By Saving the World, Cuba is Saving Itself

While the admiration and pride of Cubans for its medical solidarity lives on, Cuba is safe from any harm, said on Thursday Cuban writer and essayist Enrique Ubieta when launching the books “Diario de Turín, la solidaridad en tiempos de pandemia” and “Juntos” at the Cuban embassy in Italy.

Both books gather life experiences from the Cuban medical brigade that arrived in north of Italy to save lives during the darkest hours of the Covid-19 pandemic. Diario de Turin, written by Ubieta, compiles chronicles, interviews, and considerations on that specific time while raising awareness on the today’s world contradictions. Meanwhile, Juntos, is a group work co-authored by Ubieta himself and Francesca Pacci, deputy chief editor at La Stampa newspaper, who also attended the event.

Before Cuban diplomats before Rome and friends and supporters of Cuba, Ubieta recalled the arrival of Cuban medical brigades as a historic step in the relation of our two peoples.

When a pandemic emerges, solidarity is paramount and points the sort of world we should build, stated the Cuban intellectual.

After describing the work of the Henry Reeve Medical Brigade, essentially in the fighting against the Covid-19 pandemic in 57 countries across the world and the most affected Cuban provinces, Ubieta said that he has accompanied the Cuban doctors a lot of times, but he is not chasing them. “I am not pretty much interested in medicine,” he said, “I am rather interested on the social ideal that Cuba medicines stands for.”

On the other hand, Francesca Pacci described her book as a small contribution to the memory of the Henry Reeve Medical Brigade impact at the Turin OGR Hospital when the whole Italy and specially the north, were enduring a really tough time.

Pacci built her narrative from patients’ testimonies, doctors, nurses, and took advantage of her words to highlight the humanist vision showcased by our brigade, which came all this way compared to the selfishness and injustice that the pandemic is being handled these days. She gave as the perfect example of such inequity the Covax mechanism, which has not guaranteed that underdeveloped nations can have access to vaccines.

The launching of both books was headed by Cuba’s ambassador in Italy José Carlos Rodríguez and the president of the Agency for Cultural and Economic Exchange with Cuba, Michelle Curto, and the authors themselves.

Other attendees were Cuba’s ambassador before the Holy See, René Juan Mujica, other Cuban diplomats and Cubans residing in this country.

Translated by Sergio A. Paneque Díaz / CubaSí Translation Staff