CULTURE

“Nature cannot be destroyed, and the rotten and wasteful consumer societies cannot prevail. There is a field where the production of wealth can be infinite: the field of knowledge, of culture and art in all its manifestations, including a painstaking ethical, esthetic and solidarity-based education, a full spiritual life, socially sound, mentally and physically healthy, without which it would be impossible to talk about quality of life.”

“It seems to me that one of the best things that is being done in our country is the revolution we are carrying out in education, which includes a general comprehensive education, that includes not just the professional knowledge a person must possess but the minimum of cultural knowledge in order to possess an artistic culture, a general culture and a political culture.”

Such an economic order and such models of consumption are incompatible with the planet’s limited and non-renewable essential resources and with the laws that rule nature and life. They are also in conflict with the most basic ethical principles, with culture and with the moral values created by humankind.

The name of Cuba will go down in history for ever because of what it has done and is still doing for humanity in the fields of education, culture and health in the most difficult period that our species has known.

"The singing of the anthem on that October 20 came at the same time as the feat of arms with which the Revolution achieved its first and most important victory over Spanish colonial troops. Bayamo’s surrender and Céspedes’ victorious entry marked the culmination of the act of rebellion begun on October 10 in La Demajagua sugar plantation which marked an turning point in the country’s history and gave birth, over the rubble of the first colonial redoubts, to the Cuban nation".

“The National Union of Cuban Writers and Artists and the Saíz Brothers Association will keep in close contact with these young cultural workers through the booming movement, which will come into being as thousands of art instructors join every year.”.

“Throughout the Battle of Ideas we have made an old dream come true: the universalization of higher education, thus making universities accessible to all the young people who graduate from the Revolution’s programs and to workers in general”.

“Throughout its lifetime, the Revolution has taught the people, training hundreds of thousands of teachers, doctors, scientists, intellectuals, artists, computer engineers and other professionals with university and post-graduate degrees in dozens of professions.  This storehouse of wealth has allowed us to reduce infant mortality to low levels, unthinkable in any Third World country, and to raise life expectancy as well as the average educational level of the population up to the ninth grade.”

"Venezuela has the potential to become a model of socialist development with the resources formerly extracted by the multinationals from its rich nature and the efforts of it manual and intellectual workers. No foreign power shall determine its future. The people are the masters of their destiny and they march on to attain the highest levels of education, culture, health and full employment."