Many of us wondered what purpose that “Battle of Ideas” that came from Fidel Castro’s head would serve.
HAVANA, Cuba. – In Cuba there is a lot of talk, and perhaps too much, about ideas; ideas here, ideas there, ideas everywhere. And I also heard, and not infrequently, the occasional mention of what is still called the “Battle of Ideas,” those battles that, it is claimed, came from the head of Fidel Castro.
I remember that, by then, there were many of us who wondered what these “battles of ideas” were for, and I remember a little neighbor in the neighborhood who listened to everything that was said about the matter, and who had the idea of dressing, with the complicity of his mother, as an idea. The child, or rather the mother, decided to dress him in the oldest clothes, with those that showed a few damages.
And the mother did not give him a kiss, the mother gave him a stick, a stick that would be the representation of a shotgun in that contest of ideas. And all of that was the fault of Fidel Castro, the “great ideologue” who always decided which ideas should enter into battles, and which ones were left in reserve, in a rearguard that could sometimes move a little more to the center.
And the boy went to the street, believing that from now on everything would be a fight, and that without a doubt it already was, at least in the heads of those children who, encouraged by the Castros, always dreamed of some battle, even if it was just a “battle of ideas”, even if they had that name and did not give food.
And the children played battles, which could be normal all over the world, except that that time, and almost every time, our children were compelled by the ideas of Fidel Castro. The children prepared themselves for the conflagrations, they joined the brawls in which the children who played to die for some idea died, pierced by an idea that could be, in the game, a bullet.
And in Cuba everything becomes a battle, a “battle of ideas”, knowing that they do not provide food, even knowing that the most important thing is to live, and not die pierced by a bullet in a strange war; Even knowing that the most important thing is to always live, and above all to feed yourself to take care of life, but feeding yourself today in Cuba is very difficult, it is a pitched, devastating battle.
Feeding ourselves is always a big problem, but in the last days of the year it becomes a major conflict, a serious problem, a huge and very real battle. Eating in Cuba then becomes the worst problem. And today we all want to say goodbye to the year, even knowing that from the beginning it could be worse.
And therein lies the problem. In Cuba everyone wants the bonanza for the last day, to start much better than other times, much better than how we ended the previous year, but those are just ideas, and ideas are not enough to eat, and things were very bad in the year that ended, and worse in the one that began.
It’s always good to start better than how we finished. Most of us long for the best. The vast majority of us dream of a year of prosperity, a happy year in which we celebrate the end of communism on this earth. We all want something better, and not a country where children talk about “battles of ideas.”
Our children are fighters, even though they were taught to be like that Argentinian they called Ché, even though they were told that they should be pioneers for communism. Cuban children should be what they want to be, and not that absurd thing of looking like an Argentinian. Our boys should not be pioneers for communism, for a communism that is obligatory to defend, and even if it kills us, even if it leads us to emigration, to separate us from our own.
Children, at least in that world of ideas that power outlines for Cubans, must be like Ché, and be willing, like Ché, to enroll in conflagrations that are not their concern, ready for the worst wars, for those battles in which we can die, in those battles that could be the last of all battles.
The ideas, those that are imposed on us, do not feed us. Ideas are not enough to solve those prices we pay to eat. In Cuba, in that Cuba of Battles of Ideas, a pound of pork yesterday was nine hundred pesos a pound, and to eat beans you have to spend six hundred bills. Today a kilogram of rice costs one hundred and fifty pesos, and cassava, not counting what we buy to season it, is worth one hundred pesos per pound. and the ideas, those that Fidel Castro wanted to put in our heads, walk through heaven, in a sky of diamonds, in a hell that Fidel Castro will design, who knew very well that ideas do not give us food…
