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 A message from Comrade Fidel

 Dear Granma readers:

 Dear friends:

Today will be different from other occasions. I have tried to find out what has been going on these past days, but you yourselves have not provided me with any information. I had arrived in time, perhaps half a minute early and in more of a rush than usual, so I had hoped that Tubal (chairman of the Journalists Union of Cuba, UPEC) might tell me about the work you have been doing and the agenda planned for this evening but nobody knew, I do not know if he even knew (LAUGHTER). I was told that this was the end of the Congress of the Federation of Latin American Journalists (FELAP) and the beginning of the meeting of Spanish and Latin American journalists. Well, it is beginning, yes, it has been announced. I think there are two people from Portugal and one from Spain.

 I was trying to understand what this was all about, the two meetings, and I asked, "Is there going to be a speech?" And I was told, "No there will be no speech but a choir." And so nobody could give me any orientation or even a bit of information. All I had found out by 7:30 p.m. were a few details about what was going on here, and nothing more. I did know that the FELAP Congress was ending. I learned something through the press, and through the few minutes of television news I was able to see. I asked, "Where is the closing session?" They said, "In the Aula Magna of the University of Havana." I wondered why, and I asked myself, Could they have been evicted from the International Conference Center? (LAUGHTER) Yes, because sometimes there are evictions there, or is it because the Aula Magna has such great symbolic significance? I was glad to hear that it was for the latter reason. And I said to myself, I would like to be there, even if it is only for a few minutes, even if it is only to extend greetings. Was it just out of admiration and affection for this organization? No, it was not only for that reason. It was, in my opinion, because this organization is today more important than ever.

 I know that some journalists have expressed certain doubts about the role, the possibilities and the prospects of this organization. But, I think that despite the fact that it is small and shy of resources, if all of you put your minds to it and all of us put our minds to it, if we all wanted it, this organization could be the instrument that we need now more than ever.

 I had the privilege of participating, around seven months ago, in a Cuban journalists congress. Before that there had been a congress of our country’s writers and artists, quite a few weeks earlier, you could say, and I can assure you that throughout the many years of the Revolution I had never had the opportunity to witness two meetings, or congresses, as fruitful as these, and both took place in the first half of the year. There was a great deal of discussion, genuine discussion about all kinds of subjects and issues.

 I understand very well how difficult it is to be a journalist in a socialist country, let us say, in our own country where the media and the press are not the private property of anyone, but rather the property –-I will not say of the state, because this definition would be imprecise, and the state is an increasingly maligned institution; we conceive of the media as the property of the people. It might seem like a cliché, a phrase, a slogan but perhaps what is most difficult is making the most efficient, optimal use of the media, which belong to the people and are closely associated with what is known as the state.

 The ultimate dream of reactionary forces in this century, throughout the development of capitalism, has been to demonstrate that the state serves absolutely no purpose, although they know very well what purpose it serves.

 According to the philosophy of these reactionary sectors, the state is inefficient, the state is a disaster, the state must be discredited, and I would even agree, depending on which state it was.

 The state, responsible for playing a fundamental role in an era of historical transition, is an indispensable institution, absolutely indispensable. Actually, what we would like to do away with are the inefficiencies of a state that we revolutionaries have not been able to construct in a better way. The old state of the capitalists and exploiters is the state that we would like to see removed once and for all.

 Therefore, there are two kinds of state and two different concepts of what the state is, which are diametrically opposed: that perverse state of theirs, so operational and this inefficient state of ours. In the end, when each has fulfilled its purpose, may they both disappear, as Marx dreamed.

 One of the things about Marxism that I found most appealing was the idea that one day there would be no state, that once its mission was completed, this instrument that was needed to create a new society would have no reason to exist any longer.

 Marxism is full of dreams, and I am not here to lecture you on Marxism or even to defend it. I am simply reflecting on a dream, not a utopia. There is a difference between dreams and utopias, while there are many similarities between them.

 Martí once said that today’s dreams are tomorrow’s realities. We must always start out dreaming, we must always start out creating utopias, and I am speaking as someone who started out as a Utopian, and on his own account, which is the strangest thing about it. When I first became a Utopian, meditating on the problems of the society I lived in, I do not think I had even heard of Utopians. But the truth is that I started out as a dreamer, a Utopian, and today I believe I am a realist, a dreamer and a Utopian. Everything begins with faith, faith in Man. If you have faith in Man, then you have the conviction that dreams and utopias can be made a reality.

 How far we seem to be from communism, and how far we really are! How far we are from the distribution formula that goes, "From each according to his work, to each according to his needs." How far we are from that beautiful formula! And how wise was Marx when he spoke of two stages: one socialist and the other communist, the first governed by the formula "From each according to his ability, to each according to his work." It is a very simple, extremely simple formula. He was wise, because today this is practically the only formula that can be fought for, a necessary path that cannot be avoided and one that seemed an unjust formula to those of us who had fallen in love with the communist formula.

 For me, the socialist formula is a necessarily unjust formula, but it is far better than the repugnant capitalist society where those who really do contribute according to their work receive almost nothing, while the laziest members of society get almost everything.

 You are also proletarians; you are proletarians of intellectual work, proletarians of thought, proletarians in the creation of messages; you are proletarians when you rush out to bring a report to the newspaper, and before, when there were no computers you desperately tapped away at a typewriter. You are also wage earners.

 Is there anyone here from the IAPA (Inter-American Press Association)? No, tell me the truth, is there anyone? I imagine that you, as journalists, live from your work, and that, although it may not be much, you are paid something for it, some more than others; therefore, you are wage earners. In accordance with the socialist formula, perhaps you would be paid according to your ability, and since not everyone has the same ability, those with the greatest ability would receive much more. Some may have much less ability, but many more children, many more needs, and, in the end, we could not entirely speak of a just society. Well, that is what would happen to you in a socialist society; in a capitalist society, we know very well what happens.

 These reflections –-I do not want to elaborate further on them–- could perhaps serve to explain my rejoicing at the congress held in the first half of this year where I was able to see more clearly than ever what a decisive role the press can play in socialism, how the press should function under socialism, and the immense, infinite possibilities of the press in socialism. Many years of Revolution have passed but it is like one of those things that you suddenly see so clearly.

 Forty years of Revolution were necessary, experiences of all kinds were necessary, the special period was necessary, a colossal ideological battle was necessary, it was necessary to end up in this that is called a global world where, among other things, it is disinformation and lies that are most global.

 Perhaps, there are no better circumstances to understand the value of the media when they are at the service of capitalism and imperialism. Imperialism and capitalism have largely subsisted thanks to subjective factors, and one gets the impression that the capitalists discovered this before the Marxists.

 As for me, I also feel that subjective factors are of major importance, and history itself does not move in a straight line; there are advances, and setbacks, and then further advances that are always interspersed with greater or lesser setbacks.

 I recently spoke at length about these matters with our journalists. The capitalists discovered the value of subjective factors, and discovered that the mass media were the perfect instrument to exercise an overpowering influence on these subjective factors that constitute indispensable ingredients of history, of historical progress, or of the continuation of systems that are wicked, exploitative, monstrous, inhuman, and that subsist until a crisis, which we could call nuclear, definitively destroy them.

 And I say nuclear because it is only when such a huge quantity of problems build up in these countries and they become absolutely unsustainable that they finally explode cutting across these subjective factors and despite the overpowering control that a system may have over the media, which it uses to inhibit these subjective factors, which could contribute more to speeding up the course of history and the removal of a world full of injustice, full of misery, full of monstrosities.

 What I mean to say is that progressive people, people who want to change the world, must understand the importance of these tools that are used to build awareness, and that can turn these subjective factors into decisive instruments in the course of historical events.

 At the meeting I was referring to, these truths were made evident. Of course, they were not discovered on that particular day. It was the result of the battle we have been waging, the product of many years of reading a growing number of news reports about all of the things happening in the world, in this highly globalized world where a cat dying in a corner of Cairo shows in a press dispatch. Those who are used to be informed, to spending two or three hours every day gathering information about what is going on in the world, have an idea about the functioning of the mechanism for spreading lies and planting disinformation.

 I have had such opportunity, and I am recounting precisely what I have experienced more than ever in this era of crisis, of unipolar hegemony and the globalization of reactionary ideas and lies, which used to reach a country, and then reached a continent, and now reach every corner of the world, in fractions of a second.

 In fact, the socialist bloc and the USSR were not destroyed fundamentally by their own errors; they were destroyed by this infernal machinery of lies, deception and disinformation. They were led to believe, and no one was unable to counteract it, the illusion that these consumer societies, this Western world, were the most wonderful things that could ever be imagined. Just think of those magazines, which use as much paper as would be needed to teach the current population of the world to read and write ten times over, and which are devoted, for example, to gossip about what this or that celebrity did, enough frivolity to send the current population of the world to hell a hundred times over. They were destroyed by all these things, all this propaganda, which those acting on behalf of the ideals of progress were unable to counteract.

 I know that the immense majority believed in these ideals, but they were not able to discover or develop the means, ways and procedures for combating the ocean of lies and illusions spread by every possible means. They were not fools, the ones who devoted their energies to radio broadcasts like the Voice of America, and others by its allies, aimed at reaching every corner of the world and the heart of socialist societies with all of the illusions and all of the lies that alienated millions of people in these countries.

 Of course, none of us Cubans deserves special credit for having discovered these things and for seeing them much more clearly. Some of these countries were enormous, and there were such things as narrow-mindedness and dogmatism there, to the extent that doctrine was practically turned into a religion and bureaucracy and a great many other things allowed for, or made possible, a setback in history. They should have been perfected, and needed a great deal of perfecting but were instead destroyed. The basic element continued to be that instrument so skillfully and efficiently used by capitalism and imperialism.

 I already mentioned that immense amounts of resources were invested in this. I talked about the frivolities, gossip and foolishness that poisoned the people’s minds in the same way that some of these extremely frivolous soap operas can tantalize, conquer and hold captive the minds of millions of people. This is the way they have manipulated, and continue to manipulate today more then ever, the minds of billions of people.

 Take, for example, the enormous amount of paper, of the highest quality, used simply for advertising, and the millions of hours invested every year in advertising. We ourselves have not had advertising on radio or television or in publications for quite a while, but in recent times we found ourselves obliged, in order to broadcast a major sports event, for example, to put some advertising on television. Suddenly, in the midst of an emotional, tense game, our television broadcasts and our people, especially those who are interested in these things, had to deal with an abrupt interruption to advertise some sort of merchandise, perhaps this or that make of car, or some other thing that the immense majority of the population does not have the slightest possibility of acquiring.

 Finally, as a result of the recent Pan American Games in Winnipeg, where the banditry and corruption in sports, as in so many other things, became more evident than ever, we decided –-even if we had to cut off a hand, or as they say, even if it cost us an arm and a leg–- to put an end to commercial advertising during sports competitions.

 Sometimes we have been interviewed by foreign television networks, and I have had the opportunity to see the broadcasts. It is really exasperating, and is only tolerated out of habit, when what someone is saying is interrupted every three minutes to advertise who knows what, some sort of ointment, some oil or cream to make your skin look more or less suntanned, or softer, whatever, some kind of cosmetics, or some gadget to do exercises at home, all kinds of crazy things, and I at least find it extremely exasperating, it is really awful.

 I would say that today, people in the United States would not be able to live without these interruptions, because they have practically become a conditioned reflex, and if a show is not interrupted for a commercial, they would find it lacking in suspense or interest, because they need to experience the anguish of waiting to see what happened next, or what else the guy talking had to say.

 Just imagine how we, who have a little newspaper with only eight pages and have had just one daily newspaper for years now, feel to see a newspaper from some of our Third World countries with 80 pages of advertising. These countries where there is so much hunger and poverty and so many children on the streets who do not attend school, who go by begging and washing windshields. Think of all the paper used, the printing presses, all of the other things. And I am only talking about the press.

 You want to find a piece of news and you have to go through three pages full of advertisements of the craziest things in the world to find something you are mildly interested in. When you do find it, there is a caption reading, "continued on page so-and-so" and you have to go over 40 other pages to follow up what has interested you.

 So, taking into account the enormous poverty in many of these countries, perhaps the only benefit would be receiving every day, together with their colossal venom, a huge amount of toilet paper.

 We have to resign ourselves; even you journalists, if you write something good in the few spaces open for you to write, you still have to resign yourselves to the same fate as those large quantities of advertisements. (Laughter.)

 Look, it would be better if I do not get carried away with this topic, or with these topics. I only wanted to mention some ideas on the importance of the press or, better still, the importance of journalists, or of those that nowadays we call communicators. I think they now have a Social Communications Faculty in our university. That is perfect. It is an excellent name. We still have to understand this fully but I must admit it is more encompassing.

 That was something we saw very clearly in that congress I was trying to give you some idea about, when considering the possibilities open to us, the communicators in poor countries. I would never dare consider myself a journalist, but I do have the need to communicate; I am not a communicator, but someone who needs to communicate. But, I mean, our possibility vis-a-vis that colossal empire and the endless power of those trying to force the world back and are threatening it with extermination. We must destroy their ideas, concepts and lies.

 I truly believe that in the present moment, at the threshold of the new millenium, of which a great lie is being said, a lie that almost drives one crazy. It is said, for example, that the next millenium begins in the year 2000. This is yet another lie, although we can admit it is nothing but a conventional lie. If they want to, we can celebrate two beginnings of the century and two beginnings of the millenium at the same time, and not toasting with champagne, but denouncing things that must be denounced. On December 31 this year and December 31 the next year, at 12 00 hours and a second, according to the geographic position of each country, because everything is so relative that in 12 hours there will be an infinite number of new years, new centuries and new millenia. Each citizen in the world will celebrate it at a different moment, because when the exact moment has arrived for the neighbor across the street, it has not arrived for someone else. Mathematically this is the case. I bring this up just as an example of their ignorance, lies or conventionality, although in this case it is rather laughable.

 The truth is that communicators may save the world. At least in this country, communicators are engaged in the task of saving a small nation fighting against the most powerful empire ever, the mightiest power in every field, whether economic, military, or technological, with the added inconvenience of being not only our closest neighbor but also our most stubborn enemy. Apparently, fate has wanted to give us that "privilege".

 We are involved in that struggle. This is the only country in the world against which that nation wages a direct economic war. It plunders the others, it robs them, it is rapidly taking them over, at a good pace we can say, with some papers they print treasury bonds and U.S. dollars. It is the country in the world whose citizens save the least, less than zero right now, and spend more that their average individual income. They are the ones who spend the most and buy the most in the world.

II PART

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