LETTER TO JUVENTUD REBELDE COLUMNIST ALINA PERERA
Dear Alina,
My
apologies for taking a few minutes of your time with this letter. The reason I
write you is altogether simple: I devote a lot of my
time to reading news and articles, including some published by our own press.
In “Scratching Each Other's Backs" ("Tráfico de regalías"),
an editorial published by Juventud Rebelde on June 8, you express admiration for the
honest conduct of two individuals: a doctor who operates a diagnostic
ultrasound machine and a young computer repairman who, through arduous efforts,
made your personal computer work again.
These are good examples of young, revolutionary
professionals. Others, as we know well, are the tens of thousands of Cuban
doctors who, today, make up an extraordinary legion of medical professionals that
offers humanitarian services in any corner of the world. They were not trained
to become private practitioners. From the very beginning, in the course of half
a century, the Revolution has worked to create that force of doctors. Betraying
this noble profession is more repulsive than any other kind of betrayal,
inasmuch as human life and suffering are worthy of respect. The same holds for
those who are tasked with educating children, developing culture, impelling
scientific work or promoting the practice of sports, for everyone's benefit.
Were they to turn their backs on their duties, the human species to which they
belong, in the world it was their lot to live in, would be as short-lived as
the capitalist illusions of those who traffic in their services are
short-sighted.
The question we must all ask ourselves is whether our
conduct and our objectives are reconcilable with the laws of nature and the
fruits of human intelligence.
It is a moral duty to strike at the concepts and
attitudes of those who serve the empire that seeks to destroy our dearest
values.
You were completely honest in writing that you are not interested
in a grey, boring and flat form of socialism. How boring, flat or grey our form
of socialism becomes shall depend, among many other things, on how our
journalists use the media that the Revolution has made available to them, media
that are not privately owned or seek to mould people's minds.
There is nothing as alienating as much of the content of
the so-called "entertainment industry" developed by imperialism, with
which young people and children waste countless hours, at a time when socialism
has not yet created sufficiently efficient antidotes to counter its harmful
effects.
People who get involved in corruption and the theft of
state resources end up defending free enterprise, through which they transform
the fruits of their thefts into merchandise. They are not even aware of what
would happen to our people were the country to fall, again, in the hands of the
voracious and monstrous empire.
Science takes pride in its achievements. Many are
excited, as is to be expected, about science's capacity to manipulate
hereditary genes to improve human health, but few are concerned over the racist
concepts that accompany the empire's political power and the latter's fascist
idea of a superior race that is to own the world of today and tomorrow. Let us
devote this due thought. Let us keep abreast of new scientific discoveries and
draw informed conclusions.
Dozens of news about the food crisis, energy and raw
material prices, climate change and other, interelated
problems, reach us each day.
Soybean, preheated at 125 º C, is one of the most
wholesome and economical sources of protein and calories to be found among
industrial food products for direct consumption. It has a broad range of uses.
Transgenic products, used to produce animal proteins and fats, are not suitable
for human consumption. Leguminous and gramineae
plants, in general, improved and tested over the years, are the key source of
wholesome and healthful foods. The cultivation of each of these plants requires
rigorous climate controls and a human workforce, where temperature, humidity
and tradition have a decisive say in the productivity of the available cropland
in each country. The production of these essential proteins and calories per
hectare, its energy cost and the CO2 injected into the atmosphere by
each harvest, are considerations to be included in the manual of all politicians
around the world. Knowing these things are today as important as knowing how to
read and write. One cannot afford to be illiterate about these issues.
Today, we no longer use an abacus for calculations, as
was the case when the first socialist revolution took place 90 years ago. Along
with nuclear, chemical, biological and electromagnetic weapons, science has
also since developed computers. Two days ago, the
These figures, dear Alina, are
mind-boggling and I have no choice but to include the less than literary facts
in this letter.
The empire not only invests in the training of its
scientific personnel, it also brutally deprives other countries in the world of
their best minds. No one can compete with it in terms of research resources.
I was pleased with the final lines of your article, on Cintio Vitier's book "The Sun of the Moral World” (“Ese sol
I believe that we must apply the principles of socialism
around the world right now. Later, it will be too late.
I would like for this letter, though longer than your article,
to be published on the same page of Juventud Rebelde where yours was published. There is no need to
waste the paper or space of other publications.
I would also like for someone to read it at the congress
of journalists that will soon be held. I remember that, a few years ago, many
of our journalists did not even have a personal computer. Today, the government
of the
A heartfelt and respectful farewell,
Fidel Castro Ruz
June 10, 2008
8:32 p.m.