Ex-votos, Soldiers’ insignia, 26th of July Movement and Angola conflicts, “Chamber of Miracles” in Sanctuary, El Cobre 1997. Click on images to see full size.

An array of ex-votos in El Cobre Sanctuary, 2007 (left), photo by Sven Marissen. Ex-voto of mambí, El Cobre, 1997 (middle). Photos of deployed local soldiers in US army, Mission San Juan Bautista, California, 2008, (right); photos by Díaz.

Ex-votos and offerings by political dissidents, El Cobre, 2009 (above). Photos by Archy Oveja.

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The image shows a display of military insignia of soldiers who fought in conflicts such as 26 of July Movement against the Batista dictatorship or in the Angola conflict in 1975-76. The ex-votos represent the Virgin's protection of individual soldiers who lived to bring back an offering or fulfill a promise.

The public display of these military ex-votos in the Chamber in the basilica's Chamber of Miracles aligns the Virgin with the causes of the Cuban Revolution-- or at least it aligns soldiers who fought for the Cuban Revolution and its causes with this Marian devotion. The display of veteran's insignia suggests that religious identity is not incompatible with loyalty to the Cuban Revolution. There are also some analogous ex-votos from mambises or Cuban soldiers who fought in the War of Independence of 1895-1898. Photos of deployed soldiers in US army are presently displayed as quasi ex-votos in Mission San Juan Bautista in California.

The chamber of miracles as a semi public space for the display of people's wishes, petitions, offerings, promises and tokens of gratitude for big and small "miracles" can also be politicized in manifold ways. To the left as well some recent political ex-votos that had been added to the display, one from a Cuban journalist who received a prize for her internal blog and another from dissidents on behlf of political prisoners and a new campaign.

OF RELATED INTEREST

NY Times article: El Cobre Journal, (7/28/08)

NY Times article: Amid a Crisis, Hondurans Heap Large Hopes on a Tiny Religious Icon (10/18/09)