Cultural events define the course of society by bringing something new and life-changing. They can range from art to sports to music, but they tend to represent a specific culture on the global stage. The given research-based paper will focus on two cultural events which took place within the last 24 months in countries outside the US. The selected cases include a professional boxer from Kazakhstan and Cuban artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara. Both of them became representative of their respective cultures, but Kazakh does so in a celebratory mode, whereas Cuban uses the approach of protest.
Kazakhstan: Gennady Golovkin
Gennady Golovkin, or GGG, became one of the top boxing professionals on the global stage, and he is relevant to the analysis since he is prominently known to represent his Kazakh culture through sports. The recent peak event was the fight between Gennady Golovkin and Canelo Álvarez, which marked their third and final chance to establish the winner. Although he was not the one who won, the cultural event was highly important for GGG and his Kazakh fans (Brookhouse, 2022). The event itself was significant enough despite the loss to the extent that the president of Kazakhstan called the boxer after the fight to congratulate him on his achievements. The emblematic aspect of GGG’s cultural representation comes from the use of national Kazakh wear and the flag. The sporting event was globally one of the most anticipated since the trilogy needed to be completed. Both fighters were able to carry their cultures within the context of the fight.
Cuba: Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara
In the case of Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, the cultural event is art-related with a more boycott-based approach compared to a celebratory one of GGG. The event took place in 2021, where “Cuban artists led vocal protests against human rights abuses and censorship in their country—and periodically faced the threat of imprisonment because of it” (The Editors of ArtNews, 2021, para. 1). Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara was the most prominent leader of the protest, where he used art to express his criticism against the oppressive government. The protest art pieces were created with the hashtag #NoALaBienalDeLaHabana, which was used to mark the artworks and expose the use of police to suppress the artists and people of Cuba (Human Rights Watch, 2021). The event was a form of cultural awakening since no one expected that it would be the artists who would stand up to the dictatorial rule of the state.
Analysis
Both cases are recent cultural events that took place in two different nations. The selected examples provided above showcase how cultural representation can use different approaches to promote one’s culture. In the case of GGG, the sporting event was a celebratory mode of representing Kazakh culture with the use of national wear and a flag. This indicates that sports can be a powerful method of making other cultures more aware of the culture that is being represented by a sportsperson. However, managing cultural differences through efforts to increase awareness requires more openness and transparency, which are difficult to achieve when an event encourages celebrations only (Abramson & Moran, 2017). When it comes to Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, the mode of representation of Cuban culture was done through a medium of art. The latter was used to express the Cuban people’s protest and criticism against the authoritarian government, whereas Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and other Cuban artists used art with the hashtag #NoALaBienalDeLaHabana to represent Cuban culture globally.
Nonetheless, a clear observation can be made when it comes to the sport being a cultural event, which is celebratory by default with little room for protest. The issue of celebratory cultural events is the fact that core societal and cultural issues cannot be expressed, addressed, and raised. In most cases, such an action jeopardizes the position of a sportsperson creating a massive incentive to remain positive. However, art as a cultural event has a greater range of diverse expressions, which can be both celebratory as well as protest-related. Art combined with social media creates a powerful instrument for communicating dissent and dissatisfaction of people with institutions of power. Although Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara was a prominent figure in Cuban artists’ boycotts, there were large groups of other Cuban artists behind him. Therefore, sporting cultural events are limited to a celebratory representation, whereas art is more liberating with the intent and purpose in regards to representing a culture.
References
Abramson, N. R., & Moran, R. T. (2017). Managing cultural differences: Global leadership for the 21st century (10th ed.). Routledge.
Brookhouse, B. (2022). Canelo Alvarez vs. Gennadiy Golovkin 3 fight results, highlights: Mexican star earns decision to close trilogy. CBS. Web.
Human Rights Watch. (2021). Cuba: Prominent figures urge end to repression of artists. Web.
The Editors of ArtNews. (2021). The defining art events of 2021. ArtNews. Web.