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 U.S. press reported on a military supercomputer capable of millions and millions of calculations per second. They christened it with the name of a bird indigenous to New Mexico: Roadrunner. It cost 133 million dollars. The cable adds: “if each of the world's 6 billion people worked on personal computers for 24 hours a day, it would take them 46 years to do what the Roadrunner computer can do in a single day.”

            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 del mundo moral”). He shows us that Marti’s ethics and the history of our people are interwoven with the seeds of justice and dignity which the Revolution brought to Cuba.

            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 United States attempts to block access to information. I hope, nevertheless, that you can follow the avalanche of news on the problems that plague the world up close.

            A heartfelt and respectful farewell,

 

Fidel Castro Ruz

June 10, 2008

8:32 p.m.