We Cubans Do Not Need Recipes, But Freedom To Grow Food
HAVANA TIMES – The “experts” arrive, like the Brazilian Frei Betto, to tell us how we have to do it… but we already know. We have known it for centuries since the first ones who made cassava on this Island, passing through my grandparents who made thick corn “tayuyos” like those that could not be eaten in one sitting; to the “strained” peas that we gave our young children to make them grow despite their skinny legs and diminutive size… we already know.
It’s called “freedom” and it’s the main ingredient in every dish, every crop, every harvest.
Why can this cabbage that I plant in an old can on a balcony a few meters from the Ministry of Agriculture give me more hope than the ephemeral plans of the state company Acopio? Because this cabbage is freely watered. It doesn’t answer to anyone, it doesn’t have to pander to the statistics spouted by any leader strutting his stuff on a podium.
It is just a cabbage, and we are just people who harvest a cabbage that knows that the land can give much and more, but it does not produce from ideologies, nationalization or straitjackets designed by central planning. It’s a cabbage, it doesn’t understand parties, and hungry mouths need more cabbages like this.
Circles, I have noticed that substantive comments which challenge the HT party line, generally seem to be ignored, e.g., a comment I posted a while ago regarding a statement from a director of infectious medicine about the extraordinary job Cuba did on confronting COVID. Crickets, as they say, from you, Moses, Olga and the gang. So why not poke fun at these well compensated, coddled “Freedom Fighters” like Yoanni ?
Moreover, I know and admit that Cuba has a terrible record in the agricultural production problem. On the other hand, I don’t know of any other country that had to deal with as many constraints for so long as Cuba either. I know, I know. The embargo is just an excuse. Any fool knows it hardly makes a diffrence, that’s why the US government put it in place – to give Fidel an excuse…
Dan, somehow in your dislike of Yoanni you forgot to comment on the subject and content of the article which happens to be on Cuba. You could remind us know that Cuba’s decades of failed agricultural policies are the fault of the United States. Some readers might believe that.
Betcha Yoanni would like those “Freedom Fries” that they were serving in the US Capitol Cafeteria, just before we bombed the living crap out of Irak..