Is Cuba Today Close to the Stone Age?
By Eduardo N. Cordovi Hernandez
HAVANA TIMES – Although in the realm of academic rigor the term Stone Age has long been superseded—and thus historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, ethnologists, and the scientific world no longer use it—it’s clear that, in everyday, familiar, and informal language, everyone understands what we’re talking about.
That’s why I use it; because if there’s one thing I care about, it’s being understood. Under such conditions, using the technically correct term might work against that goal. Besides, I’m not addressing the scientific community.
For those who missed the day in school when the History class covered “the Stone Age,” or who went but have long since forgotten, I’ll say that it was a period—an awfully, awfully long time ago—when human beings, to stay alive, slept in caves… if they were lucky enough to find one.
They ate meat if they managed to hunt something. In winter, they covered themselves with the hides of the animals they had caught, and in the broadest sense, everything was extremely rudimentary. There were no stores, no electric lights, no running water, no gas for cooking, no public transportation, no hospitals. At best, they might find a healer, but no real medicines—only herbal teas, a few rubs, and help from the gods. To keep the story short—and with a little imagination—it was much like life today in Cuba.
Here in my neighborhood, we sometimes think this must be the end of the world. In fact, it already has been for some. But the total end it is not; rather, this was part of the beginning. And it still is.
Here in my neighborhood, many often think that others should be in charge of making this “historical regression” end already, or they’re desperate for it to end and for something, anything new to begin, as long as things change. But lasting changes have their own tempo and tend to be slow. No one is going to come and change anything for us, and—if it’s going to happen at all—don’t wait for it. Let it come on its own. No fruit ripens by being beaten with a stick.
At this very moment, according to official UN figures, between one hundred thousand and one hundred fifty thousand people are literally living in the “Stone Age,” scattered in groups of hundreds or even thousands across various parts of the world.
That number might seem small. But if you consider that the urban centers of Reims (known as the capital of Champagne and the city where the kings of France were crowned), Salamanca (famous for having one of Europe’s oldest universities), Escondido (in San Diego County, California, USA), or Miramar (in the state of Florida) all have roughly the same population, you get a sense of what a few hundred or thousands of people can represent for humanity.
Just yesterday some friends and I were talking about these people who live voluntarily isolated from what we call civilization. Many of these communities inhabit virgin lands untouched by modern man, unexplored and hard-to-reach places—like the Brazilian Amazon or New Guinea. Many of these human groups are completely hostile, while others, though they have had contact with civilization, prefer not to integrate.
We were all utterly astonished. Someone said—half joking, half ironic, but expressing a sentiment that I’m sure is quite widespread—that there are already places in Cuba where many people dream of civilization rediscovering us.