Music as a Tool of Resistance and Hope From Cuba to Palestine

For Palestinian oud musician and composer Clarissa Bitar, art must be intrinsically linked to revolutionary struggle. The award winning musician and “Artist Against Apartheid” traveled to Havana, Cuba in May to perform at the “Cuban Gala Against Homophobia and Transphobia” organized by the National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX), a Cuban organization that advocates for LGBTQ rights. Held in the seventh month of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, a central point of the gala was focused on expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people, not uncommon for socialist Cuba which not only in the last 9 months has stood with Palestine, but historically has been one of the key advocates for the liberation of Palestine on the world stage.

While in Cuba, Bitar exchanged with dozens of people and saw firsthand the deep solidarity of the Cuban people with the Palestinian struggle for liberation, even while it suffers under a genocidal blockade imposed by the US government.

Bitar spoke to Peoples Dispatch about how they got involved in political activism and music, the importance of cultural workers and artists to revolutionary processes, and their reflections on Cuba.

Peoples Dispatch: Tell us about how you got involved in political activism and music?

Clarissa Bitar: I started studying music and playing around the same time that I was also getting involved with Students for Justice in Palestine on my campus when I was at UC Santa Barbara. And that was my foot in the door in some ways to leftist spaces and to organizing spaces.

I’m Palestinian on both sides of my family, so we were always raised hearing about Palestine and knowing about the occupation and what’s happening. But I think getting to participate on an organizing level and being able to also work with other students not just in our university, but across universities, and also in a national organization level, was very valuable in terms of community building and creating spaces.

And I think that it really also facilitated my music as well because I was in these spaces where people respected the art but also the intention behind it and also the fact that as a community, our art and so much of our traditions as Palestinians are constantly being stolen and erased.

And so for us to be taking an active political role, as an artist, I think is very important. And it’s something that I feel the community also respected. And I think that [my activism and my music] kind of just grew together. So that was kind of the way it started.

PD: You were in Cuba in May. Can you talk a little bit about what you were doing there? What was it like to be there?

CB: There’s this organization called CENESEX in Cuba, which is the organization that works to fight against transphobia and homophobia, and a lot around queer rights in the country. They have an annual gala and I was [invited] as a representative from the Palestinian community, but also the queer community, because I have this intersection. And it was an opportunity for me to come and show a moment of solidarity.

The Cubans have been really going hard for Palestine and showing a lot of support on an international level. And so it was a way to say that we see that and recognize that. And also, as a Palestinian to come and say how much that means also as well, especially somebody coming from the States,where that has its own connotations politically. So we had the intention to come perform and have that moment of solidarity between us and being in Cuba and seeing all of this really unending solidarity from the Cuban people to Palestine.

PD: Can you say more about this solidarity of the Cuban people with Palestine that you mentioned?

CB: That was really special honestly, especially coming from the [US] where we’re actively being gaslit and demonized on such a massive level by our government, by a lot of people around us who are willing to turn a blind eye to genocide and who are funding it.

So it’s really crazy for me to go to Cuba and to just be greeted by the Cuban people, with such warmth, and for them to come to me and say “we’ve got your back, by any means necessary we support your revolution, and we’re here for you.” And that, coming from a people who have had their own revolutionary struggle and who are continuing to fight against imperialism, against the United States, which is literally breathing down their neck 90 miles away, is just so inspiring to see.

They were able to kick out their occupier and still, with all the attempts to have their imperialist dreams right along the coast, they haven’t been able to destabilize Cuba. And their attempts have caused a lot of hardship on the Cuban people and with the blockade, that was something that was also really tough to see and frustrating, you know, on another level. But the way that they were genuinely supporting our revolutionary movement, the way that they were like, this is your land, this is your struggle, we had the same struggle, there was something so beautiful about that. It was unwavering. They just knew that we’re on the right side and we have the right struggle and it was beautiful.

And their support of the Palestinian people goes beyond that. I met the Palestinian students who come from Lebanon or from Gaza to study at one of the largest medical schools in the world and for free.

It was mind blowing for me, thinking about for-profit education and coming from the United States where a lot of these things are elitist, to be able to go study medicine if you’re going to drive yourself into so much debt or like if you don’t if you don’t have that luxury. And so to go see how they’re bringing students from across the world, a lot of Palestinians, to come study for free and to learn here in medicine, it was really a beautiful thing to see, support on so many levels.

PD: As a revolutionary artist, as someone who’s committed to the liberation struggle, what was it like to see Cuba as an artist and see a society that invests in art, invests in culture and invests in cultural workers themselves and their well-being?

CB: That was so, so beautiful to see. And honestly with the blockade and with [limited] resources, you know that it’s a struggle. The blockade creates a struggle on so many levels. And you can see that economically, and still there’s such an investment, in arts and culture, in the people and an excitement and genuine appreciation too, which is something that I felt. I was playing a lot of music that wasn’t familiar to the Cubans and like they didn’t really know, a lot of the songs, but they were genuinely interested and curious and asking questions and really appreciated my craft, even though they weren’t necessarily understanding the music fully per se.

I think there is, there is a deep cultural appreciation that I noticed for the arts in general, but then to see how that is materialized in institutional support by the government where you can go study music and that’s not an elitist thing in the city. That’s not common here. The kids that are able to study music, who had orchestra, or whose parents could afford to give them an instrument [is limited]. Everything is privatized and for profit, so here if you can’t afford the $60 an hour lesson, you’re not learning music, you can’t.

It was really special to see a different emphasis on what’s important in society.

PD: After nine months of genocide, and after your experience in Cuba, what reflections have you had about the role of artists in the anti-imperialist struggle and in struggles for liberation?

CB: I’ve always felt that you have to engage in the revolution, in the struggle in any way, in any shape that you can and in the ways that you have the ability to affect change.

For me as an artist, that was always like a particular way, whether it was energizing people by my music, or feeling like that I could get something across in a different way, or even just by playing an art that’s trying to be stolen.

I always felt like you have to act and play an active role in whatever you can because if you don’t like, you can actually even be used and manipulated and there’s so much normalization and really crazy things that people will try to get you to do as an artist. And so you do have that power to even contribute in a very bad way, and you have to be aware of that. So that was something for me.

I always was super aware and always wanted to make sure that I felt good with how my art was aligned and to how I moved.

And I think that going to Cuba and seeing that everybody was part of that revolution. It didn’t matter if you were a culture maker, there were people that were fighters and they were people that were fighting with their pens, and they were people that were fighting with their music and through their dance.

I think there’s all these different ways that, you know, you assert your resistance. And I think that we’re all speaking to sometimes a little bit of a different audience, and we all can pull people into the movement, in different ways, [because] maybe other people might not have been able to galvanize [someone] in that way.

So I think that there’s like there’s a lot of power in that.

PD: How have you experienced the past [nine] months as a Palestinian artist?

CB: It’s been heavy and it’s been frustrating at times and sometimes I do feel like it’s like my only outlet that I can do something that feels remotely productive or like I’m contributing something because it can feel really dark and it can feel really heavy. Especially, in the diaspora, especially in the United States, where every dollar I spend, I feel like I’m contributing to the destruction of my people and to my homeland. So it’s sometimes really hard to exist and not just be in a constant state of frustration, but, I think that that’s where I find these outlets to really help me and gives me a sense that at least like I’m doing something and that helps.

When I’ve been frustrated, a lot of times I’ll turn to my music and I start making something and it feels for me personally, it feels like healing to be able to put that into something that feels productive.

But also I’ve heard that from other people too, that they’ve appreciated how the music made them feel in this time or how it was an especially heavy time, and then this was something that brought them some happiness or some joy. And that to me also makes me feel like, okay, it’s not just for me, but also other people are seeing that as well. So that feels really good.

PD: You were in Cuba for the CENESEX Gala, an organization that was fundamental in driving the creation of the Families Code which was passed in 2022 – one of the most progressive pieces of legislation around families, LGBTQ rights, and other social rights in the world. What was the experience like of being in Cuba as a queer person?

CB: I had such a welcoming experience in Cuba. It was actually really beautiful to see that that gala was actually hosted [in part] by the government. There were drag shows and there were visibly queer things that I would have a tough time imagining the government funding in the United States.

Clarissa Bitar at the CENESEX Gala with Mariela Castro. Photo: CENESEX

And so it’s like people have this interesting perspective, that’s honestly just rooted in bullshit and America’s imperialist fantasies of how they can demonize whoever they need to demonize in the moment.

But I was out, you know, at the beach. I had top surgery, so I was out with my top surgery scar, I mean, people could tell that I’ve had top surgery, I did not feel uncomfortable. People didn’t not make me feel uncomfortable. The [event was hosted with] by the Minister of Culture, and these organizations that are government affiliated, and like CENESEX, the queer organization, and I was invited because I’m Palestinian.

So, there’s a lot of these things that I was feeling like actually no, it would be really unheard of for me to experience this in the United States. So I didn’t feel at all that I was not welcomed.

And I think that to see such a progressive law being passed and to see like the way that the government was like supporting that on an institutional level to have this advance, and to have this performance and gala, it just paints a very different picture than what we’re told about like queerness in the Global South.

PD: Are there any other reflections you want to share?

CB: There was a moment where Maria Castro got up and started speaking about Palestine and even though it was in Spanish, I got a good portion of it, which was really cool and special to see Fidel Castro’s niece, get up there, with the kuffiyeh and start saying, ¡Viva Palestina! It was a really special moment.

In general, I was just so taken aback by how warm everybody was, how generous they were even, unfortunately with the conditions economically, they were still so generous and provided so much. And it speaks to a culture of altruism that you just don’t see here, which was really refreshing and beautiful.