Havana Cuba. — On January 15, according to the Castro mystic, the “Cuban Science Day” is celebrated to commemorate the speech of that day in 1960 in which Fidel Castro said: “Cuba must be in the future a country of men of science and thought”.
The bombastic and megalomaniac Commander He inaugurated universities and scientific centers that, according to him, would place Cuba at the highest level. We would be, he said, capable of producing enough milk to fill Havana Bay, more butter than Holland, and we would earn more than $3,000 a month in salary.
Today, children over the age of seven cannot drink milk, there is no butter on the market, and the average monthly salary does not exceed 50 dollars a month.
Recently, the appointed ruler, Miguel Díaz-Canel, in a meeting with scientists, asked himself: “How do we manage to build that awareness that we must go to scientific research, to innovation, which is the objective of the science and innovation system as a pillar of government management?
The answer to that question is in the popular proverb: “The winemaker thinks one thing and the client another”.
What about scientific research centers, such as sugar cane, cattle, pasture and forage, just to name a few?
The Center for Information Management and Energy Development (CUBAENERGÍA), focused on the electrical energy systems of the Electric Union and basic and applied research, did not prevent maintenance from being given to the “maya Faraday”, protector of the base of supertankers in Matanzas, and we all know the end of the story of the fall of the super-lightning and the consequent fire in the month of August of last year.
The Institute of Animal Science, founded in 1965, is dedicated to the development of Cuban livestock. But, what development of livestock can one speak of if there are no cows or bulls and even the bellowing is rationed?
What was left of the Niña Bonita genetic plan? What about the F-1, F-2 and F-3 cows (the F for Fidel), that cross between the Holstein and Zebu breeds, which would give a superior cow, represented in white udder, that leader of the association of cows friends of Mozart, Schubert and Carrier (because of the air conditioning)? Now there is not a glass of milk, not a slice of meat.
The Sugarcane Research Institute (INICA), created in 1964, studied the technologies, equipment and services for the needs of sugarcane cultivation.
And what use were Mongo Castro’s advice to cut the cane into three pieces if now there is only caguazo?
In the 1952 harvest, by hand and with carts pulled by oxen, eight million tons were produced. In the harvests of recent years, the million tons are barely exceeded, and sometimes not even that.
We have gone from being the first sugar producer to importing sugar to be able to give three little pounds a month to each Cuban for the ration book.
Twelve years ago, when Díaz-Canel, the president-designate, was Minister of Higher Education, he announced that one million university students had graduated.
How many graduates are there now? Where are they? Where did those university graduates, Masters and Doctors of Science go? Most were victims of the “brain drain” from the developed capitalist countries; or rather they were actors in a joyous brain drain that now enriches Miami, Montreal, or London, with engineers, paramedics, physicists, and agronomists.
Of the thousands of graduates of the Higher Institute of Agricultural Sciences of Bayamo, only three remain in Bayamo. One is a night watchman and the other two drown their sorrows at the Saltapatrás Bar, longing for what could have been and was not.
I am in favor of innovation and science. I suggest to the president-designate that instead of dividing doctorates between him and his wife (nothing more opportunistic, given his position), give space to empirical scientists, those who generate what the people need.
How is it possible that a saddler, a punch maker or an alchemist without a book provide cheese to the most distinguished private restaurants in Havana from his hiding place in a marabuzal using a domestic washing machine, support the private public transport system with almendrones, or manufacture anti-corrosion paint, while scientists fail to fulfill their missions regarding livestock and dairy farming, organization and transportation planning, or chemical solutions to improve the exterior finish of our buildings?
Scientists and innovators are important, and we congratulate them this January 15. But more important is economic freedom, freedom of thought, and above all, the freedom to create a different, better country.
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