CAMAGÜEY. - The term tribe is very ancient and in some young people who integrate them it is characterized by prioritizing the sexuality, the music, the fashion, and they walk in group to look for their identity, with a behavior in contrast with the established in the culture that a majority qualifies as normal, therefore, it is known as subculture.

This way, today´s consultation began with the Dr. Olga Lidia Caballero Giraldo, specialist of 2nd grade in Child-Juvenile Psychiatry, of the provincial pediatric hospital Eduardo Agramonte Piña, of this city, to approach the reality of the urban tribes, even here, reality that is not far away of Cuba since some years ago.

She offers her medical services to some of these boys as a result of their ways of acting, and apart to describe the concept as such, clarifies to us that this is a phenomenon that the world lives through, and it is not exclusive of the country.

-Who integrate them?

- Boys between 12 and 20 years, since it is seen in the stage of pure adolescence. There has always been some type of these, but since approximately 11 years ago, they have increased in our nation for diverse causes, as there are the result of an opening to information related to cases of such a nature by means of Internet and other routes.

-Are they identified in Cuba?

- There are five and they are represented in the biggest and populous cities, like Santiago de Cuba, Santa Clara, Cienfuegos, Camagüey and, of course, in the capital.

“The first one in Cuba dates back in the ‘60s and it was that of the rockers, which there enter the frikis, the hippies and the punkys; it is the most ancient of the country; they were rebellious before the most common social standards and even undisciplined, conduct that they have been improving, they were identified by the music of the ‘60s, with The Beatles, The Rolling Stones..., then rejected, also the acquaintance like psychedelic, with that one they dance in wheel and in the center a male stays, others keep looking, but they push to someone inwards, even prick themselves with the proper pledges that they use, equal they are tattooed, use piercing, black clothes and accessories with sheen. At present, they are better organized and less undisciplined.

“The emos appear in Cuba in 2008 in the G Street, of the Vedado in the capital, already extended in the provinces. This group is one of those that more curiosity and worry causes in the society, they take the very straight hair with cut defined by many as steak on one or of two eyes, they are thin and the males give the effeminacy impression, although they are not; both females and males paint their eyes with dark shades, long fingernails, black and loose clothes, use Converse tennis of gum tops, they look for assertiveness, recognition, sexual contacts between themselves.

“They are defined as a futurist tribe and there are those who assure that their attitude is the result of the depression, lacking of attention, hence it is a high-risk group because the young people feels that they are not wanted, rather pushed back, are not understood by their parents, they shut themselves up in their rooms without communicating with the family, which does not manage to identify their inner world, it does not know what it hurts them, what worries them, sometimes they hurt themselves, they are auto-flagellated by means of cuts in the forearm and in the legs, and cover the wounds with a streaky outfit. By means of these injuries catalyze the pain and they feel pleasure or simply it is a conduct to be accepted by the members as commitment sample and they have, also, a suicidal tendency, and there is the high risk.

“Mikis (metrosexuales) come in general from families with good economic income, therefore they frequent expensive places, with clothing of latest fashion, they are defined as banal, superficial, because the tendency is to be always in fashion, the last thing in the boom, they choose the house music, disk and the regguetón, they do not worry for many things apart of those.

“Known as the tribe repa, composed by stray boys of an area, they create disturbances. They are identified as “reparteros”, they have a vulgar language, they use their wide garments, pullovers with sheens, and they prefer the timba, the hip-hop and the reguetón.

“We have the rastas, they use dreadlocks in the hair, which is the type of hairstyle formed by hair tangled and woven, typical of the rastafaris​, they use comfortable and big clothes with the colors of the Jamaican flag, sandals and defend the figure of Bob Marley, they are given to the peace, to the friendship... Their music is the reggae.

“As we observe in dependency of the tribe they dress, speak, enjoy the type of music, they even communicate across gestures, equally they do it by means of the cell phones, without need to have telephone line not even Internet, come to other applications".

-Some important difference between the first rockers (hippies) and the current tribes?

- Those used to separate of their families, they organized themselves in communities, while the current ones do not leave behind home. Without forgetting that these behaviors are part of the well-known crisis of the adolescence, which provokes contradictions with the family and the society.

-Where do they meet?

- In open places, like parks, areas that should allow them to stay up late, without money expenses, in this case except for mikis, and they admit the entry to the one who should wish it, whenever they support the same tastes, affinities and interests before life.

-Is there relation between a tribe and others?

- Hardly ever because they are different.

-How are they seen by the rest of the society?

- In a general way, they are stigmatized, especially for the adults, sometimes, even for their own families, they are excluded.

-What can generate this rejection?

- They leave the studies, almost none comes to the University, only up to ninth grade and this proper crisis of the age increases.

-If as you say their ages range between 12 and 20 years, it is inferred that they go out of these groups and others enter …, if it is like that: what is the reason of this limit of 20 years?

- Some of them mature and undertake another way of life or change to other tendencies. The vision of their lives changes.

-What would be the behavior to be followed by the adults?

- First, to know and to admit that the phenomenon is there; then how to identify it and to treat it, without stigmas, to try to attract the boys, to guide them and to direct them, this must be the maxim of the society. For being a subculture they are pushed back and that is not correct.

“They are qualified as a social problem and it turns out to be young people isolated by the same society and we see these attitudes like an awkwardness, since we have to accept others although they do not follow the due canons, we must be on a par and behave like human beings, since they are humans as we are.

“We as professionals, we have the social commitment and the sensibility to these changes, we must know what takes them to such attitudes, and even to try to transform them without rejection not so that they separate, perhaps of the group, but that they see the life with another prism and a positive conception.

“We have to understand them, rather to identify us with them and to convince them that they can study and of the damage of hurting themselves and others.

“Martin Luther King said: ' I am not worried by the scream of the violent ones, of the corrupt ones, of the dishonest ones, of those without ethics, what worries me is the silence of the good ones’. It is worrying that a part of the youth, not neither everything nor the majority, of course, does not know how to channel their lives and they come to conducts brought from other nations without looking around and without valuing the importance of our Cuban identity and that above they generate a social conflict and even for themselves because of the lack of knowledge of the magnitude of their actions".

-Do you have any request to the Cuban family and society?

- In the shelter of the family it is where the first changes can be identified in the children. The parents have to know who are part of their group, to be attentive to their changes of conduct, of clothing, if they begin to consume alcohol, to smoke, it must not be allowed to a 12-year-old boy to walk in the streets late at night, it is necessary to support a control of his cell phones, it is not that they do not use them but how and at what ages, what do they gain access to by means of the mobile phone, what are the received and sent messages, because when a habit or way of being is already restored it is hard to modify it.

“Why does an adolescent have to walk with 300 pesos on the pocket, or drive a motor with the whole social irresponsibility that that involves. We must be attentive, it does not mean that they hear the music of our times, the youth has his peculiarities in every stage as we had them and the next ones will have them, more it is a question of inculcating our values, customs, without stopping being Cuban, and quite with a suitable communication, to negotiate without impositions, to be interested and to know what hurts them, what worries them, and to give love, the material thing does not substitutes the love, you cannot lose the opportunity to say to our children: ' I love you, see you at night, and at the time of the reunion to exchange how it was the day of both and not only to say to him: ‘We do not have’, ‘there is not’, and that´s how it is achieved and what to contribute to reach it, what is to be a Cuban, what to be Camagüey´s inhabitant is, what do the national symbols mean, without the called "millstone" for the young people and by means of attractive topics, much more in times in which the verbal expression of the thought is getting lost, now it is the mobile device, the gestures, it is an affective silence that takes us to a loss of what we are: human beings.

“It is necessary to teach them what we are and what is, this way we support the memory, where we come from and not of copied cultures of other parts of the world, because if I lose my history and my roots what I am”.

Translated by Linet Acuña Quilez