Geography Archives: Cuba

It would seem our country has the most educational problems in the world. All of the cables that reach us report the many and difficult challenges we face: a deficit of over 8,000 teachers, disrespectful and ill-mannered students, lack of training, in short: problems of all sorts.

Any autobiographically-tinted writing forces me to clear up any doubts about decisions I made more than half a century ago. I am talking about subtle details, since the essential points are never forgotten. This is true for what I did in 1948, sixty years ago.

Yesterday, Tuesday, I had a large pile of cables with news on the meeting of the most industrialized powers in Japan. I will leave the material for another day, if it doesn’t go cold. I decided to rest. I preferred to meet with Gabo (Gabriel García Márquez) and his wife, Mercedes Barcha, who are visiting Cuba until the 11th. How much I longed to talk with them, to recall almost 50 years of sincere friendship!

  Shasta Darlington, CNN Maylin Alonso, TeleSur Broadcast on the occasion of International Day against Homophobia (17 May) in 2008. | | Print

It would seem there’s no topic worthy of addressing that would not bore our patient readers, after the Round Table program of June 12, which dealt with the new edition of a book published in Bolivia 15 years ago, featuring now a prologue I wrote. During this program, an introduction was also read written at a later date by Evo Morales and a message from the prestigious Argentinean writer Stella Calloni, to be included in an upcoming edition. I had carefully chosen the information I used for that prologue.

Every May 21st President George W. Bush declares a day of “solidarity” with Cuba and repeats the lies of nearly half a century trying to de-legitimize Latin America’s most successful social revolution in history.  This year, the leading US presidential candidates chimed in, but a potentially explosive scandal involving an axis of US-based terrorist groups, […]

It would be dishonest of me to remain silent after hearing the speech Obama delivered on the afternoon of May 23 at the Cuban American National Foundation created by Ronald Reagan. I listened to his speech, as I did McCain’s and Bush’s. I feel no resentment towards him, for he is not responsible for the crimes perpetrated against Cuba and humanity. Were I to defend him, I would do his adversaries an enormous favor. I have therefore no reservations about criticizing him and about expressing my points of view on his words frankly.

Just a few days ago, a friend of mine sent me the text of a report from Gallup, the well-known U.S. opinion pollster. I started to leaf through the material with the natural lack of confidence given the lying and hypocritical information usually used against our nation.

It was a survey on education in which Cuba was included…

One basic idea has been occupying my mind since my old days as a utopian socialist. It came from nowhere, with the simple notions of good and evil inculcated in everybody by the society in which they are born, full of instincts and lacking in values that parents, particularly mothers, begin to sow in any society or epoch.

It was created in 1943 to fight Nazi submarines and protect shipping during World War II. It was deactivated as unnecessary in 1950. The Southern Command was meeting the needs of United States hegemony in our region. However, it has been reborn in recent days, after 48 years, and its interventionist purposes do not need to be demonstrated. The military officials themselves, in their statements, are making that known naturally, spontaneously and even discreetly. The problems of food prices, energy, unequal trade, an economic recession in the market most important for their products, inflation, climate change and investments required for their consumerist dreams, are weighing down and consuming the time and energy of the leaders and the led.

The first report I saw came from the Italian news agency ANSA on April 22.

“La Paz, April 22.— A commission of deputies are to investigate the case of Bolivian scholarship student who died in Cuba, and whose body was repatriated without several vital organs, including the brain.

I have decided to write this reflection after listening to a public comment disseminated by one of the media of the Revolution, which I will not specifically mention.

We must be very careful about the assertions we make, in order not to play into our enemy’s ideology.

This past Wednesday, March 26, 20-year-old Lisandra Guerra became the 500-meter time-trial cycling world champion in the World Track Cycling Championship held in Manchester, Great Britain, following intense competition with athletes from 37 different countries. Fruit of our educational and sports system, of our talented youth and women, we can sincerely and legitimately feel proud of this victory. Credit where credit is due! Today, however, I shan’t write about sports. That same day, on the 26th, the Henry Reeve Contingent Detachment that had been involved in relief work in Peru returned to Cuba, undefeated.

The secondary school students met: their 11th Congress was taking place. Listening to them, I felt a healthy pride and understandable envy. What a privilege at their fruitful age! Along with the massive nature of university study today, so is a more important activity: the battle of ideas before enrolling in university.

Sergio has left us…

These words will be published tomorrow, on February 29. A great many tasks lie immediately ahead of us. The 10th International Conference of Economists on Globalization and the Problems of Development, a conference I have always attended and in which I have always expressed different points of view, will begin on Monday the 3rd. Judging by the international developments we’ve witnessed, this conference will doubtless be of great importance, owing to the presence of prestigious economists, some Nobel Prize laureates and two eminent heads of State.I wish to address a specific issue in this, today’s reflection.

That Tuesday, there was no fresh international news. My modest message to the people of Monday, February 18 had no problem being widely circulated. I began to receive news from 11:00 a.m. The previous night I slept like never before. My conscience was at rest and I had promised myself a vacation. The days of tension, with the proximity of February 24, left me exhausted.

Last Friday, February 15, I promised you that in my next reflection I would deal with an issue of interest to many compatriots. Thus, this now is rather a message.

Some days ago I mentioned his name as an example of a militant communist, whose struggle gave his life meaning. For eight years he held the highest posts within his Party. He shared Allende’s faith in Chile and the beautiful vision that, sooner rather than later, the great avenues would again be opened “down which free humans could march toward the construction of a better society”.

The demise of the Soviet Union was to us like there were no more sunrises; a devastating blow for the Cuban Revolution. Not only did this translate into a total cessation of supplies of fuel, materials and foods; we lost markets and the prices that we had attained for our products in the difficult struggle for our sovereignty, integration and principles. The empire and the traitors, full of hatred, were sharpening their daggers with those who wanted to put the revolutionaries to the sword and recover the country’s riches.