The Cuban Revolution Focuses on Human Needs and Values

Salem Ajluni is a member of the Board of Directors of Human Agenda and a member of its Executive Committee.  Here he provides a donation to a local school in Habana.

If Cuba has landfill sites, they must be few in number and small in size. It is a country that, of necessity and volition, has engaged in the conservation and preservation of everything. It is not only the ubiquitous 1950s American cars meticulously preserved to serve Cuban commuters and joyriding tourists (oftentimes with transplanted Mercedes diesel engines under the hood), but also farm implements of every variety and age; hand and power tools and equipment; construction materials; furniture; household appliances and electronics; clothing and shoes and almost anything else that can serve a useful purpose by extending its life.
 
Very little is tossed; very much is repaired, recycled and reused. Likewise, Cubans have preserved their architectural heritage like few places in the world as can readily be observed by cruising Havana’s grand boulevards, those of adjoining Miramar and Playa or the streets of almost any neighborhood.
 
Cuba’s revolutionary social system has also preserved the lives of its people, despite its history as a poor former Spanish slave colony, as a former U.S.-occupied neo-colony and as the target of unrelenting hostility and aggression from the U.S. government for more than six decades.
 
Walking its streets as a North American, one might be fooled into thinking it is a poor country.  But with a population roughly equal to that of Los Angeles county, one sees that there is no sign of homelessness (over 90% of Cubans own their own housing).  The social system guarantees sufficient food and nutrition for every person and every household.  Cubans enjoy guaranteed high quality healthcare from birth to death and high quality guaranteed education from pre-school through university without any out of pocket obligations.
 
Indeed, Cubans live longer and healthier lives and are generally better educated than most people in the Americas (including many in North America). 
 
Above all, Cuba stands out for its conservation and preservation of basic human values that prioritize the dignified physical and social welfare of its people and its solidarity with other peoples who struggle against the odds to achieve the same.
 
Interacting with Cubans and learning of their experiences is to appreciate the extraordinary, almost quixotic, achievements of Cuba’s revolution in social and economic development, but also of its abiding commitment to helping the hard-pressed in a world dominated by rapacious capital accumulation and destructive commercialism. A visit to Cuba, in short, is a good way to rejuvenate in oneself the commitment to Human Agenda’s expressed values: democracy, equity, cooperation, kindness and sustainability.