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Students
submitted to abhorrent indoctrination
By Claudia Marquez Linares.
Posted on Mon, Dec. 08, 2003 in The
Miami Herald.
HAVANA -- 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.
Cuban teachers are expected to put their
students through this kind of exercise,
and we, the parents, have no say on it.
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, now 6, is learning to read and
write. Recently one of his assignments was
to write letters to the five Cuban agents
jailed in the United States 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 prison
under an 18-year sentence for demanding
freedom for all Cubans and defending his
homeland, he answered: ''No, Mommy, 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 prison
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 imprisoned
for defending freedom and democracy. He
speaks of his father only with close relatives.
When I told him that his father was in prison
on orders from our president, he answered:
"Ah, Mommy, 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,
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 is education for if we have
no freedom? What is education for if it
turns into a weapon of mass indoctrination?
Claudia Márquez Linares is vice
president of an independent association
of Cuban journalists and co-editor of its
samizdat review, De Cuba.
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