The Cuban Revolution has undeniably taken a monumental step forward toward the total emancipation of the oppressed. As this paper reported, Cuba’s new Family Code “is, in no uncertain terms, the most progressive and comprehensive law in history, anywhere on Earth, with regard to the emancipation of women, LGBT people, children, the elderly, and disabled people.”
But not everyone is celebrating. The Western capitalist press, serving as the propaganda arm of U.S. imperialism, is desperately sputtering and stumbling over itself to drown out any celebration of revolutionary Cuba’s historic victory. To this end, the capitalist press is peddling a multifaceted, deeply incoherent narrative — a cacophony of anti-Communist propaganda, joined by such vaunted outfits as the Associated Press, The New York Times, and Reuters. Various anti-Communist NGOs funded by the imperialists — the usual suspects, like CIVICUS and the NED — have also crawled out of the woodworks.
Most have focused on dampening Cuba’s world-historic victory by oversimpliyfing the new Family Code as “legalizing gay marriage.” At the same time, any hint of faint praise for revolutionary Cuba is carefully qualified by attacking the revolution for a “slow” pace of progress, despite the fact that revolutionary Cuba has already outpaced every country in the Americas, and most countries in the world, in the struggle for LGBT emancipation.
As we reported in the Red Clarion, Cuba’s new Family Code does, in fact, enshrine marriage equality as law — but it does so much more than “just” that.
The new Family Code is a comprehensive legal code, laying out the legal dimensions of families, children and the elderly, women, LGBT people, and disabled people. It is uniquely progressive in the world on every front. We could go on, but we will instead encourage readers to read our full summary of the new Family Code.
Yet, the Family Code has been oversimplified in the capitalist press of the United States and other Western countries as something resembling the U.S. Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision, which tenuously legalized same-sex marriage in the U.S. — and which is now on the verge of being overturned by the current Court, dominated by far-right fascist Trump-appointees.
So, why the oversimplifications?
The capitalist press has been forced to acknowledge the most widely known and reported aspect of the Family Code: marriage equality. But the capitalists can still subtly manipulate public perceptions by “failing” to thoroughly report the facts surrounding the popular referendum — to “tell the whole truth.”
The more rabidly anti-Communist outlets accuse the Cuban government of forcing an “unwanted” Code on the people, despite the fact that the Code was passed in a popular referendum. Hardly a single capitalist news outlet, even the “moderates,” can admit that the popular referendum expressed the political will of the people. Instead, the capitalist press explains away the new Family Code’s popularity by denying the political agency of Cuba’s people.
One of the news agencies most obviously guilty of this is Reuters. “Cubans Split over Liberal Family Code as Referendum Nears” — this was the headline of an article, published by Reuters in March 2022, in the lead-up to the popular referendum. The article baselessly asserts that, “Tepid support for the reforms … threatens to hand state-backed supporters a defeat,” citing as its source three so-called “experts.” One of these “experts,” who works for a German state-sponsored think-tank, falsely claimed that the Family Code had been, “compiled by state authorities, rather than being a grassroots movement.” In fact, the Family Code underwent multiple, significant alterations in accordance with suggestions voiced by the public at the nearly 80,000 grassroots community meetings held during the four-month-long public consultation process leading up to the referendum.
We hardly need to point out now that the predictions of Reuters and its “experts,” that the new Family Code would be rejected, were predictably and embarrassingly wrong: The Code was instead ratified by a two-thirds supermajority.
The more conspiracy theory-minded are coping and seething with the assertion that the popular referendum was really a sham effort by the Communist Party of Cuba to “stabilize the regime.” For instance, the Miami Herald cites nameless (likely fictitious) sources to paint the popular referendum as “a smokescreen for a government that is in desperate need of … legitimacy.” The truth, of course, is that the Cuban government enjoys the support of the overwhelming majority of Cubans, and therefore already has “legitimacy” by any truly democratic standard; this is not changed by the fact that an insignificant minority of Cubans oppose the revolution and the Communist Party.
Reuters also indulges in its share of conspiracy theories. In an article headlined “Cuba Uses Media Blitz to Promote ‘Yes’ on New LGBT-Friendly Laws,” published a few days before the vote, Reuters accused the Communist Party of “flooding state-run media with stories and celebratory images” of LGBT people and putting up “roadside billboards touting diversity,” all in order to convince the Cuban public to support the new Family Code’s historically unprecedented expansion of LGBT rights. (How truly evil, those Communists!) The conspiracy theorists at Reuters claimed that the Communist Party’s mass public education campaign on LGBT rights, launched in the months leading up to the referendum vote, was an underhanded effort to dupe the Cuban public and cover up “anger” and “widespread protests” — demonstrations which, in actuality, have at most attracted a few hundred paid activists in Havana.
Reuters only cites “analysts consulted by Reuters” to justify its conspiracy theories. One of these “analysts” is the same German sham “expert” Reuters consulted in the previous article, who makes the truly bizarre claim that, “many people will vote [out of] loyalty to the government, much more than on content” — as if Cubans were incapable of independent thought; as if the Cuban electorate wouldn’t vote “Yes” on the Family Code for the simple and obvious reason that the majority supports the rights of LGBT people, women, children, the elderly, and the disabled. This “expert” assertion that citizens of revolutionary socialist states are mindless robots is a classic anti-Communist smear. Another of these so-called “analysts” is a right-wing fascist “dissident” — the sort who are broadly ignored as irrelevant extremists by the Cuban public, but are beloved by the rabidly anti-Communist Western capitalist press as “pro-democracy activists.” Reuters quotes this “dissident” (who lives not in Cuba, but in Madrid, Spain) as actually advocating against the Family Code — against the expansion of LGBT and other rights — for no other reason than to “punish the regime.” The “dissident” takes off the “pro-democracy” mask and admits that anti-Communists are, in truth, against democracy and emancipation.
Why the baseless pessimism toward the people of Cuba? Why the sham “experts” stating easily disprovable falsehoods? Why the indulgence in conspiracy theories?
Doesn’t Reuters brand itself as a respected, trustworthy, “value-neutral,” and “objective” news agency?
Among other distortions appearing in the capitalist press is the widely-repeated line that the recent popular referendum was “rare” and “unusual” in Cuba — another easily disprovable falsehood. The Associated Press, for instance, released an article headlined, “Cuba Holds Unusual Vote on Law Allowing Same-Sex Marriage,” in which it characterized the referendum as a “rare” event. In fact, popular referenda are a normal feature of Cuba’s robust participatory democracy, and have been held many times in the past. The most recent such popular referendum was held in 2019, only 3 years ago, when an overwhelming 90.6% (with a voter turnout of 90.15%) of the electorate ratified Cuba’s new Constitution. The only “exceptional” aspect of this year’s popular referendum on Cuba’s new Family Code was the unprecedented level of public grassroots participation: The public consultation leading up to the referendum involved nearly 80,000 mass community meetings across Cuba and among Cubans living abroad, attended by a total of over 6.5 million Cubans (75.93% of the electorate).
Again, why the distortions? Isn’t the Associated Press one of the largest news agencies in the world, and isn’t it meant to be an “objective” source?
The fact is, the capitalist press cannot afford to admit the truth about Cuba. A two-sided pressure compels these agencies and outlets to manipulate, distort, falsify, and lie.
On the one hand, to tell the truth about revolutionary Cuba would force the capitalist press to acknowledge the progressive, democratic, and emancipatory nature of the Cuban Revolution — and, by extension, Communism. The mass media monopolists in the West will never allow this. The capitalists invest untold billions of dollars in their propaganda machines, because demonizing Communism is a crucial pillar of the capitalist class dictatorship. They must, at all costs, convince the oppressed that another world, free of exploitation, war, and all oppression, is impossible.
On the other hand, acknowledging the progressive, democratic, and emancipatory nature of the socialist revolution would expose a sharp contrast between the advancements of revolutionary Cuba and the reactionary backslides of the fascist U.S. Empire.
Let’s look specifically at the rights of LGBT people in the U.S. Empire today, and compare this abysmal situation with the progress of LGBT emancipation in Cuba.
So far this year, nearly 240 anti-LGBT bills have been filed in state governments across the U.S. Empire. In February 2022, Texas instituted a program denying life-saving medical care to transgender children, while threatening parents who accept and affirm their transgender children with prison sentences. Texas has been joined, to greater or lesser degrees, by the states of Alabama, Missouri, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, Utah, Idaho, and California — yes, even “liberal” California — all of which have passed (or are considering) laws banning medical care for transgender children in particular and transgender people generally. The states of Alabama, Minnesota, and Oklahoma are considering or have passed restrictions on the rights of same-sex families. In recent years, many of the same states have instituted laws that prohibit public school teachers from even discussing the existence of LGBT people. Across the country, we’ve seen LGBT pride parades and other events get attacked by cops and civilian-fascist demonstrators. At the center of it all, the current far-right Supreme Court, having overturned Roe v. Wade (the right to an abortion), is threatening to put marriage equality next on the chopping block. And it doesn’t stop there: In addition to entertaining challenges to the Obergefell decision, the far-right fascist wing of the Court has threatened to overturn the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision, which legalized homosexual intimate contact, and the 1967 Loving v. Virginia decision, which legalized inter-racial marriages.
This is the awful state of LGBT rights in the U.S. Empire. Meanwhile, only 90 miles away from U.S. shores, Cuba’s electorate has ratified the most progressive, comprehensive law regarding the rights of LGBT people — as well as women, children, the elderly, disabled people — and the nature of the family in world history.
The capitalists can’t allow this hypocrisy to be exposed, but it will be exposed, one defiant voice at a time, all the same. No anti-Communist cacophony can drown out the fact that Cuba is thriving, while the U.S. Empire continues to descend into fascism.
We must proclaim “Death!” to this fascist settler-colonial empire, and, in the same breath, proclaim, “Long live the revolution!”
Viva Cuba! Viva la revolución! Hasta la victoria siempre!
