A
Web of Indoctrination Catches Cuba's Students
By Claudia Márquez Linares, Claudia
Márquez Linares is vice president
of an independent association of Cuban journalists
and co-editor of its samizdat review, De
Cuba.
Los
Angeles Times,
December 2, 2003.
What has happened to freedom of thought
in Cuba today? Let me tell you a story.
When my son's kindergarten teacher asked
him to bring a plastic gun to school, I
was surprised. I asked Cristian, then 5,
why the teacher wanted this toy, but he
didn't know. I went to the classroom to
ask and found the teacher distributing plastic
weapons and shouting, "Go! Shoot! Boom,
boom! We are killing imperialism!"
All the children, including my son, were
shooting in the air and shouting "Boom,
boom!" against this invisible specter
the teacher told them was imperialism.
This was one of those exercises that Cuban
teachers are expected to put their students
through, and we, the parents, have no say
in. If we oppose it, we may be branded as
counterrevolutionaries and sentenced to
jail for "acts against the normal development
of a minor."
Powerless, I stood speechless in the corner
and soon left.
Education in Cuba is free and obligatory
until age 16, but it is infused with the
ideology that rules our island.
Cristian is now 6 years old and learning
to read and write. Recently one of his assignments
was to write letters to the five Cuban agents
jailed in the U.S. on charges of spying.
In Cuba they are known as "the five
heroes, prisoners of the empire." The
teacher told my son that the men were in
prison for defending the homeland. When
I told Cristian that his father, Osvaldo
Alfonso Valdés, leader of the Liberal
Party and lifelong dissident, was in jail
under an 18-year sentence for demanding
freedom for all Cubans and defending his
homeland, he answered: "No, Mummy,
you are wrong. It is the five heroes who
are jailed for defending the homeland."
This is what the teacher had said.
I have labored to make sure that my son
is not ashamed of his father. The school
principal has informed me that those children
whose parents are in prison need special
treatment - hinting of some sort of retaliation
if the children do not toe the line.
Since his father was detained in March
as part of the crackdown on dissidents that
landed 74 other courageous Cubans in jail
for an average of 20 years, my son has been
restless and confused. It's no wonder. He
cannot explain to the teacher or his schoolmates
that his father is a good man who is jailed
for defending freedom and democracy. He
speaks of his father only with close relatives.
When I told him that his father was in jail
on orders from our president, he answered:
"Ah, Mummy, don't you speak evil of
Fidel: They will take you away too, and
I will be crying a lot!"
From primary school to university, we Cubans
learn that to dissent from the Communist
Party line means our marginalization. Sometimes
merely voicing one's hopes is taken as offense.
Larri Rodríguez Reyes, a 21-year-old
computer science student, is awaiting the
disciplinary commission's decision on whether
he will be dismissed from his university.
He has been suspended since Nov. 6 for "making
public and notorious remarks of counterrevolutionary
character" - speaking critically of
the revolutionary process in Cuba. He told
his colleagues that "freedom better
come to our island sooner rather than later."
Rodríguez Reyes' parents insist
that he repent to avoid being dismissed
permanently. He does not want to take back
his comments. He feels betrayed by those
who denounced him in a public academic tribunal
(a kind of court of peers) although, he
said, they often agreed with him in private.
Later, these same colleagues confessed to
him that they had to go after him or they
would get in trouble. Rodríguez Reyes
vows to fight for reinstatement because
"nobody can deny me education for the
simple fact of expressing dissenting opinions."
According to the official propaganda, the
Cuban people are the most educated in the
world, but what use is education if we have
no freedom, what use is education when it
turns into a weapon of mass indoctrination?
Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times
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