According to CUBANET, “Berta Soler, leader of the Ladies in White Laura Pollan Movement, guides the walk every Sunday along Fifth Avenue in the Miramar district of Havana. The women who often number more than 100, walk quietly. Hieratic and carrying gladiolas as a sign of resistance, at the end of each walk and choir, they repeat a prayer for political prisoners. They also call out “freedom”, for a little over a minute, in a cohesive mantra. Such persistence in the liturgy has achieved the most difficult for the civic movement in Cuba: the subversive appropriation of public space under a dictatorship.”
The article continues …”Solely because they stand their ground, we can talk about our Island in terms of reconquered meters. It is why the movement receives multiple attacks. Soler is aware that ‘first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win’ as Mahatma Gandhi once said.”
To read the full interview with Berta Soler (Spanish), click here.