Kenya will do well to borrow a leaf from innovative research in Cuba

When Jesus was born in Nazareth many years ago and rumours had it that he was the long awaited Messiah who would bring salvation to humankind, many did not believe the rumours. The more skeptical ones even wondered how a tiny and nondescript village like Nazareth could produce a world historical individual. The die-hard skeptics posed the question: Can anything good come from Nazareth?

In 1958 the Cubans, led by Fidel Castro’s Communist Party, rebelled against American imperialism, got rid of the American stooge Batista as their president, and sent his repressive state bureaucrats and business tycoons into exile in the US. They landed in Florida, hardly 100 miles from the Cuban coast. For 55 years these Cuban exiles and their offspring have been trying to overthrow Castro and his communist regime; for 55 years the Cuban revolution has stayed intact, watching the Americans across the Florida channel with the stubbornness of a he- elephant.