In 1953, Fidel Castro and his comrades-in-arms failed to overthrow the military dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. They were arrested and brought to court. Fidel, a lawyer, provided his own defence and that of his comrades. He spoke for four hours. He then composed his speech and had it published under the title, 'History will absolve me'. Fidel's revolution did eventually succeed on January 1, 1959, at the second attempt.

Fifty years have now passed for history to provide good enough judgment on Fidel and Raul Castro, Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos and other leaders of the Cuban Revolution.

We can use history to judge the revolution on two grounds - the history of Cuba and world history. Are Cubans better off now than they were in 1959 and is world history moving in the general direction taken by the Cuban revolutionaries?

HUMAN RIGHTS

In 1986, the United Nations adopted a resolution that recognised the right to development. Human rights now meant that people were not just entitled to freedom but a right to human development as well.

Only the privileged had been able to work, play, study and be heard and, therefore, only they could enjoy freedom. The poor could not. The right to development meant that all human beings should have the opportunity to work, study, play and be heard and thus to develop as human beings.

The Cuban revolution had preceded this UN Resolution by nearly 30 years, having recognised at the outset that people had a right to development. The revolution had pioneered this application of human rights as inclusive of social and economic rights. World history had caught up with the idea in the form of the UN resolution.

This idea set the stage for the UN to take the next logical step. It launched the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) in 2000. As Nelson Mandela said, poverty is a denial of human rights. The UN aimed to eliminate extreme poverty by 2015, an objective Cuba had also set for itself and had achieved long before.

DEMOCRACY

This leads us to another area in which history is trying to catch up with Cuba - democracy. Cuba is the only country that has put the right to work, food, shelter, education and health in its constitution and satisfied those rights. These basic human needs are fundamental human rights. I believe that Cuban democracy is different from western democracy in two other vital respects. One is in respect of discipline.

Democracy needs discipline. Without discipline, no system will succeed because people will flout the rules. Cuban democracy is a disciplined democracy, which is why crime and idleness are virtually absent.

Western societies are increasingly becoming risk societies with widespread use of drugs, reckless driving, anti-social violence, and destructive work, study and parenting habits. Discipline means that while the Caribbean has the highest murder rate in the world Cuba has the lowest.

The other thing that is different about Cuban democracy is that it is a crisis management democracy. It was born in revolutionary crisis and has had to cope with the United States embargo, the special period after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the global crises of climate change, food prices, the energy crisis, and the world recession. Cuba, however, has the capacity to mobilise hundreds of thousands of people at short notice in energy conservation, food production, hurricane evacuation and national defence.

record tourist arrivals

Take these examples. Cuba's urban farming initiative has recovered by 97 per cent in only a few months after three devastating hurricanes. Cuba has set a new record for tourist arrivals despite those hurricanes because the country was able to repair hotels quickly and tourists had a great sense of safety.

Raul Castro has announced that, as part of Cuba's new austerity, foreign travel by government officials will be cut by 50 per cent, which will save US$60 million. During this summer's hurricanes, Cuba evacuated 2.6 million persons in one case and found shelter for all of them. Hurricane-related deaths are rare in Cuba. Few countries, if any, have the capacity to mobilise on this scale for emergency governance.

Despite its crises, Cuba's economy still grew by 4.6 per cent in 2008 while other economies were flat.

The United Nations and British prime minister, Gordon Brown, have been saying that the world faces a development emergency. Our own Gleaner has been urging a crisis or war cabinet. Dr Peter Phillips says we should debate having a state of emergency to deal with crime. What we logically need is a system of emergency governance because it is not just crime that is an emergency but production, energy, food, discipline, poverty and inequality. They are all emergencies. But, whereas Cuba has a system for emergency governance, the rest of the world does not. Hopefully, world history will catch up.

INTERNATIONALISM

There is another area in which history has to catch up. This is in the area of internationalism. The UN has done well to launch the MDG. But, in the last eight years, no country has made such a difference to the lives of poor people of other countries than Cuba has. Although the United States has done its best to isolate Cuba, Cuba has diplomatic relations with 181 of the 192 UN members, testimony to the value countries attach to having Cuba as a friend.

There are 108 foreign missions accredited in Havana, making Havana the diplomatic city of the Caribbean. Cuba has 51,000 volunteers in 96 countries, making Cuba's people-based diplomacy difficult for any other country to match. Cuban doctors have restored the sight of over one million people in Latin America and the Caribbean through the free eye- care programme (Operation Miracle), an achievement that goes well beyond anything that the UN or the developed countries have achieved in the developing world.

JUDGING CUBA

There are two things that make it difficult to judge the Cuban revolution. One is because it is unfinished. It has to adapt to the changing environment. Cuba still has to build enough houses for its people, become more self-sufficient in energy and food, liberalise a greater space for civil society, meet consumer needs and manage corruption.

Second, our ability to judge Cuba is made difficult by the self-inflicted hysteria brought on by Cold War ideology. Who, therefore, can speak for history? Is it Cuba, ourselves, or does history somehow speak for itself?

Fidel concluded his book with the line, "Condemn me. It does not matter. History will absolve me." The 181 countries of the world will hardly condemn him. History will absolve him but the revolution continues and the next 50 years matter.

Cuban democracy is a disciplined democracy, which is why crime and idleness are virtually absent.

Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona. Email: robert.buddan@uwimona.edu.jm or columns@gleanerjm.com.