Fidel
Soldado de las Ideas
I make a halt in my daily struggle to bow my head in respect and gratitude to the exceptional combatant who fell in combat on October 8th, forty years ago; for the example he passed on to us as leader of his Rebel Army Column, crossing the swampy grounds of the former provinces of Oriente and Camagüey, while being chased by enemy troops. He was the liberator of the city of Santa Clara and the mastermind of voluntary work; he accomplished honorable political missions abroad and served as messenger of militant internationalism in East Congo and Bolivia. He built a new awareness in our America and the world.
"Though we have said, again and again, that our struggle is not against the people of the United Sates —something which is absolutely true— the latter is not in a position to curtail the apocalyptic impulses of its government or the foul and insane call for what they label a "democratic Cuba", as though leaders here put themselves forth and elect themselves without having to pass through that inflexible filter embodied by the overwhelming majority of an educated and cultivated people who must support them".
An Olympic athlete is not a lowly instrument used to gain international prestige, an object to be bought and sold on the market, a commodity to be used and then thrown into the garbage. Athletes are, first and foremost, human beings, with mothers and fathers, spouses and children, brothers, sisters, friends and fans as well as pride in the recognition they have earned through their efforts and extraordinary merit. They have honor, above all, honor.
A new era of struggle was opening. The empire, much more powerful than ever before, had become the sole superpower. But our people, recently freed from neo-colonial status, saturated with McCarthyism propaganda and lies, poorly educated and almost illiterate politically, had made a colossal leap in history: they had eradicated illiteracy and graduated in universities hundreds of thousands of professionals with a far greater level of political consciousness than their historical adversary.
From October 10, 2005 a total of 10,500 social workers began working at the gasoline stations, refineries, distribution centers and tank trucks. During this period, cash income from the sale of fuel in the gas stations has risen 2.53 times on a daily average. We are entering a new era of reorganizing the system and this signals an important victory that encourages us all in this battle we have decided to wage against squandering and vice, lifting up the revolutionary morale wherever routine and egoism have been eroding it.
Commander in Chief.- I would like to make a comment first of all. I want to say that I have followed these round tables for a long time, and it was at yesterday’s round table that an issue was analyzed with the greatest clarity and precision ever. I regretted very much to hear later that the strong winds that hit Havana yesterday had interrupted electrical power service in many areas of the capital.
If in many parts of the world the representatives of that blockaded Cuba, slandered through the most sophisticated media, have friends and find so many ordinary men and women who understand their struggle, who understand their cause and express their solidarity with it, is it not that perhaps a lot more difficult than to dream of a better future, of a more just world and of a global, universal society which is truly humane?
It seems almost unreal to be here in this same place 50 years after the events we are commemorating today, which took place that morning of July 26, 1953. I was 26 years old back then; today, 50 more years of struggle have been added to my life.
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