CU John Lennon
10 Dec 2001

HAVANA - (Reuters) - Communist-run Cuba on Saturday began a weekend of homage to former Beatle John Lennon, now hailed as a fellow "revolutionary" despite being frowned upon as a decadent Western influence in the 1960s and 1970s. Authorities organized two days of activities, including concerts, art fairs, and book and documentary presentations, in honor of the 21st anniversary of Lennon's murder by a crazed fan who shot him in New York in 1980. Lennon "has become a symbol of Havana, and we are here to honor the man who decisively broke with convention in various spheres of art," city historian Eusebio Leal said in a speech next to a bronze statue of the singer in a Havana park. President Fidel Castro inaugurated the statue -- now a popular tourist site -- last year in what was a cultural about- face by Cuban authorities toward a man whose music was once listened to only in secret on the Caribbean island. "He gave us protest songs in the face of so many crimes and injustices being committed," added Leal, a senior official in Castro's government. British ambassador Paul Hare said he was delighted Cuba was honoring Lennon's life and work. "We have to work together in favor of peace and all the values the Beatles stood for," he told reporters. For about 15 years after Castro's 1959 Cuban Revolution, Lennon was an underground cult figure for Cuban youth, with albums secretly passed around and played behind closed doors. Authorities considered them a symbol of "ideological deviance." In the still tightly controlled but culturally more liberal Cuba of today, Lennon is now cast as a born rebel and a constant victim of U.S. harassment. Cuban authorities single out Lennon's defense of racial equality and workers' and women's rights, and his pacifist campaign in the United States against the Vietnam War which brought him the attention of the CIA. Cuban compositor and guitarist Luis Manuel Molina said the state's past negative attitude toward the Beatles was born out of ignorance. "It was a lack of understanding of artists who were ahead of their time," he said.