Cuba: Luces y Sombras 5

Continuamos analizando el tema Cubano, sus luces y sus sombras.

Episode Transcript

(00:18):
Good hours to everyone and everyone wholistens to me. I hope you all
have had a very useful few daysis, that you have listened to some

(00:49):
of my podcasts and that you haveenjoyed them. Of course, on this
occasion we will continue to analyze thistheme of the second season that I wanted
to talk about the native country,about Cuba and its problems throughout time and

(01:10):
history, which tangible concrete facts havecaused so many problems for its normal development.
And let' s also talk aboutsome subjective facts that have not had

(01:32):
to do with material things either,they are above all desires and ideas that
have brought rather than benefit problems.As I told you, I am Cuban
living in Cuba. Most of mylife and now received abroad. Specifically,

(02:02):
I believe that, despite all thatwe have experienced in recent times, I
am not talking about years, butfull decades of confrontation between Cuba and the
United States, which have brought,especially for Cuba, harmful effects, because

(02:28):
the United States, as a greatdominant power, confrontation with Cuba is more
of a problem of pride, anotherproblem that they want to demonstrate their power
I arranged, something that has todo with all that propaganda that they always

(02:50):
use to defend human rights and freedomand all those things that we know is
a false narrative, or at leastI am convinced that it is a false
narrative because at the same time theysay they take action against Cuba, because

(03:10):
Cuba does not respect human rights orbecause Cuba is not democratic, because Cuba
does not exist freedom of expression orso on. Any of those things that
have been heard so many times overtime and that we are already more than

(03:31):
used to hearing for all propaganda,as I said, and by all means
that are subordinated, of course,to the great centers of power. But
there are many things that, inmy view, in Cuba have done a

(03:53):
lot of damage to the normal developmentof the country, to achieve some eyesight,
to raise some development goals. And, first of all, I said
it in another podcast, not havingused all the years that were almost three

(04:13):
decades of the almost unconditional support ofthe socialist countries to Cuba, not having
used them to industrialize the country rapidly, to create other sources of income,
to create skilled labour, to createa production base that was safe and that

(04:42):
remained in time. Despite all theconflict, despite the sanctions, I think
it would have been better. Idon' t know what I mean.
I, I don' t havethe data, I don' t have
the information, I don' thave the story of why. I do

(05:03):
not know because it was just inthe eighties that this effort to industrialize the
country began, when practically the SovietUnion was already going through a crisis that

(05:23):
was already seen even Fidel himself realizedthat something was going to happen already in
the eighties and fours eighty- two. There was already a certain decline in
the strength of the Soviet Union.After the intervention in Afghanistan, it was

(05:45):
already apparent that there was some economicproblem and that they were beginning to see
failures in supply chains and there werealso problems in supply, not as obvious
as they were done later in time. But I do believe that, despite
the fact that some measures were wanted, we were always more vigilant than what

(06:10):
was happening in the third country,to what could be the Cuban population itself,
what could be the country itself tosave what could be an uncontrollable crisis
at the time when a supplier likethe Soviet Union failed us. And in

(06:32):
the socialist camp, I lived theepoch of economic bonanza in Cuba, which
is undeniable. It' s notthat you want to make a narrative that
suits my wishes or erase something thatdidn' t happen or something that happened

(06:55):
and that we don' t wantto be known in the 1980s, after
seventy- seventy- seventy- five, until eighty- six, in Cuba,
a real economic bonanza. A lotof people listen to me. It
can testify, the prices were verylow and it was easy to find anything,

(07:18):
very easy. Of course, therewas always the problem of emigration.
There was a spa crisis. ButI think that even something that is normal,
especially from the challenged countries, verylarge people leave the country because they
want to leave not only for apolitical reason, but also for an economic

(07:44):
reason. Or because they want togo to people' s. That'
s how we are the human being. From this, the human being is
my big one. There is onephrase that I don' t know whose
it is that says that the historyof humanity is the history of man in
motion. That can' t beignored. This is how migration will always

(08:05):
exist and even from countries that arestable, that are economically solvent black people
because they want to know other places, because they don' t like the
weather or because they don' tlike what they don' t like.
I think it' s human,it' s acceptable, it' s
normal. But in the Cuban case, migration became both sides, a weapon.

(08:33):
It became a weapon because Cuba,especially in salsaua, was an extremely
just, extremely stable country, witha certain level of development, in culture,
in the economy, in public health, in education. And that'

(08:56):
s what he gave it to.It was given a lot, a lot,
a lot of relevance, It wasgiven a lot of relevance to that
topic. And that worked as aconsequence of it becoming white. He was
also targeted in that narrative by theU S media, because on many occasions

(09:18):
the situation was actually exaggerated in bothdirections, I mean, I said it
was the maximum when it wasn't really the maximum. When I say
I mean the Cuban government, failuresand mistakes always tended to hide. They

(09:43):
said in the media in Cuba thatit was not healthy to see the problems
that existed within Cuba being thrown away. It wasn' t healthy to ventilate,
it wasn' t healthy to speakpublicly about them, because the enemy
was ready or to attack us whenwe failed, that is, attack us

(10:05):
from the ideological point of view.And I think it' s done a
lot of damage, because I'm sure, as I said, that
Cubans want to live in Cuba,most Cubans, as they want to live
in Russia, most Russians and Chinesein China and the Vietnamis also swim and
Americans want to live in the UnitedStates. That' s right. One

(10:28):
loves the land, in which one, most people, those who do not
uproot because they are culturally cultural orphans. But I think that people, especially
with a level of culture or alevel of knowledge, always tend to defend
what they love. And that's another negative point that we have people

(10:54):
right now. The new generations,the last generations of the year ninety-
two thousand did not learn to lovetheir country. And they didn' t
learn to love their country because theeducation system lost its base of quality teachers,

(11:15):
of real people who had the loveto teach. And when there are
more people with a high cultural levelwho, as I said, always tend
to defend their own, because theyunderstand more fully the situation of the things
they defend and the situation of thethings that happen in why those people can

(11:37):
transmit that knowledge. I was oneof the people of whom, always,
in meetings in debate, I puta lot of emphasis on this, on
the abandonment, on the abandonment thatwas already palpable by the Government, on

(11:58):
what were the teachers who are thecore of education in a country and,
above all, of primary teachers,of secondary teachers, of pre- university
teachers. I saw it, andI saw it with pain how the quality
of people who were destined to teachfuture generations was deteriorating. One of the

(12:26):
ridiculous things that I never understood andthat there' s no one to explain.
And besides, I think anyone withtwo front fingers can agree with me
on this. In Cuba, tobe a teacher, to be a teacher,
it was not necessary to have ahigh academic index to opt for a
teaching career. On the contrary,it was the race that was left for

(12:50):
the one who had a low index, for the one who had had problems,
to pass the course, that is, to test his course his career
and that was like the baddest,the least wanted, the one that people
did not want. It was eventhis is what he took. He was

(13:13):
a teacher. Or listen study andget good grades, because what you'
re gonna get is going to bea teacher. The famous teacher- trainers
already had in Cuba, which thereis in Cuba, that is, they
did not choose a suitable human material, they did not choose a human material

(13:37):
worth a person who really had thegift of passing knowledge, but chose or
left that career so important for theformation of the new generations of labor,
of those who are going to formthe country, which they will continue to
promote the economy of the country,the culture, the science that gave that

(13:58):
formation, he was not precisely themost prepared, the most intelligent, the
one who really wanted to do it. No, no, no, it
was anyone who was worse off thatsame one, that was the one who
was taken, I mean, hewas allowed to be a teacher. And

(14:22):
that, of course, has ahuge impact on the situation today. I
told myself in Cuba, on severaloccasions, I like to teach, I
like to design and I did notobserve the progressive ignorant that do not take

(14:48):
over the boys of the young.And actually, in reality, as that
foundation was lost, valuable teachers whohad their knowledge and their way of teaching,
because they really had that gift thatis a bong that to be a

(15:13):
teacher, they were either retiring,or they were leaving the career, or
they were leaving the magisterium, theywere leaving a huge gap in the Cuban
education system. I think that dida damage and that damage spread to everything

(15:37):
and it' s imperishable damage now, that stays there for. I don
' t know, because that's a long time that' s needed
to train quality teachers and to trainauxiliaries and to train other kinds of people

(16:00):
who worked with children, who workwith young people and that was lost in
Cuba. That was virtually lost inits entirety. There are no teachers as
before. I mean, there areteachers, of course, that session stuff.
But when you go to a school, when you go to a high
school, when you go to aprimary school, when you go to a

(16:26):
man, you realize how low qualitythe professionals who are there have. First
the material deficiencies and then the owndeficiencies as human beings, i e,
they are rude people. You don' t even know how to dress et

(16:48):
cetera? Etcetera, et cetera?I think I am very convinced that if
there is something important in the formationof a society and in the formation of

(17:10):
generations and in the training of peopleas professionals who contribute to the development of
a country, to the well-being of society as a whole, it
is education, education in the firstyears of life of people, of human

(17:30):
beings. So, in Cuba,that, despite the fact that there are
children' s circles where they aregiven treatment, etc, primary education is
greatly deteriorated materially and spiritually. Inother words, the quality of the people

(17:51):
who provide education is to regulate tosea. There you can' t be
hiding or saying. It' snot like they' re doing their best.
I don' t think that ifthere' s anything very important,
as important as I don' tknow how to have an army to defend

(18:18):
the country, it' s somethingI think is vital and important. Critical
to a country is to have aneducation system that supports what it wants to
become for future generations in the future. And in Cuba, that was lost

(18:40):
about twenty or thirty years, perhapsmore. Primary teachers earned or still earn
wages, ridiculous, are a thousandvicissitudes to teach. They remain only those

(19:06):
who really like to teach, childrenwho like to see it progress, who
like to see them grow up andincrease their knowledge of the hand of them
and the others who are there becausethey pay them a salary and they will
fill out a record so that fifteendays or at the end of the month

(19:30):
they will be paid a certain amountof money, people who are absolutely not
interested in anything, whether they approveor do not prove and nothing. There
they are making packages, as wesay Cubans, because, unfortunately, the
governments, those who govern did notrealize that the most valuable people in Cuba

(19:53):
are the primary teachers, they arethe teachers of initial education, preschool education,
etcetera. They are the teachers whoare in high school of very high
value as well. But above all, I insist that if there is a

(20:15):
staff that is very, very valuablefor not only Cuba, they are the
primary teachers of the first years oflife and those people, in my modest
point of view and through the yearsthat I have observed it, have not

(20:37):
been valued as they require. Theyare people who, despite their effort.
Many of them receive no compensation fromthe Government. Many of them have very
great material needs, being good teachers, and are still there in their problem

(20:59):
of surviving. When you say whyyou don' t pay them the attention
they require, they don' tpay them and then the consequence of this
is paid in the long term.This is paid in the long term.
As I told you, in Cuba, the youth of the first youth,

(21:21):
those of the second youth and childrenno longer feel that love for their homeland,
despite the vicissitudes, they no longerfeel it as if it happened before.
I mean, it' s beenabandoned. This patriotic education was abandoned,
from that education of explaining things asI was not of training, as

(21:45):
he says, because in the endall systems to doctrine all systems indoctrinate,
because it is so. That isone thing that cannot be denied either by
all the systems of the capitalist,socialist world or what was indoctrinated in one

(22:07):
way or another. And I alwaysdraw their attention to the fact that if
there is a failure, very great, great, despite the fact that propaganda
tells us the opposite, that ifthere is effective propaganda in the world,
if there is effective indoctrination in theworld, it is the one that capitalism

(22:30):
makes through its campaigns, through itscommercials, through its films, through its
music, through practically everything that iswithin their reach, they make it a
propaganda in their favor, that famousAmerican dream, that famous American way of
Line. All that stuff and themyth that America, in the land of

(22:59):
freedom. This Europe is the meccaof democracy. All these things are mere
propaganda. Of course, it iseasier to do propaganda from power, from
the control it has, especially overall means and with the right resources.

(23:25):
That' s how they have successfulpropaganda. But in Cuba propaganda was propaganda.
Or it is a propaganda that islacking in everything, especially because it
is very oriented exclusively to ideology andpolitics. It is very rare to see

(23:48):
them doing propaganda on the economic side, on the part of society as such.
That is, how to achieve thosegoals we have done to achieve it,
what we will do to improve it. That doesn' t exist.
He always puts on propaganda. Fromthe point of view of confrontation with the

(24:12):
United States, with the vigilance ofthose who say they are dissidents because they
do not like the way the governmentworks, because, for example, they
criticize some decisions made by the government, good according to them, bad according

(24:33):
to their point of view. Andso it is a problem that I have
not seen the solution. They don' t focus on solving things from their
own resources. There is only propagandathat we have to do things from our
own efforts. But in the end, the very efforts of who when you,

(24:56):
as an individual, as a simplecitizen, have to be, are
to the whims of a group ofpeople who have shown time and time again,
a year again, to take absurdor mediocre measures or in short time.
How we can imbue that in people' s desire to see their lives

(25:22):
improved and to have a discourse ofconstant confrontation between whether it is socialism,
whether it is communism, whether itis capitalism, if it is any kind
ofism. Of that I really donot see either the solution or the meaning

(25:44):
to remain in that kind of permanentcontroversy. But that it is not the
controversy or that it is not theconfrontation that generates development, it finds solutions,

(26:07):
but it is always the discourse ofthe victim of ay Look how poor
I am because that one does notlet me do this. Look, how
poor I am because it' sthe other one that didn' t let
me do this or put me ina jam, or gave me less.
And that' s 60 years ago. As I said on another occasion,
I already said America. He's not gonna leave there He' s

(26:32):
gonna keep going. He' sdoing a power, at least for twenty
or thirty more years and maybe more. And Cuba doesn' t have the
option of getting out of there,going to the edge of Russia, or
on the edge of China or onthe edge of Vietnam listening to these people.
Cuba' s choice is with itsown intelligence, with its own intelligence,

(26:57):
leaving aside all ideological and political considerationsand focusing on how to solve the
very serious economic problem that Uva hasand, of course, when it is
economic, it is social. Peoplein Cuba have been surviving for almost sixty

(27:18):
years. The exact wages at thetime I told them it was a rather
short time, were about twenty ofso many years. If they never reach
anything and you can' t getbetter, because you don' t have
to do it and it' sa constant, permanent state of turmoil.

(27:41):
And I think that that is justas inhuman and cruel is the blockade is
also inhuman and cruel to constantly subjectthe people to that number of problems only
for ideological and political considerations. Youhave another serious problem and it is that

(28:03):
many years ago the aptitude changed,or the aptitude competes that is you,
you can say that you are therevolutionary or the communist or the socialist more
make rhythms of the world and shoutwith sign go to the act and have

(28:29):
banderitas. And that' s alreadyshowing that you can hold a position,
that you can choose a company,that can make decisions. That is Rafael
' s mistake, because then thereare people who are fit, with aptitude
p, who have the knowledge,who have the ability to seek solutions,

(28:53):
to implement solutions, to seek solutionsto things. Or they have very good
ideas, but, unfortunately, theydon' t like banners and they don
' t like slogans and they don' t like meetings or meetings. Let
' s see that man. Hecan' t be allowed to make decisions,

(29:14):
he can' t be allowed tohold leadership positions, because if he
' s a suspect, he doesn' t like banderitas. That' s
what the revolution tells us. AndI wonder, being Cuban, wanting to
solve things in Cuba for him andfor his family and for those around them,
what need there is that I madebanners and that I scream with single.

(29:40):
I' d like to ask someoneto tell me how necessary that is.
I' m sure there are alot of people, lots and lots
of big people who live outside thatif they let him live quiet, without
the appetizer of being chasing because notwho the party is, because they don
' t want to be of theyouth or because they don' t want

(30:03):
to go to meetings or want togo to any act, because they don
' t want to go always plain. People have their book of will.
They don' t want to beconstantly dependent on politics, they want to
work for themselves and their family andtheir well- being, and if they
make money on it in that job, in that attempt. Well, congratulations

(30:26):
on them, because he must becondemned. I stayed in one piece when
I heard Esteban Lazu, who isone of Cuba' s top leaders,
speak again that they cannot allow peopleto become rich. But why not?

(30:49):
Why not? I would be proudof what there were a million Cubans who
were billionaires and who lived in Cuba, because that would support what I said
the Cuban is one of the mosttalented people to create. I don'
t even say it with pride.I say that the Cuban is a person

(31:11):
with a spectacular inventiveness. Then theydon' t let us do anything within
our country and billions of Cubans haveleft Cuba and a lot of those people

(31:32):
outside do their business, plant theiridea and here, in the United States,
in any country of the world,these people progress and if they become
millionaires well, if they are notstealing, if they are not doing harm,
if they are not doing anything wrongor anything illegal, they contribute to

(31:57):
society the taxes and that they followthe legality. That' s bad.
Someone who has a million dollars ortwo or three million, ten s better,
better, what they' re gonnado wrong. That' s what
the laws are for, but theywant everything or to expose from a purely

(32:19):
political point of view, to threatenthat there can' t be rich,
that' s not the other thing, that' s already a go for
something ridiculous. There are people whohave innate talent that, that is undeniable.
And there are people who, evenif you give him what you give
him, make him a piece ofcrap or can' t do anything.
And it' s proven in Cuba, it' s proven that graduate engineer,

(32:50):
that they' ve run n numberof companies and they' ve all
been mediocre. And that' snot an anecdote. That' s almost
the rule. Why? From whatI said, because you' ve changed
your aptitude or attitude. It isnot necessary to be with a personatigante for
you to run a company or foryou to create a project and carry it

(33:15):
forward. No. No, whatis needed is to be revolutionary in quotation
marks and in that way all thestages of government have been filled with opportunist
and mediocre people and good, sinceopportunists and gave me you believe that we
will expect mediocrity and opportunism, inertiaimmobility. That is what we have achieved

(33:43):
by changing attitude for attitude. Iknow that the fight with the United States
for Cuba' s sovereignty is noteasy. I know, and that the
United States has no noble intention orHuebnan who wants to cd Cuba a shit.
That' s a lie. TheUnited States only has a friend who

(34:05):
is in the bank kept a safe, if he is America' s true
friend, his money. So,over time, they have used the false
discourse that Cuba they want with Cubais to help the part of democracy,
because human rights, which is thisand the other. That is false and

(34:29):
they have used thousands of Cubans tocreate the appearance that there are many Cubans
who hate the country where they wereborn. Many lend themselves to that because,
as the poet said, powerful gentlemanis gift money. And that'

(34:50):
s the way it is. Whenwe stop valuing people who can really contribute
and trade them for those who saythey can contribute, disaster is almost assured.
And that' s what happened inCuba. This part I leave here

(35:10):
will soon continue with another part ofmy observations on the Cuban reality. Thank
you all very much. A hugand you' re on Mister or until
the next Chao