From Lenin to Lennon: Cuba Honors Former Beatle

Imagine thousands of Cubans, including Fidel Castro, surrounded by punks and Goths, old hippies and young hippies, revolutionaries and those born 30 years after communism took over the island, holding hands, singing John Lennon’s anthem to peace: “Imagine.”

Only a few years ago, most Cubans would say you were a dreamer. But in a true testimony to Lennon’s moving lyrics, more than 1,000 people--including the Comandante and popular folk singer Silvio Rodriguez--jammed into the newly christened John Lennon Park to pay tribute to a man they now call a hero.

On Friday, the 20th anniversary of John Lennon’s death, the Cuban government unveiled a bronze sculpture of a long-haired John Lennon, followed by renditions of several Beatles’ songs including “Julia,” “Yesterday,” “All You Need Is Love” and of course, Lennon’s own “Imagine.” The ceremony, held on a humid afternoon in the once-fashionable district of Vedado, was all the more remarkable because the Beatles were once banned in Cuba. Though some may dispute that it was actually illegal to hear the music, others who lived through the era tell of the police harassment, the fear and intimidation they encountered simply because they wanted to hear “Yellow Submarine.”

After the ceremony, thousands of Cubans descended on the Anti-Imperialist Square facing the American diplomatic residence. (Officially, the building is not an embassy because the U.S. and Cuba do not have diplomatic relations.) The square was the site where thousands of Cubans were bused earlier this year to protest the Elian Gonzalez custody-immigration battle. At this event, they listened as half a dozen Cuban rock bands paid their own tributes to Lennon and the Beatles.

“This is a victory,” said 22-year-old Brian Garcia at the park, sporting a shaved head, a heavy-metal T-shirt and a spiky beard curled on its tips. “The rock movement in Cuba was considered a bad thing, and here today, even the Comandante is here to talk about Lennon. I think this might be the beginning of a new era.”

The tribute to Lennon became a spiritual cleansing of sorts. Older hippies, who remember having to hide their Beatles albums and who were constantly stopped by police for their long hair and sloppy dress, were moved to tears by the tribute. It was a moment they never thought they would see.

“I remember when the police broke my Beatles album in 1965,” said Reinaldo Rodriguez, now 51. “You cannot imagine how much that hurt me. There was just no room for us who liked American music or music in English.”

Lisette Clavelo, a poet whose father was the head of Cuba’s institute of music after the revolution, also remembers sneaking around with her shortwave radio, escaping to the beach with her buddies to clandestinely hear the music.

“My father always thought that it was a mistake to ban it,” she recalled. “I remember him saying, ‘Art is art and culture is culture, and those things should be allowed to be expressed freely.’ ”

Even 35-year-old Pablo Ivanez remembers how hard it was to find Beatles albums as recently as the early ‘80s. He bought his first Beatles albums in 1982 on a trip to the Soviet Union as a young engineering student; the albums were actually bootlegs from Bulgaria.

“We could not buy the records here, but he was so important to my generation,” Ivanez said as he stood on a corner, selling John Lennon posters for $1 each. “Lennon was a very progressive man. The songs are great, but not only for their American fame but because of the way he spoke to people. That is why Cubans respect John Lennon.”

Members of today’s younger generation of Cubans are, for the most part, free to dress as they please and listen to whatever music they can get their hands on. At the Lennon tribute, kids sporting green mohawks, tattoos, nose rings, dark black eye makeup and purple lipstick stood shoulder to shoulder with the older, more conservative Cubans. Though they enjoy new music, especially rock en espanol, they still think the Beatles are cool.

“No, the Beatles are not old,” said Garcia, who was named after the guitarist of the 1970s English rock group Queen, Brian May. “The music is just as good today--especially Lennon’s lyrics.”

The battle to recognize Lennon was a long and hard one. With the appointment in 1997 of the new culture minister, Abel Prieto--himself a long-haired lover of the Beatles--the walls began crumbling against rock and music in English. For several years, youngsters had been gathering at the park, forming impromptu jam sessions. In addition, there are several Beatles memorabilia clubs, mainly for the boomer generation.

On Friday afternoon at the park, Ricardo Alarcon, head of Cuba’s congress, gave a long speech, laced with anti-American, pro-communist sloganeering, but also venerating Lennon as a true revolutionary. That was the Cuban government’s way of paying the highest tribute to the English rocker.

‘This is an homage to the generation that changed the world,” Alarcon told the crowd. “The ‘60s were more than just a passing decade; it was an attitude about life that affected politics and culture.

“We are returning our gaze to those days, with the affection and tenderness of a first love,” he continued. “Dear John, there were many people who said, on Dec. 8, 20 years ago, that an era had ended. But your message will never end.”