Servile Talents

Servile Talents / Fernando Dámaso

Fernando Damaso, 10 May 2016 — "There is really no spectacle more
hateful than that of servile talents." (José Martí, Complete Works,
Volume 13, Page 158, Cuban National Press.) I wanted to start these
lines with this thought of the Apóstol [Cubans refer to Martí in this
way], as many of our intellectuals, some of them with famous names, have
joined the flock of government sheep, without having any need to do so,
taking an active part in its campaigns of disinformation and
manipulation of the people, going so far as to commit acts of violence
against those who think differently to them, and demonstrating an
aggressiveness which is foreign to them and does not fit well with their
personalities.

Intellectuals and pseudo-intellectuals (and there are plenty of them
too) of both sexes, united in a so-called "defence of national identity,
independence and sovereignty", repeat everything that the old
"historical leaders" say, like well-trained parrots. Even including
self-confessed Stalinists who, divorced from reality, still have
nightmarish dreams of a communist world, firmly believing that their
words reflect what most Cubans feel, and that they are historic, because
only they have the illegal right to think, which other Cubans are not
allowed to do.

Such servility, opportunism, and fanaticism is disgusting, most of all
when it comes from supposedly educated people, who should serve as good
examples of ethics and honour for the rest of us.

I am not going to name names, because I am afraid of being unjust and
forgetting some of them, since most of them are well-known because they
appear regularly in the official media, with their pig-headed articles,
declarations and interviews, get books published without any trouble,
and receive prizes, awards and government tributes in recognition of
"carrying out their political duty", as distinct from their intellectual
or artistic merits, which I do not deny they possess.

Although they are now enjoying their "bit of Sunday", as the adverts for
a popular brand of beer used to say years ago, tomorrow they will be
questioned and condemned for their cowardice and lack of civic-mindedness.

I am going to end with another one of the Apóstol's thoughts: "All
tyrants have one of these educated thinking people at their side, who
can pen justifications, mitigations and pretences. Or many of them do,
because hand-in hand with all this writing goes an appetite for luxury,
and that brings an eagerness to sell themselves to anyone who can
satisfy this desire. Many intelligent scumbags sell their tongues or
their pens to get a house or a car or a bag of money for their
loved-ones." (José Martí, Complete Works, Volume 12, Page 276, Cuban
National Press).

Translated by GH

Source: Servile Talents / Fernando Dámaso – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/servile-talents-fernando-dmaso/