Cuban chess, according to the official press, is played under the effects of ministerial tyranny, scarcity, mental poverty and false mass appeal.
14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, 20 October 2024 — Salamanca/ Fidel Castro wanted to popularize cattle raising, and the cow ended up becoming an animal as remote and sacred as the bison of Altamira. He wanted to popularize communist militancy, and today – let’s continue with the cattle metaphor – the stampede of leaders is so ferocious that it would annihilate Mufasa again. It is not surprising, therefore, that the popularization of chess had disastrous results. The problem is never Fidel, the faithful will say, but the popularization. But the masses are nothing without their chief popularizer, and as in homes where there is a naughty child, in Cuba he is always the material, formal, efficient and final cause.
To make things easier, let’s say that, like Mephistopheles, Fidel wrote crookedly on straight lines – poor Jesuit schoolboy, more fond of basketball than of the pencil – and that mass chess, a Moscow strategy, was not such a bad idea. It is impossible for all Cubans to be good chess players, but it was not bad that, from childhood, we knew how to defend ourselves on the board. Why? I don’t know, perhaps to demonstrate the intellectual superiority of the infans sovieticus, larva of the bright future.
Here, however, there is very little future and almost no megawatts to enlighten us.
Here, however, is very little future and almost no megawatts to enlighten us. The official press has just published figures on the situation of school chess that must have irritated – if he saw them – Leontxo García, the legendary columnist of El País. The sports media that covered his visit to Cuba in 2022 said that the venerable professor had been “fascinated” by the talent of the players and had asked that the Island be transformed into a “leading country” in terms of educational chess. But we already know that with visitors you have to be polite, offer them coffee and take them to the Hotel Nacional. Leontxo left happy, or so says the State newspaper Granma.
A member of Randy Alonso’s dream team – those boys from Cubadebate who seduce Ana de Armas and write a pamphlet against the blockade – had the naivety to do his job well and survey 658,771 students and 6,993 teachers. Only 41% of the children and 51% of their teachers know how to play chess. They play “to kill boredom,” say the brave pioneers interviewed. They play very little because there are no pieces or boards. They play badly, under the effects of the “lack of implements” – the Chinese have not sent “pieces” since the pandemic – of the ministerial trick, of scarcity, of mental poverty, of unleavened masses.
In the Third Improvement, chess will not be a subject, as Fidel and Che and other photogenic assassins dreamed.
Things are not going to improve, little Capablancas. In the umpteenth indoctrination plan of the Ministry of Education – what in Mordor they call the Third Improvement – chess will no longer be a subject, as Fidel and Che and other photogenic assassins, who loved to pose in front of the chessboard, dreamed of. It will be, says the national methodologist of Physical Education, a mere “complementary activity.” And every pioneer knows what that means: dancing and enjoying the extracurricular symphony.
The methodologist has ideas whose brilliance should not be wasted by the Electric Union. Possessed of a calm desperation, she calls on teachers “with knowledge” of the game to “facilitate this practice.” She intends to “assess with the National Chess Commissioner to see if he has some support that we could put on computers or on the same phones so that children can play.” There is so much Cubanness, so much revolution in that “let’s see if he has” that it should be the title of our next national anthem.
Like any boy educated under the Battle of Ideas, I learned to play chess as a child. I was taught – by my grandparents, not by my teachers – to be proud of Capablanca, The Machine, and I grew up with the conviction that he was the best chess player in the world. Americans could say the same about Bobby Fischer and the Russians about Spassky or Karpov. But Fischer was a madman and Karpov is Putin’s man – although he criticized him about Ukraine – as he was before the Central Committee. Capablanca was a gentleman. You only have to look at his photos, his classic serenity in front of the board. Always attentive to the pieces, always with a Buddhist smile, to the dismay of his adversaries.
Metaphors need food and electricity, decency and life, and without that there is no head, and therefore no chess.
There has never been another, and the one who came closest – Leinier Domínguez – does not even appear in the newspapers of his country. The country that has no boards or pieces, and where people used to play in the middle of a blackout, sitting on the curb of the sidewalk, illuminated by a small flashlight. Those night games were a metaphor for something, but metaphors also need food and electricity, decency and life, and without that there is no head, and therefore no chess.
You’ll find it hard to believe, Leontxo, that there was so much deterioration in Capablanca’s country, where Fischer and Korchnoi and Tal and Petrosian played. However, those of us who left have some consolation. It’s the same consolation that Nabokov felt when he escaped from Sebastopol on a Greek ship, with the Soviet firefight in the background. There, in front of him and with his back to the horror, were his father and a broken chess board. The bishop had lost his head, the rook was a poker chip. The game was unforgettable. He who flees always tries to do so with a nervous smile, with memory, with a little hope. Let’s see if he has any.
See also: chess
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
