Breaking the Taboo

Abstract

Cuban internationalism has a history as long as the revolution itself. From the very beginning, as early as 1959, Cuba began sending personnel abroad to assist in other developing countries. At first, the aid was often military but latterly, since the end of the Cold War, this has become principally medical and educational in nature. Such is the scale of Cuba’s overseas commitment that it amounts to the most compelling large-scale example of empathetic solidarity in modern times. Knowledge of it deserves widespread dissemination because it contests certain conservative and neoliberal articles of faith, especially the view of social solidarity as naive, illusory, and even contrary to human nature. Cuban internationalism takes empathy out of the abstract and provides evidence that ‘Another World Is Possible’. Perhaps this explains the embargo on information about Cuba that Robert Huish, one of the guest editors of this special issue of our journal, has said amounts to a ‘virtual taboo in academic and policy circles that has systematically failed to take into full account the country’s remarkable achievements in the provision of health and education, despite its widespread recognition by communities in receipt of those services around the world’. It has been a great privilege for IJCS to have been able to invite Robert Huish and Sarah Blue to be guest editors. We hope that this will be the first of many more such guest edited issues that will contribute in their own small ways to breaking that taboo.