After being beaten and arrested for exercising his human right of free expression, the Cuban graffiti artist Danilo Maldonado Machado, better known as El Sexto, was transferred to the El Combinado del Este Prison, perhaps the most notoriously violent jail on the island. Before he was transferred, he penned the following testimony. MD
Answer 33
What will become of the future for my daughter if they keep glorifying murderers?
This is my work November 25, 2016.
Written from Valle Grande Prison, 8 of December, 2016.
In many instances I have been interviewed by different means of communications and many asked what I thought about when Fidel dies and my answer was always the same: We must all identify and learn to demystify a murderer. If not, then on that day nothing will happen.
The Cuban people were forced to march under the sun and crying songs like “I am Fidel”, but many were silent, because the Cuban people live in fear and with fear you cannot be free.
As long as we keep bowing our heads with a disgusting salary, with nothing to eat, and emigrating and demanding to the outside world what we are not capable of demanding of ourselves like human beings here “freedom," acts like what they are doing to me will continue to be the norm in Cuban society.
Let them take away my personal property, my cellular phone, with the justification of investigating, but actually they already have my e-mail, Facebook, Instagram, and all my tools and contacts for my work and development as an artist.
And text messages that are sent from any cell phone in Cuba with the phrase “El Sexto” will be sent but not received.
That apparently for an offence of criminal damages there is a fine to be leveled for the simple fact that such a crime does not exist. Instead, I the only person in Cuba who did what the rest of the Cuban population should have done: Take to the streets and celebrate the death that nature gave him and that he did not have the courage to end. He fled and blamed blockades and permitted us to live in poverty and die in the sea without looking at the real enemy, the military occupation of the Castro brothers.
For I am the same age as Christ when he was stoned and crucified for the people that he filled with wisdom. I have not assaulted any garrison, nor have I held a rifle. What I have is paper, pen, and spray paint. In the past it was my turn, now it is the Cubans turn to plant themselves in the 3rd and the 2nd. I am 1 and 6 and I am free. Always on my way to her. Luck and light be with you.
-El Sexto-
Answer 33
What will become of the future for my daughter if they keep glorifying murderers?
This is my work November 25, 2016.
Written from Valle Grande Prison, 8 of December, 2016.
In many instances I have been interviewed by different means of communications and many asked what I thought about when Fidel dies and my answer was always the same: We must all identify and learn to demystify a murderer. If not, then on that day nothing will happen.
The Cuban people were forced to march under the sun and crying songs like “I am Fidel”, but many were silent, because the Cuban people live in fear and with fear you cannot be free.
As long as we keep bowing our heads with a disgusting salary, with nothing to eat, and emigrating and demanding to the outside world what we are not capable of demanding of ourselves like human beings here “freedom," acts like what they are doing to me will continue to be the norm in Cuban society.
Let them take away my personal property, my cellular phone, with the justification of investigating, but actually they already have my e-mail, Facebook, Instagram, and all my tools and contacts for my work and development as an artist.
And text messages that are sent from any cell phone in Cuba with the phrase “El Sexto” will be sent but not received.
That apparently for an offence of criminal damages there is a fine to be leveled for the simple fact that such a crime does not exist. Instead, I the only person in Cuba who did what the rest of the Cuban population should have done: Take to the streets and celebrate the death that nature gave him and that he did not have the courage to end. He fled and blamed blockades and permitted us to live in poverty and die in the sea without looking at the real enemy, the military occupation of the Castro brothers.
For I am the same age as Christ when he was stoned and crucified for the people that he filled with wisdom. I have not assaulted any garrison, nor have I held a rifle. What I have is paper, pen, and spray paint. In the past it was my turn, now it is the Cubans turn to plant themselves in the 3rd and the 2nd. I am 1 and 6 and I am free. Always on my way to her. Luck and light be with you.
-El Sexto-
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