Christ, Working for Peace in Cuba

 Last week, I heard something on the radio that chilled me to the bone. Before describing the story, let me say what it brought to mind. It was a trip to Perico, a small city in the Matanzas province, where I saw a sculpture I had been wanting to see for a long time, "Cristo Obrero" (Worker Christ), by the Matanzas artist Agustín Drake (beside me in the photo). The work had been commissioned by the people of Perico as a means of giving thanks to God for miraculously saving their lives. The miracle happened on February 18, 1960, when a U.S. Civil Air Patrol bomber, piloted by Robert Ellis Frost and Robert Kelly, mysteriously exploded in mid-air and crashed just outside the city of Perico before reaching its site for dropping the bombs, a sugar mill called Central España. The only victims of this bombing raid were the two pilots who died in the crash. This was the 30th such air raid US planes had made that year, all aimed at destroying the new revolutionary government's sugar cane industry, and leaving untold victims in its wake. The people of Perico saw the crashed plane as a sign of God's divine intervention, saving countless lives. The young sculptor, Agustín Drake, molded the body of the Christ figure as a strong worker, with facial features reminiscent of the revolutionary hero Camilo Cienfuegos, only shortening the long beard.

Back to the radio. I was on my way to the hospital for a visit, and decided to do something I hadn't done in a long time. I flipped the radio over to an A.M. station, to listen in to the right-wing talk shows and see how they are spinning the news of the week. I tuned in to a show by two guys who have taken over Rush Limbaugh's spot, Clay Travis and Buck Sexton. I happened to tune in just as they were in the middle of a light-hearted banter over the call for US military intervention in Cuba. The mayor of Miami, along with lots of Cuban-Americans on social media, were advocating for the military to respond to the S.O.S. in the aftermath of last Sunday's street demonstrations, to go in and take down the Cuban government. What chilled me was the playful tone of their conversation, the cold-hearted way they tossed out the options for armed intervention. And then came the clincher— a listener called in to play devil's advocate and make the argument for not sending in the troops. He argued that Cuba was not worth it; the tiny island poses no threat and he didn't want to lose the life of a single soldier for an island that really means nothing to us. Clay and Buck had a ready answer for him, something like— "You're right, but listen, we're not talking Bay of Pigs; there won't be any ground troops. Think Kosovo— we'll blast them with air raid bombings, without a single US casualty." The radio hosts then fantasized about a post-intervention Cuba, secured in our capitalist realm, and how the island could be rebuilt and return to the playground status it had in the pre-Revolution 1940s and 50s. They anticipated that lots of money would be made in the process.

The churches in Cuba are not as clear on how God is working these days. Some of the religious leaders, primarily those with fundamentalist tendencies, are publicly flouting the prohibitions of mass gatherings due to the raging pandemic. They are also flouting the anti-sedition and anti-insurrection laws and are calling for the downthrow of the government. The fundamentalists label any church leaders not following suit as being cowards or corrupt, tools of the state or tools of the devil (for them it is often the same). Other churches, like the Fraternity of Baptist Churches of Cuba, of which I am a part, have taken a different stance. They are calling for dialogue, and for liberty of expression that stays within the limits of legality (discouraging mass gatherings in the midst of the pandemic).

Who knows how all this will play out? I suspect that the defiant moves of the fundamentalist pastors are intended to provoke the Cuban government to respond with the excessive force it is known for, with abuses of power that will then be recorded and posted on Facebook and Youtube, all designed to put pressure the US to intervene. I doubt the Cuban government is smart enough not to take the bait. I grieve over the role one sector of church leaders are playing in fomenting insurrection that will inevitably lead to bloodshed. I grieve that fellow followers of Jesus cannot agree that loving enemies and finding transforming initiatives as ambassadors of reconciliation requires more courage, more faith, and more hope than maintaining the hate-filled cycle of violence. And I grieve over the prospects of some video-gamer with a military uniform maneuvering drones over Matanzas or Havana or Camagüey. It deepens my desire to be there, to stand alongside them when the rockets' red glare and bombs bursting in air threaten their lives. I imagine there would be lots of prayers for God to work another miracle. If that happens, I'd love to go and find Agustín Drake and see if he could sculpt another Christ figure for us.