"More than 820 million people in the world suffer from hunger; and 790 million of them live in the Third World"
About this Quote
The intent is twofold. First, it moralizes geopolitics. Castro isn't merely lamenting suffering; he's building a case that the prevailing economic system produces predictable losers, and those losers have a postal code: the "Third World". Second, it positions Cuba's revolutionary posture as part of a larger coalition of the aggrieved. The statistic is a bridge from Havana to Havana's preferred stage: the non-aligned and postcolonial world, where anti-imperial rhetoric could be framed as humanitarian urgency rather than ideological stubbornness.
The subtext is also defensive. Castro's Cuba was repeatedly criticized for repression and shortages; invoking global hunger reframes the conversation. If the wealthy world tolerates mass deprivation abroad, it forfeits some moral authority to lecture a small besieged island about its imperfections. The line doesn't invite nuance about internal policy or agricultural mismanagement; it corrals attention upward, toward structural imbalance.
Context matters: late Cold War and postcolonial politics were obsessed with development metrics, and leaders like Castro used them as both proof and propaganda. The quote functions like a ledger entry in a moral trial, asking who is fed, who isn't, and who gets to call that "freedom."
Quote Details
| Topic | Human Rights |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Castro, Fidel. (2026, January 17). More than 820 million people in the world suffer from hunger; and 790 million of them live in the Third World. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/more-than-820-million-people-in-the-world-suffer-31142/
Chicago Style
Castro, Fidel. "More than 820 million people in the world suffer from hunger; and 790 million of them live in the Third World." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/more-than-820-million-people-in-the-world-suffer-31142/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"More than 820 million people in the world suffer from hunger; and 790 million of them live in the Third World." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/more-than-820-million-people-in-the-world-suffer-31142/. Accessed 13 Feb. 2026.




