The Cuban writer, poet, and babalawo Axel Presas acknowledges that the Castro regime used religious openness—including Yoruba religion—as a "safety valve" after the collapse of the Soviet bloc in 1989. He explained this in an interview with Tania Costa about the role of religion in a future Cuban transition.
When the journalist asked him if the association between Castroism and Yoruba religion had harmed practitioners of that tradition, Presas admitted that the question took him by surprise. "Wow, now you've put me, as we say, between a rock and a hard place, because it's an excellent question and I've never thought about it before."
Her response, however, was nuanced. Presas argued that the appropriation of a foreign culture does not necessarily harm the one being appropriated, but rather reveals the lack of integrity in the appropriator. "Each individual can appropriate the things of others with both good and bad intentions. The problem lies in not recognizing, with one's own understanding and integrity, the true culture and the genuine value that these African cultures possess."
But the central point of his analysis directly targets the political calculus of the regime. "I think that this change was very important and may be understood as a safety valve. Since Eastern Europe changed in 1989," Presas stated, noting that one of the responses of the Castro regime to the Soviet collapse was to open up space for plural religions, not only for Yoruba.
This opening had concrete milestones. The IV Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, held in Santiago de Cuba in October 1991, eliminated the ban on believers joining the party. Months later, the constitutional reform of July 12, 1992, replaced the definition of Cuba as an atheist state—which had been in effect since the 1976 Constitution—with that of a secular state. That same year, the Yoruba Cultural Association of Cuba was legalized, considered the first formal organization representing Afro-Cuban religions recognized in that process.
Presas also mentioned the book "Fidel and Religion" by the Brazilian Dominican friar Frei Betto, published in 1985 based on 23 hours of conversations with Fidel Castro, as an early indication of the gradual shift in the regime's religious policy.
The opening, however, was pragmatic. The State maintained control over religious associations, their places of worship, and their international connections. Afro-Cuban religions were politically convenient because they had a strong grassroots following, did not depend on a foreign hierarchy comparable to the Catholic Church, and could be integrated into narratives of national identity.
This historical context also explains a phenomenon that a viewer of the program, Laureano Couso, summarized with an ironic question: “How is it possible that we went from fewer than 60 babalawos in 1959 to 60 per CDR in 2025?”
Presas urged not to judge this growth with "a sense of bipolarity, this is bad, this is good," but rather to understand it as a complex cultural phenomenon linked to the historical circumstances experienced by Cubans, including the massive search for spiritual refuge during the Special Period.
Beyond the historical diagnosis, Presas argues that Yoruba religion can offer something valuable to any future national reconstruction: the principle of "communalism," which he describes as the willingness to welcome the stranger and engage in collective participation.
"There must be good behavior and a good nature, ensuring that every process is fair and influenced by another very important factor in our religion, which is community," he concluded.
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