The ministry and me

This is the third time that an institution or ministry has denied me entry into a place with free access. It seems that some independent bloggers have been “unofficially” excluded from Cuban cultural events. I say “unofficially” because even though they haven’t shown me an official document with my complete name and identity card number that says: This institution denies admission to So-and-So, Such-and-Such, and What’s-Her-Face, in accordance with this law and this center has that right. They don’t have my photos and the gatekeepers don’t know my name, they don’t have a list that decrees me persona non grata.

I demand the Ministry of Culture to issue such a list, to clarify the reasons why I cannot attend concerts or participate in debates, that they show their faces and stop hiding behind the vague concept that The Institution Reserves The Right of Admission. I want Abel Prieto, the Minister of Culture, to articulate, legally, this exclusion so that I can, also legally, file a complaint with the Ministery of Culture for cultural and ideological discrimination. I want the bureaucrats to come out from behind their nameless masks and accept that the Cuban cultural policy is exclusionary and discriminatory, put their cards on the table and dot the i’s and cross the t’s, stop using the bureaucracy as a shield and the gatekeepers as babysitters. I want someone to explain to me in what human way a public institution—of the people—can reserve the right of admission and what are the conditions governing that right.