The fact “Marxism-Leninism” continues to be included in the syllabi of Cuban universities reveals the divorce between the economic reforms impelled by the Castro government and the political discourse it holds up as banner.
Cuba’s National Sports, Physical Education and Recreation Institute (INDER) is slowly but systematically dismantling its role as a socializer of sports and focusing its energies on the restoration and strengthening of its commercial and industrial infrastructure.
I recall how, back in primary school, we used to shower white herons with rocks while heading back home from school. Poor things, they’ve never been anything but “worthless” to common people in Cuba.
Why are Cuban sexologists so afraid of polygamy? They ascribe infinite possibilities to monogamous relationships, as though sexual desire could in fact be fully satisfied within the limits of traditional, conjugal fidelity.
If I were to write “workplace protection in Cuba,” we would rightly see a catastrophe in this. What people here don’t know or interpret in a distorted fashion owing to the sugar-coated image that sensationalist documentaries offer us, is that truly efficient and efficacious occupational safety exists nowhere in the world.
Censorship has spread to so many levels in Cuba that even sports commentary, a type of editorial journalism is caught in the same, ridiculous straightjacket that constrains political or specialized journalism.
It seems as though decisive steps to make Internet services widely available in Cuba will finally be taken. Much pressure has built up in connection with this issue as a result of the heated disputes probably taking place between different interests groups on the island.
One cannot help but wonder, even at the risk of coming across as naive, what social behavior the Cuban government would consider appropriate – what use of culture it would consider virtuous, revolutionary and socialist.
I once saw ethnologist Miguel Barnet, Chair of the Association of Cuban Writers and Artists (UNEAC), in a bout of ill-intentioned perplexity. He was giving the opening speech for a social sciences symposium that addressed the issue of illegal settlements in the capital.
The economic crisis of the 1990s led Cubans to produce a broad variety of alcoholic beverages through traditional and innovative methods. But why don’t Cubans have a tradition of making beer through traditional means?