Hug. It is impossible for me to attend the presentation of José’s book. Since I returned this Sunday from Villa Clara I have been forced to stay in bed with malaise, fevers and other symptoms that seem to be dengue fever. I will not be in person, although emotionally I could not help it.
I felt deep affection and admiration for the one who deserved to be called La Figura. I was among its first publishers on the platform Rebel Youth. I witnessed his arrival, with that shyness typical of almost everyone who begins to discover a new professional world.
We always laughed remembering his landing in Rebel Youth along with other colleagues, of whom we called “reoriented”, because they had been trained in other careers and had been given a basic and rapid preparation to fill the deficit of professionals in the sector. We were then in one of our recurring crises with dengue, with Fidel, as usual, at the forefront of the campaign, and the newcomers were our main fighters in an epidemiological skirmish as long as it was exhausting.
He always questioned that I had relegated him in the initial days, and he even thought that I was doing it out of discrimination, because he had discovered his personal sexual desires. He had only lost sight of it in the hard hustle and bustle until dawn. It was a very talented group that arrived, that would somehow make newspaper history, and little by little I discovered José’s exceptional qualities.
He, who one day came to support the Newsroom, and would assume professional ideologies as he went along, became one of its most passionate and necessary editors and columnists. The history of an important period of publication is especially marked by his name. The book that you present with so much affection today is a very small part of his tremendous journalistic work in defense of national culture, spirituality and identity. José had the privilege of interviewing, and doing so with singular depth and beauty, many of the most notorious exponents of our culture.
His early career had equipped him with a nuclear energy for work. It was as if the Holy Trinity incarnated in him. He would come to hold great leadership among our editors and colleagues and would become a consistent critic of our gaps and professional weaknesses and a promoter of the most lucid and daring projects. When we died we not only lost a friend, who had invented the most incredible spaces to unite and share, but also one of the key “figures”, among the most necessary on the multiplatform.
In a message that I sent to Morlote —who rightly presented this book— I told him that a call from José, from his hospital bed to congratulate them, in advance, almost like a sad premonition, for the 60th anniversary of the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (Uneac), saw it as a beautiful sign: it reminds us of how much it unites us with intellectuals —which we also are—, artists and journalists.
If we take a good look at who used to get together at his house on his birthdays, it was as if those were a party and a joint headquarters of the Union of Journalists of Cuba, the Hermanos Saíz Association (AHS) and Uneac. With his wonderful sense of friendship, joy and affection, Jose warned us how we should walk when others only intend to cultivate bitterness, insidiousness, discouragement and hatred among Cubans.
Intellectuality, journalism and art were always a fruitful trinity in Cuban history. Without that confluence, this struggle that still keeps us awake for a project for a nation with independence, justice and freedom would have been impossible. Thanks to AHS for this text and everyone who made it possible. José’s work deserves what he did not have: long life.
Words written by the President of the Union of Cuban Journalists, Ricardo Ronquillo Bello, and read this Monday, October 17, at the presentation of the book Young Time, interviews with young Cuban creators, by José Luis Estrada Betancourt.