democratic future.

The first act was the conversation Five years later: memory, resistance and freedomheld this Thursday at the Casa del Cura Community Social Center. The event brought together activists, former political prisoners, human rights defenders and direct participants in the demonstrations that shook the Island five years ago, when thousands of Cubans took to the streets shouting “freedom” and “Homeland and Life.”

The moderation was carried out by Dayana Prieto, Cuban audiovisual producer and activist living in Madrid. Among the guests were Javier Larrondo, president of Prisoners Defenders; the art curator and artivist Solveig Font Martínez; the playwright Yunior García Aguilera; the filmmaker and activist Manuel Alejandro Rodríguez Yong, and Elías Rizo León, known as “the boy with the flag” for starring in one of the most symbolic images of those days.

The composition of the panel brought together several layers of 11J: the citizen protest, the immediate repression, prison, exile and the persistence of a memory that the Cuban regime tries to erase or reduce to a judicial file. Solveig Font and Yunior García were arrested during the rally in front of the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television in Havana, one of the points where the popular demand was mixed with the demand for freedom of expression and the rejection of official propaganda. Manuel Alejandro Rodríguez Yong was also detained during that day, while Elías Rizo had to remain hidden by his family until he managed to leave the country.

Testimonies also came from Cuba that reminded us that the wound of 11J is still open. Former political prisoner Alexander Díaz Rodríguez sent a message in which he insisted on the need not to forget those who were imprisoned for taking to the streets in July 2021 and to maintain international pressure to demand their release. His intervention built a bridge between the Madrid event and the reality of those, within the Island, who still face surveillance, harassment and the criminal consequences of that protest.

The message of Mailín Rodríguez Sánchez, wife of political prisoner Yosvani Rosell García, convicted for his participation in the 11J demonstrations, was also heard. His testimony put a familiar name and face at the cost of repression. In his voice, the anniversary stopped being a political date and became an intimate denunciation of the prolonged punishment against the protesters and their families.

One of the most unique moments of the meeting was the presentation of Caribbean Jacuzzi, an augmented reality installation by artist Yimit Ramírez. Through smart glasses, viewers could interact with a recreation of the overturned patrol car during the 9/11 protests and with the iconic image of the young man who, standing on top of the car, waved the Cuban flag in the middle of the crowd. The piece brought one of the most powerful visual symbols of those days to the exhibition space, not as a simple archival document, but as an immersive experience.

The scene took on an especially emotional charge when the protagonist of that image, Elías Rizo, put on his glasses and saw himself in the installation. The gesture condensed the distance between the historical moment and its memory: the young man who five years ago was established as a symbol of defiance now returned to that image from exile, converted at the same time into a witness, character and survivor of a protest that marked a generation.

At the end of the event, activist Yanelis Núñez made a live broadcast in which several participants expressed their concern about the situation of Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and they demanded their freedom. The Cuban artist and opposition member remains in the hands of State Security, despite having completed his unjust sentence this July 9. The direct functioned as a political epilogue to the day.

The activities will continue this Friday, July 10, at 5:00 in the afternoon, at the Casa de la Libertad of Cuba, with the colloquium Challenges for the Cuba to come. The meeting, moderated by Dr. Antonio Guedes, will shift the focus from the memory of 11J to the challenges of an eventual democratic transition, in a debate about the country that could rise after the regime and about the role of exile in that reconstruction.