socialism and the human animal
Although Enrique Del Risco knows what has happened on the island where he was born 40 years ago, he still gets odd looks from college students when he tries to explain Cuba’s reality. He left Cuba in 1996 and settled in New York two years later, teaching Spanish at New York University.
“I grew up believing in the system,” he said. “Quite a believer. My parents, too.”
He, too, thought there would be change during the late 1980s. Instead, he found himself slowly suffocating, with his writings earning him reprimands.
“I was more scared of surrendering than being put in jail,” he said. “I was scared that I would stop being myself. I was someone who thinks independently and expresses that.” Yet to try and tell that to some of his students, he said, was like talking about extraterrestrial life. He knows to expect a dual riposte — yes, but what about universal health care and education?
“At the root of that is a great belittling of Cubans,” he said. “It’s like we are some sort of little animals who only need a veterinarian and someone to teach us tricks and we’ll be fine.”
Somewhat per the Badiou article I linked to the other day, it is amazing to note, when you at time step back a bit from the shuffle, how insistently if quietly we’re still negotiating this now only spectral question…
Is there a name for the rhetorical form that supplies answer upon answer to questions that can’t be (permitted to be) asked?
Socialism is death.
http://sinblancaporelmundo.wordpress.com/2008/03/06/una-imagen-una-palabra/
sinblancaporelmundo
March 14, 2008 at 4:36 am