Reflections by Comrade Fidel
THE
EXPLOITS IN
I am taking a brief pause in my political analyses to
dedicate this space to the exploits of our Cuban athletes at the Sixteenth
Pan-American Games.
The Olympic Games and the international sports competitions
revolving around them and which arouse such interest for billions of persons,
have a beautiful history that should be remembered not for having been abused.
The contribution of the creator of the Olympic Games
was particularly unblemished, more so than that of Nobel who, at one stage of
his life, seeking to create a more efficient means of production, produced the
explosive whose economic fruits he assigned to carry out his wishes for peace,
awarding both scientists and brilliant writers as well as the head of an empire
who orders the murder of an adversary in the presence of his family, the
bombing of a tribe in central Asia or of a small independent country in northern Africa and
the extermination of its commanding bodies.
Baron Pierre de Coubertin was the father of the modern
Olympic Games; an aristocrat by birth, born in France, a capitalist country
where peasants, workers or artisans were not given the possibility by that
society to undertake that task.
Ignoring the
wishes of his family who wanted him to become an army officer, he broke with
the
He begins to dream of bringing together sportsmen from
every country in a sporting competition under the principle of union and
fraternity, without any profits and driven by the desire to attain glory.
At first, his
ideas were not understood but he persisted, travelling all over the world
speaking of peace and union among peoples and all human beings.
Finally, the International Physical Education Congress
being held in
The idea met with resistance and lack of understanding
in
Pierre de Coubertin was successful in committing
emperors, kings and governments in
The principal factor was, in my opinion, the depth and
nobility of his ideas that won the support of peoples around the world.
For the first time, on
Two destructive and shattering wars have occurred
since then, both originating in Europe, costing the world tens of millions of
persons dead in combat, adding to that the civilians who died in the bombings
or because of the hunger and disease that followed. Peace is not guaranteed. What
we know is that, in a new world war, modern weaponry could destroy humankind
several times over.
It is in the light of these realities that I so admire
the conduct of our sportsmen and sportswomen.
The most important thing about the Olympic movement is
the conception of sport as a instrument for education, health and friendship
among peoples; a real antidote for vices such as drugs, smoking, abusing
alcoholic beverages and the acts of violence that so affect human society.
In the mind of the Olympic founder, the idea of
salaried sports or the buying and selling of athletes never occurred. That was also the noble objective of the
Cuban Revolution, involving the duty of promoting sports just as health,
education, science, culture and the arts, always the undeniable principles of
the Revolution.
Not only that, our country promoted the practice of
sports and the training of coaches in Third World countries that were
struggling for their development. The
Thousands of Cuban specialists have provided their
services as coaches and sports technicians in many countries of what is known
as the
It is within the framework of those principles being
applied during dozens of years that our people feel proud of the medals that
their athletes obtain at the international competitions.
The transnationals of professional sports have left
the dreams of the creator of the Olympics far behind.
Taking advantage of the prestige created by the
sporting competitions, excellent athletes, many of them born in the poor
nations of Africa and Latin America, are bought and sold on the international
market by those companies and, only on a handful of occasions are they allowed
to play on teams of their own countries where they were promoted as prestigious
athletes by their personal efforts and because of their own qualities.
Our people, austere and sacrificing, has had to face
up to the claws of those money-grubbing merchants of professional sports who
offer fabulous amounts of money to our athletes and, at times, deprive the
people of their presence with those gross acts of piracy.
As a sports fan, I have chatted many times with the
most outstanding of them and that is why, on this occasion, I am really pleased
to see the sports successes of our delegation on TV and their victorious return
to the Homeland, back from Guadalajara where the United States, despite having
approximately 27 times more inhabitants than Cuba, was only able to obtain 1.58
times more standings and the corresponding gold medals than Cuba which obtained
58.
México, with more than 100, got 42.
The total number of gold, silver and bronze medals won
by
Quite a few of our young athletes had truly amazing
successes.
Despite the victories which fill our people with
pride, we have the duty to continue excelling.
Fidel Castro Ruz
October 30, 2011
10:11 p.m.