pedro martori

The New York Sun Newspaper
Date:Oct 15, 2003; Section:Editorial & Opinion; Page:8


Castro the Columnist

By YVONNE CONDE Ms. Conde is a Manhattan resident and the author of
“Operation Pedro Pan: The Untold Exodus of 14,048 Cuban Children”
(Routledge, 1999).

A column by Fidel Castro was the recent source of controversy among
three New York City newspapers. The new owners of El Diario-La Prensa
refused to print it, so its editor in chief, Gerson Borrero, quit in a
seething display of journalistic selfrighteousness, although the Latino
rumor mill says that his walking papers were all but signed.

Under the guise of freedom of speech, the Daily News and Hoy decided to
print the controversial column, on October 3 and October 6, respectively.
Predictably, the Cuban-American community was enraged by the lack of
sensitivity displayed by both papers.

Calls, letters, and e-mails swamped all three publications. However,
when people debate freedom of expression for the Cuban dictator — the only
person who enjoys every right in his island prison — they are helping him
divert press attention from the lack of freedom for everyone else there.

Those who managed to plough through Mr. Castro’s boring column
discovered that — in true apparatchik fashion — it consisted of a
never-ending list of figures. Indeed, the man writes as he speaks, and the
letter reminded one that Mr. Castro is fond of delivering fivehour speeches.
He’s a walking soporific who could never leave his post as dictator because
he wouldn’t last five minutes before a knowledgeable public with freedom of
choice. He’d simply be clicked away.

Even the title of his column, “Education in Cuba,” was misleading and
inappropriate. It should have been called “Instruction in Cuba,” because
students under his regime are taught reading, writing, and arithmetic, but
the word education implies a wider range of knowledge and discovery.

Education encompasses the freedom to read a wide variety books and
magazines, including the works of writers who express different thoughts and
points of view and engage and challenge the mind. It means having access to
the Internet and international television. It means being able to enjoy the
full range of the arts, including world cinema, dance, theater, concerts,
and art exhibitions.

Tragically, as if they were horses with blinders, Cuban students are led
down the narrow path of limited instructional propaganda as doled out by Mr.
Castro’s unelected government. That’s why Cuban students lack education. To
be educated in Cuba would be a dangerous liability. Here’s why.

Cuba is a country with only one kind of school: the government schools.
These are nothing but political indoctrination centers. Parents have no
choice of sending their children to private or religious schools.

Cuba is a country where 10 independent librarians are serving 196-year
prison terms for possessing censored books, and making them available to the
public. Julio Valdez, for example, was accused of founding a
“self-proclaimed independent library” to “ideologically subvert the reader.”
On April 5, he was convicted of “crimes against the national sovereignty.”
The penalty? Twenty years in prison.

Cuba is a country where the authorities burn non-approved books in
public bonfires. It’s a country where students are required to show
credentials proving their revolutionary militancy in order to be admitted to
a university.

The figures quoted by Mr. Castro are — as in every totalitarian’s bag of
tricks — devoid of impartial international corroboration. However, because
numbers were the substance of his column, let’s review some other pertinent
statistics.

According to a more objective source, the World Almanac, Cuba has a
highly laudable 96% literacy rate, but among 189 nations, ranks 56th
worldwide (29.63 percentile). Some 55 nations surpass Cuba, among them
Trinidad and Tobago, the Bahamas, Nauru, Barbados, Guyana, and Uruguay. At
least 24 nations are 100% literate.

These nations spare one the constant harping about their educational
achievements because they don’t have to use education to distract world
attention from their crimes. According to studies by the University of
Chicago, in the mid-1950s, Cuba ranked 36 among 136 countries (26.47
percentile). And according to the United Nations, it had a literacy rate of
75% in 1959, ranking third in Latin America.

As late as 1958, Cuba had the highest percentage of public expenditure
for education in Latin America, 23%, higher than Puerto Rico, Argentina,
Chile, and Mexico, according to Unesco, which also listed Cuba as having the
highest percentage of female students registered that year, 45%, as compared
to America, which had 32.8%.

Had the rapid social and economic growth sustained by Cuba before 1959
continued, the literacy rate for Cuba would undoubtedly be the same as prior
to the revolution. Cuba still ranks third in literacy in Latin America
today. However, there has been an incalculable human cost.

A young man who recently escaped from Cuba in a raft, and endured two
hellish nights at sea, followed by months of nightmares, told me how his
mind refused to stop replaying the macabre scene he had witnessed: a friend’
s terrorized eyes as he sank in a crimson sea, devoured by a shark.

As a person who underwent Cuba’s instructional process, he summarized
brilliantly the substance of Cuban education: “What good is education if you
can’t do anything with it?”

Will Mr. Castro’s revolution be remembered for its educational
achievements? We doubt it. Hitler’s autobahn and Stalin’s support of the
ballet are not monuments that override their evil deeds.The world remembers
their crimes, and so it shall be with this so-called columnist.


#####
http://www.cubangop.org
Thank you Yvonne !!!
FRORM ALL OF US, CUBANS FROM
THE ISLAND AND FROM EVERY OTHER PART OF THE WORLD.!!!

---
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Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
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pedro martori

The New York Sun Newspaper
Date:Oct 15, 2003; Section:Editorial & Opinion; Page:8


Castro the Columnist

By YVONNE CONDE Ms. Conde is a Manhattan resident and the author of
“Operation Pedro Pan: The Untold Exodus of 14,048 Cuban Children”
(Routledge, 1999).

A column by Fidel Castro was the recent source of controversy among
three New York City newspapers. The new owners of El Diario-La Prensa
refused to print it, so its editor in chief, Gerson Borrero, quit in a
seething display of journalistic selfrighteousness, although the Latino
rumor mill says that his walking papers were all but signed.

Under the guise of freedom of speech, the Daily News and Hoy decided to
print the controversial column, on October 3 and October 6, respectively.
Predictably, the Cuban-American community was enraged by the lack of
sensitivity displayed by both papers.

Calls, letters, and e-mails swamped all three publications. However,
when people debate freedom of expression for the Cuban dictator — the only
person who enjoys every right in his island prison — they are helping him
divert press attention from the lack of freedom for everyone else there.

Those who managed to plough through Mr. Castro’s boring column
discovered that — in true apparatchik fashion — it consisted of a
never-ending list of figures. Indeed, the man writes as he speaks, and the
letter reminded one that Mr. Castro is fond of delivering fivehour speeches.
He’s a walking soporific who could never leave his post as dictator because
he wouldn’t last five minutes before a knowledgeable public with freedom of
choice. He’d simply be clicked away.

Even the title of his column, “Education in Cuba,” was misleading and
inappropriate. It should have been called “Instruction in Cuba,” because
students under his regime are taught reading, writing, and arithmetic, but
the word education implies a wider range of knowledge and discovery.

Education encompasses the freedom to read a wide variety books and
magazines, including the works of writers who express different thoughts and
points of view and engage and challenge the mind. It means having access to
the Internet and international television. It means being able to enjoy the
full range of the arts, including world cinema, dance, theater, concerts,
and art exhibitions.

Tragically, as if they were horses with blinders, Cuban students are led
down the narrow path of limited instructional propaganda as doled out by Mr.
Castro’s unelected government. That’s why Cuban students lack education. To
be educated in Cuba would be a dangerous liability. Here’s why.

Cuba is a country with only one kind of school: the government schools.
These are nothing but political indoctrination centers. Parents have no
choice of sending their children to private or religious schools.

Cuba is a country where 10 independent librarians are serving 196-year
prison terms for possessing censored books, and making them available to the
public. Julio Valdez, for example, was accused of founding a
“self-proclaimed independent library” to “ideologically subvert the reader.”
On April 5, he was convicted of “crimes against the national sovereignty.”
The penalty? Twenty years in prison.

Cuba is a country where the authorities burn non-approved books in
public bonfires. It’s a country where students are required to show
credentials proving their revolutionary militancy in order to be admitted to
a university.

The figures quoted by Mr. Castro are — as in every totalitarian’s bag of
tricks — devoid of impartial international corroboration. However, because
numbers were the substance of his column, let’s review some other pertinent
statistics.

According to a more objective source, the World Almanac, Cuba has a
highly laudable 96% literacy rate, but among 189 nations, ranks 56th
worldwide (29.63 percentile). Some 55 nations surpass Cuba, among them
Trinidad and Tobago, the Bahamas, Nauru, Barbados, Guyana, and Uruguay. At
least 24 nations are 100% literate.

These nations spare one the constant harping about their educational
achievements because they don’t have to use education to distract world
attention from their crimes. According to studies by the University of
Chicago, in the mid-1950s, Cuba ranked 36 among 136 countries (26.47
percentile). And according to the United Nations, it had a literacy rate of
75% in 1959, ranking third in Latin America.

As late as 1958, Cuba had the highest percentage of public expenditure
for education in Latin America, 23%, higher than Puerto Rico, Argentina,
Chile, and Mexico, according to Unesco, which also listed Cuba as having the
highest percentage of female students registered that year, 45%, as compared
to America, which had 32.8%.

Had the rapid social and economic growth sustained by Cuba before 1959
continued, the literacy rate for Cuba would undoubtedly be the same as prior
to the revolution. Cuba still ranks third in literacy in Latin America
today. However, there has been an incalculable human cost.

A young man who recently escaped from Cuba in a raft, and endured two
hellish nights at sea, followed by months of nightmares, told me how his
mind refused to stop replaying the macabre scene he had witnessed: a friend’
s terrorized eyes as he sank in a crimson sea, devoured by a shark.

As a person who underwent Cuba’s instructional process, he summarized
brilliantly the substance of Cuban education: “What good is education if you
can’t do anything with it?”

Will Mr. Castro’s revolution be remembered for its educational
achievements? We doubt it. Hitler’s autobahn and Stalin’s support of the
ballet are not monuments that override their evil deeds.The world remembers
their crimes, and so it shall be with this so-called columnist.


#####
http://www.cubangop.org
Thank you Yvonne !!!
FRORM ALL OF US, CUBANS FROM
THE ISLAND AND FROM EVERY OTHER PART OF THE WORLD.!!!

---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.525 / Virus Database: 322 - Release Date: 10/9/2003

dan pendragon

You mean a column with castro listed as author. May or may not mean he
wrote it.

ahlahan

to that political verborrea will have that effect on you.
"Dan Pendragon" <pendragon@poydras.com> wrote in message newsendragon-9121F5.09083417102003@news04.east.earthlink.net...