Mayday 2008
Rich Country – Poor Country
Its not a grey, tired looking mass of North-Koreans, parad-
ing in front of their "beloved" leader, but a colorful crowd
of thousands of Cuban citizens, cheering at the camera on
May 1st 2008. Even though, Cuba is facing severe problems
and far from being a democratic system, people seem to be
somewhat different from such German citizens who are as well
taking to the streets on May 1st, but for reasons many Cubans
would not understand at all:
Its either a drastic rise of salaries for some unspectacular
workmanship that already seems to be well-paid, while at the
same time, lots of well-trained, experienced and highly moti-
vated elderly unemployed would be glad to get their hands on
such jobs under the old conditions.
Or its the fast decline of social standards that turns people
from well-to-do citizens into subjects vegetating on an income
from two or three low-level jobs, without any chance to get
one of those secure full-time jobs that helped their parents,
most of them simple workers and small employees, to become
rich pensioners.
Yet, there is another aspect, making this unbalanced situation
even worse: While fully trained young specialists are leaving
their German universities, unable to find an adequate job and
with some of them ending as captives of the rigid social welfare
system HARTZ IV, young "proletarians" of either the rightist or
leftist brand are taking to the streets in order to fight a so-
ciety that brought them into being, without neither education,
nor motivation nor professional training, but full of hatred and
aggressions.
Which then is really a poor country, Cuba or Germany ? That country
which is training and sending abroad an "army" of teachers and high-
ly skilled doctors in exchange for oil and industrial support, or
that country which is sending away its soldiers for lack of teachers
and in order to participate in a questionable race for political and
economic influence ?
ULYSSES
unity, firmness and victory
Havana / Cuba
