HAVANA, Cuba. – I had a friend who had a very heavy sleep, a dream so resounding that it even became classic among his acquaintances. My friend lay down on his bed and a few seconds later he was already exhausted and enjoying himself in the arms of Morpheus, the one he considered his best ally, and even his best lover, the one who gave him the greatest pleasures, and rarely displeased him. . My friend always used to repeat, when I made complaints to him because he didn’t respond to my calls, the same phrase: “Child, when I sleep…, I sleep!”
And if I evoke the friend now it is because Abel Prieto reminded me of him, that Abel Prieto who, also, when he sleeps, sleeps. And I hope the reader does not believe that I ever slept with him. If I write this text it is because I saw, in an image published on the networks, Abel Prieto asleep, broken, surrendered on that “battlefield” that is the National Assembly. The image, they say, was taken in one of those sessions of the communist meeting.
And it was surprising to discover the identity of that not-so-beautiful sleeper, and also his irreverence. The sleeper turned out to be Prieto, a name from the communist nomenclature who was once head of UNEAC, and also Minister of Culture and “advisor to the president”, and who is now the boss of Casa de las Américas. Abel Prieto, always the president of something, fell asleep, and this time in the middle of a session of the National Assembly of People’s Power.
And I suppose that this snooze in the Assembly is, for the communists, a “sacrilege.” Abel Prieto had his head drooping, and was very asleep, so much so that he could even be seen broken, which is the same as having his neck broken and his head hanging over the shoulder of the nearest neighbor. And in such conditions I don’t think he could attend to the plenary session and the boring interventions of his bosses, nor to those of the many deputies who take the floor to say the same thing.
Abel must have been very bored. He did something that could be considered rude to his bosses, a huge slight. Abel Prieto committed a big sin when he fell asleep while the others were “debating.” He did not listen to the exalted, faithful speeches. He preferred to sleep, he chose to sleep and to wake up to the unanimity of applause to join them. And that sleepyhead has just been awarded an honorary doctorate at the University of Pinar del Río, in that city where he came into the world.
A very young university without any academic tradition, gave him his honoris causathe one that does not require a doctoral thesis to endorse it. A very young university without any tradition awarded the doctorate to Mr. Prieto, which makes it a “hand-made doctorate.” And in Cuba, to receive it, all that is needed is a slight lobbying among communists, and the communist attachments of those who are going to receive it. Receive the doctorate as Prieto received, without burning his eyelashes.
Prieto, the one who does not need a doctoral thesis to endorse his knowledge, to confirm his research (if he had any), already has his doctorate, one that, as a friend would say, is from “a de’o”. Here the Government recommends, rather it orders, and the university institution, with great acquiescence, accepts, executes, applauds. The Party ordered and the universities executed what had been decided. And Abel Prieto already has his doctorate, now we will see what he does with it. Will he fall asleep again? Ultimately, as the great Jorge Luis Borges said, “sleeping is distracting yourself from the world,” and that may be what Mr. Prieto prefers.
