THE CUBAN SENSE OF THE WORD "SOLIDARITY"

By Luis Marín Lopez

Sometimes there are some words or concepts we used them in our daily language, without reflecting about their meaning or reach.

Have you ever thought what solidarity means and which is its importance? According to the Larousse Dictionary, it is the feeling that impels men to help each other, and it is also the mutual dependency between men that prevent some ones of begin happy, if the others aren´t.


This feeling and its consequences are directly tied to our history and our nowadays reality. It was that feeling that made go to the Cuban battlefield to the Dominican Máximo Gómez, the polish Carlos Roloff, the American Henry Reeve, the Chilean Pedro Vargas Sotomayor, the Catalan José Miró Argenter, to thousands of Africans who integrated the mass of the Liberation Army in the nineteenth century; to the Chineses, among which there was never a traitor nor o a deserter, and to which a monument has been built. José Martí and Antonio Maceo also showed their solidarity with the independence of Puerto Rico.

Cuban solidarity with the peoples of the world is only paying back our debt with all mankind, with the men who coming from other parts gave for us the only thing they had: their blood.

So we have now a new concept: Solidarity is not to give what we have in excess, but to share the little we have with our equal ones.

That´s why there are our health workers, teacher, trainers and other Cuban professionals in many underdeveloped countries, offering their valuable help, even though we also need their attention. They are separated from their families, but they´re teking to other peoples the knowledge, health and sports.

This revolutionary attitude creates, of course, some disadvantages for us. When we´re looking for the doctor we like, and we learn he´s working abroad, we feel dissapointed.

But when we see in the media how miserable many people live in those countries, and how grateful they are to our doctors, because in any cases they had neve had one, we must be highly proud of our countrymen, who are abel to do such human tasks.

It´s them who have to do the greater sacrifices, far away from their beloved and adapting themselves to new and hardest living conditions, for an unique rewrad: the satisfaction of having accomplished their duty.