The Message of the Papillons

Abstract

To rise up. First off , to raise up one’s fear and cast it off , to throw it far away. Or even to throw it directly in the face of those who hold the power of organizing our fears. This is also to lift up one’s desire. To take it— and with it one’s expansive joy— in order to throw it in the air, in such a way that it disperses through the space that we breathe, the space of others, the space of the public and the political as a whole. There are two images of this— two corollary images— in the praiseworthy and longcensored fi lm by Mikhail Kalatozov, Soy Cuba. These images refer to the popular, and chiefl y student, uprising that terminated in 1956 in the streets of Santiago de Cuba and of Havana. The fi rst image (fi g. 1) is that of a fi reship [un brulot]: one sees some young students throw Molotov cocktails onto the drivein movie screen on which the offi cial images of the dictator Fulgencio Batista are projected. In the past, a “fi reship” designated a ship equipped with fl ammable materials or explosives, designed to collide into an enemy ship and set it ablaze. It now refers to subversive political writings, or even to tracts calling for outright revolt. The other image (fi g. 2) is exactly that of such tracts dispersed by the same student revolutionaries. The papillons (butterfl ies)— as they are oft en called, because of their size as well as their distinction from “placards,” for example— lift toward the clouds, without one yet