Still Betting on an Inclusive World
HAVANA TIMES – A friend of mine who had taken semiotics classes once told me that the first place our attention goes is to the upper right-hand corner. For that reason, the most important information in magazines, newspapers, and other media is placed in that area.
I don’t know if that applies to my case, but the truth is, when I arrange my bookstall, the book I consider most important goes right there. Just like the biggest books go in the front row, followed by the others underneath. One on top of another without covering their titles or authors, of course.
That day, I was offering a lot of literature: technical texts, literary works, and some material from the community of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Then along came a customer—very kind, the kind of person you’d always want as a friend. He belongs to a Protestant community that is generally quite conservative in Cuba. After greeting me and glancing over the texts, he said: “Sister, those Jehovah’s Witness books don’t promote the Christ that the rest of the churches preach. Don’t sell them.”
There were several of those texts—books I myself have read at some point and that I feel gave me a perspective on the spirituality of a particular people. Therefore, I believe they’ve helped thousands of people live their lives. In other words, they’ve been important too.
That’s why I replied to my dear customer: “I’m sorry, but I believe in and work toward building an inclusive society. A world where we all have a seat at the Lord’s table. And it’s precisely because of that principle that I don’t feel compelled to remove that literature, even if it doesn’t entirely align with my way of understanding Christianity.”
I’m deeply grateful that my customer—who is also a university professor of Artificial Intelligence—laughed and ended up agreeing with me. Because we both know that we share the responsibility of building a country where a single dominant ideology does not prevail, and where that model of education, so frequently criticized by Paulo Freire in many ways, is not the only reality.
Instead, we need a popular, participatory, democratic education… one where different voices are not feared. Because we all have something to express, something to teach, even if it doesn’t come from institutional power.
I’m satisfied that the professor understood me. And I’m very happy not to be the only Cuban who thinks this way.