Cuba and Its Generational Problems
By Eduardo N. Cordoví Hernandez
HAVANA TIMES – I believe that as one grows older, the world shrinks considerably, becomes faster, and everything that once seemed important ceases to be so, while whatever once seemed trivial starts to gain value.
I remember that when I was a child, I had a very particular sense of immensity about the size of my school and the classrooms I attended throughout my school years. Years later, when I already had children and went back to walk through those same spaces, everything seemed so small that I could hardly believe it.
And simple experiences like these are what, day after day, accumulate as trivial knowledge until they end up forming the information we eventually start calling “experience,” and even confuse—or not—with what we mean by “transcendence.”
Said this way, one might believe—perhaps rightly—that as we age, we become wise. From there also comes the ancient reverence for elders in antiquity and the respect for one’s elders.
It’s worth remembering that, from their beginnings, great social groups began to be governed by those Councils of Elders, which gave rise to the Senates and Parliaments of the governments we know today. “Senate” and “senator” are words that derive from senior, which in turn comes from Latin and means “wise old man.”
From such a genesis also arises, in a similar way, the establishment in nearly all modern states’ legislation that their highest offices must be held by people no younger than forty years of age—or, as another example, that popes must be cardinals, a rank that a young person can very rarely hold.
Such fervor for the elderly has diminished with the supposed “evolution of humanity,” due to social development, the layering of culture, and the flowering of civilization. One need only look at how modern initiatives such as euthanasia or sending parents and grandparents to geriatric centers or nursing homes are gaining supporters—acts that veil or justify selfish, egotistical, or self-centered desires. All this in the name of the right to independence, individual freedom, happiness—or, why not—of being able to “be someone in life,” improve the family’s finances, and so on. None of which is less legitimate, given the level of “civilization” reached by “humanity.”
However, here where I live, in Havana—a place where, for various reasons (which I don’t intend to dwell on now), daily life contradicts this reasoning—it’s no secret to anyone that the country is moving backward at full speed toward ancestral scenarios. Yet there’s no sign in society, I mean among the average citizen, of any renewal of that positive, affectionate appreciation for those who have lived the longest.
The disrespect of young and not-so-young people toward their elders teaches children behaviors whose protocol is anything but decent, reaching levels that go beyond what could be considered tolerably aggressive. It’s also fair to say that its mutual, since in this part of the world, the elders are no less uncivil in their manners.
It must also be remembered that the root of the problem may lie in the fact that elders first stopped displaying that masterful, guiding, and certain wisdom that once led their descendants along paths of more reasonable progress and security.
Right now, a superficial search for traces of intelligence, honesty, and decency reveals a lack of such talents—qualities that have become traits reserved for literature.
Old age, which “in times past” was distinguished by the nobility and honor of gentlemen, now clings to fortunes obtained through investments made with public tax money—resources that should never have been privatized. And they do so with pride. Meanwhile, others think they do it without shame.