HomeCubaCuba: sponsor of world solidarity and humanism part 5

Cuba: sponsor of world solidarity and humanism part 5

(Taken from Facebook Oriol Marrero, counselor of the Embassy of Cuba in Greece)
Fifth part (V): Manama, Bahrain: “With Cuba in the heart”. February 15-17, 2018.
The LEA Festival, the friends of Cuba and all of Latin America from Manama, capital of the Kingdom of Bahrain, made it possible for the first of the Cuban photographic exhibitions that have been exhibited mainly in Greece between 2018 and 2021 to be shown for the first time precisely in Manama, in February 2018, on the occasion of the I Latin Festival of the capital of Bahrain, on which it is commented here in the context of the series of publications, “Cuba: a sponsor country of world solidarity and humanism, of respect for life and friendship, promoter of peace and cultural encounters between all the peoples of the world ”.
The Kingdom of Bahrain is a country made up of several dozen islands, located on the east coast of the Persian Gulf, connected to the west by a bridge of about 26 kilometers with Saudi Arabia.
Less than a hundred kilometers to the south east, in a straight line, it borders Qatar, a country in the Persian Gulf where a Cuban Henry Reeve medical brigade, composed of 200 health professionals, would recently collaborate in the fight against Covid-19. that should be added the Cuban medical staff – 500 more professionals – from the Dukhan Cuban Hospital, converted into a hospital center to care for Covid 19 patients. In total, more than 700 Cuban medical professionals fighting the pandemic in that nation.
Having made this brief geographical contextualization, note that we do not know if there was any other Cuban photographic exhibition in Manama before, although this information would not be relevant in itself. Several Cuban artists, some of them residents of Greece, are known to have offered their art in different parts of Manama. A significant fact is that, according to its organizers, the I Manama Latin Festival was visited by about 15 thousand people.
In addition to the photographs about Cuba, the much enjoyed Cuban musical culture was present, thanks to the presence, also at the invitation of the organizers, of a prominent Cuban artist residing in Greece, who for three days performed with a visible good reception of anthological themes from the musical repertoire Cuban and Latin American.
As in all parts of the world, the Cuban people have close friends in Bahrain. Thanks to the presence of Bahrainis and citizens of various nations, including resident Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, among other nationalities, Cuban dances and Latin American rhythms were performed, which were performed by Cuban and Bahraini musicians, live.
During the days that the photographic exhibition “With Cuba in the heart” was on display, it was visited by many people who attended the festival, including the honor of the visit made by Sheikh Rashid, president of the Art Society of the Kingdom of Bahrain; of several accredited ambassadors in the country, and members of the diplomatic corps. The exhibition was inaugurated with the presence of the ambassador of the Republic of Cuba in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and concurrent in the Kingdom of Bahrain and the Sultanate of Oman, comrade Orlando Requeijo Gual.
Bahrain has many renowned sites, such as the Great Al-Fateh Mosque, one of the largest in the world, with capacity for more than 7,000 faithful, built in 1987 and converted in 2006 into the country’s National Library.
It also has ancient traditions and crafts, such as the pearl maker, among others – the pearl culture of Bahrain was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. The cultivation of pearls is ancestrally visible there, for example, in the basin of the Bay of Manama, from whose remote areas modern Manama can be seen in the distance, with its colorful skyscrapers and mosques, sometimes almost invisible and wrapped in sandy dust. that raises the desert blizzard, others, showing their varied shapes, brightness and colors in the sunlight, and always printing on the retina of the brief visitor their contrasts between the past and the present, where renowned sites such as the Bab Al- Bahrain, among others, accentuate its past peculiarities, or the twin towers of the Bahrain International Business Center – Bahrain World Trade Center – “glaze” present peculiarities, although past and present, all traversed by punctual prayers and religious rituals, which make to the city, to the old Bahrain “polis”, as a sound witness to collective prayer, prayer and daily solemnity.
With the universality, humility and strength that enshrined and bequeathed it, the National Hero of Cuba, who just tomorrow at the historical clock of The Homeland (or in a while in other latitudes, or already in others, which is January 28) , will be turning 168 years old, he would refer to it in his article “Grow”, published on April 5, 1894 in the newspaper Patria, just as he was preparing the war for the independence of Cuba in 1895, and with his proverbial wisdom he would drink from the Arabic spirit, when speaking of those things “that at least have to be taken from Arabic.” For Martí (at 41 years old):
“… The aspiration of yesterday is already a sacrifice today, that they see with anger, easy to understand, those who do not want to sacrifice – For that you have to go through, and it happens”, and then you will drink from the thought and the wise prayer from Arabic:
“From the Arab,” said Martí, “you have to take at least two things: his prayer every day, in which he asks Allah to make him go the right way, – and the proverb that says that he will not reach the end of his journey when he turns his head to the dogs that come out on the road ”.
And from there, he draws accordingly:
“Science, in the things of the peoples, is not the clearing of the pen cannon of strange digests, and remedies from other societies and countries, but to study, at man’s chest, the elements, rough or smooth, of the country, and to accommodate the human end of well-being in decorum, the peculiar elements of the country, by methods that suit its state, and can function without clashing within it. The rest is dry grass and pedantry ”.
Thanks to the friends from Cuba and Latin America in Manama for his kind invitation to the expo “With Cuba in the heart”; thanks to LEA; thanks to the spiritual authorities of the Great Al-Fateh Mosque who had their doors open, without prior notice, since they never close them, and invited to witness part of an important religious graduation ceremony on the Koran; for showing the Mosque in detail, stone by stone, and its ancestral culture; thank you for your respect, peace and solidarity; thanks to the Bahrain National Library, to the children with whom we interacted, to the families who so lovingly referred to Cuba; thanks to not a few other people, among them, thanks to the pearl manual workers of Manama, who had no qualms about showing their solitary and isolated work, their “procedures”, an intangible work that is a World Heritage Site, thank you for inviting us to taste their tea, in their same jugs full of sand, when they heard, “Cuba”.
See the skillful, tanned, hard, precise, sand-filled hands of the silent and risky pearl maker, for whom the stained-glass window of his tenacity is seen in the distance, where the reflection of the sun against the glass springs up almost through the clouds, with His dark, puckered face also makes one think of Martí:
“If they say that from the jeweler I took the best jewel, I take a sincere friend and put love aside.”

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