SOCIÉTÉ

“The world will change; that is unavoidable. But our duty is to help it change, the sooner the better, without waiting for the crisis to act as a big bang that is still propelling stars to infinity.”

“Our country has created an enormous human potential, because paper was not used for gossip magazines, or for advertising; our resources were not invested in such things. Instead they were invested in training doctors, so that we became the country with the highest per capita index of doctors in the world; we invested in training teachers, so that we would have the highest per capita index of professors and teachers in the world; physical education and sports teachers were trained, who devote themselves to comprehensive education and training, not professional sport, so that we have achieved the highest per capita index of all the countries in the world; perhaps in the number of researchers and scientific personnel, and other fields, we are also among the top few.”

"They can wield statistics of apparently positive growth but in the end things remain the same or even worsen in the Third World countries. Growth often rests on the accumulation of consumer goods that contribute nothing to true development and a better distribution of wealth. The truth is that after several decades of neoliberalism, the rich are becoming increasingly richer while the poor are both more numerous and increasingly poorer."

“Oppression, exploitation, inequality and injustice create people who, even at the agonizing moment of an unfair death, are capable of moving an empire and exciting the admiration of honorable people throughout the world.”

“The world, ever more ungovernable, will fight until hegemony and the subjugation of peoples become totally unsustainable.”

“Cuba is the one country in the world that collaborates most in helping to develop sport in the Third World. There is a growing number of trainers on contracts who are working in sister countries and doing an excellent job. We also continue to take in new students and future trainers. Our coaches are training athletes who will compete against us, in fair competitions, and we shall continue to do so.”.

“I believe that the only conception that can open the way to a rational idea of how the world of the future should be is the one that perceives the sum total of the material wealth necessary for a decent life –and we all know what that means-- with the unlimited creation of cultural and spiritual riches as the source of human wellbeing”.

“Under a system of anarchic and chaotic production, which eventually gave rise to the current state of imperial, hegemonic and unipolar control, enormous amounts of resources were squandered, nature was significantly damaged, and absurd and unsustainable models of consumption were established, which constitute really unattainable dreams for the immense majority of those who living on the planet today and those who will live on it tomorrow.”

“Today’s world is plundered and oppressed by the empire and its richest allies with their ruthless economic order, their financial institutions, their debts of trillions of dollars imposed on underdeveloped countries, which are forced every year to pay back more than they borrowed, thus increasing exponentially a debt which continues to multiply, leading hundreds of millions, billions of people toward the edge of an abyss of hopelessness. This world order cannot continue, this order is unsustainable, this order will come crashing down since it is impossible to go on underestimating nations, it is impossible to continue plundering and looking down on nations that are learning and growing ever more aware of their right to wellbeing and to life.”

“The noble and extraordinary idea of solidarity and internationalism does not exist in the rich, developed, capitalist world. Such ideas can only arise from the heart of a society that struggles for brotherhood among peoples and nations, one that struggles for justice in the world. This has been our conduct so far, and it will continue to be in the future, because we trust our people.”

“Without socialism, Cuban families could not watch their children grow up healthy, educated and skilled, with no fear of them being lured into drugs or crime, or killed at school by their own classmates.Without socialism, Cuba would not be, as it is today, the most solid barrier in the hemisphere against drug trafficking, something that benefits even American society”.

“Once and for all, they crushed the absurd idea that the suffering endured, and the blood and tears spilled throughout almost a hundred years of struggle for independence and justice against Spanish colonialism and its slavery-based model of exploitation, and later against imperialist domination and the corrupt and bloody governments imposed on Cuba by the United States, were to serve for the rebuilding of a neocolonialist, capitalist and bourgeois society.We did it at the exact and precise moment in history, not a minute before and not a minute later, and we were daring enough to attempt it”.