A Cuban identified as Jorge Luís Torre Tamayo published an open letter on Facebook addressed to the Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele regarding the start of the school year, in which he contrasts the educational model promoted by Bukele in El Salvador with decades of ideological indoctrination in Cuban schools.
The trigger was the speech delivered by the president on August 23 in front of about 30,000 young people gathered at the Jorge "El Mágico" González Stadium in San Salvador, where he announced 50,000 scholarships and an educational investment exceeding 8% of GDP, amounting to over 3 billion dollars annually.
"A few days ago, I listened to your speech in front of thousands of young Salvadorans. I listened attentively, but also with deep emotion. And while you were speaking, I thought about Cuba," Torre Tamayo writes at the beginning of the letter.
The author notes that what impressed him the most was not the figures, but the tone of the message: "You didn't need to invent an enemy. You didn't need to talk to them about 'imperialism'. You didn't need to turn that crowd of students into a political rally or ask them to chant slogans of loyalty to the Government."
That difference created a mix of feelings for him, which he summarizes in one phrase: "Joy for El Salvador and pain for Cuba."
Torre Tamayo describes the Cuban educational system as a tool in the service of power: “For decades, we were made to believe that education was practically a gift from the Revolution that we should repay with gratitude, obedience, and political loyalty.”
It adds that "the school has ceased to be merely a place to learn Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Literature, or History, and has also become a tool for ideological indoctrination."
In the face of this sad reality, the Cuban longs for a nation that offers "an education that does not manufacture obedience, but rather citizens capable of thinking," universities where diverse ideas coexist, and young people who can "entrepreneur without fear, thrive without asking for permission, travel without becoming enemies, and return without having to prove political loyalty."
The author also denounces early-age indoctrination as a systematic practice of the regime and demands that Cuba stop "teaching its youth to eternally find blame outside its borders" and instead start teaching them to create opportunities within them.
The letter includes a statement that summarizes its publication: "Cuba needs Bukele! Not necessarily the man. Cuba needs what that message represents: education without slogans, opportunities, preparation, demands, order, future, and a State whose mission is to pave the way for its youth, not to chain them to an ideology."
Finally, Torre Tamayo asks Bukele to visit Cuba when he is free and urges him to speak in front of thousands of young people.
"And I would like them to hear something very different that what so many generations have heard: study, prepare, work, dream, build your country."
"Because after so many decades teaching us to resist, young Cubans deserve to have someone teach them to prosper as well," he concludes.
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