By Daylén Vega Muguercia on November 25, 2023, the 7th anniversary of Fidel’s passing
There are moments in life that mark us forever. They influence us. And there are people with equal power, over one and over thousands. Over millions. Fidel Castro is such a man. He is, and I do not say was, because we do not see Fidel in the past, but in the present. Vital as the young man who broke down the walls imposed by imperial interference on Cuba. Dreamer like the man who stood one day in the Havana Country Club and envisioned art schools there for the children of the peasant, the worker, the housewife. Human, like the man who warned of the need for Cuban women to gain autonomy and stop being an “ornament” in the home or the servant of some lord, with no right to an opinion on politics or social issues. He was a universal man, denouncing in the United Nations the inequalities of our peoples and raising his voice for Human Rights, the Rights of Humanity.
A man who, without wanting to be a prophet, prophesied: “I have not come here as a prophet of revolution; I have not come to ask or wish for the world to be violently convulsed. We have come to speak of peace and collaboration among peoples, and we have come to warn that if we do not resolve peacefully and wisely the present injustices and inequalities the future will be apocalyptic.”
It was October 1979 when he said these words before the 34th session of the United Nations General Assembly, held in New York. “The noise of weapons, of threatening language, of arrogance on the international scene must cease,” he warned.
Forty-four years later, we are witnessing a terrible chapter in the history of humanity: Israel’s genocide against Palestine, which has claimed the lives of more than fourteen thousand civilians in Gaza in less than two months. The arrogance has a name and a nationality, and it orders brutal attacks against civilian populations, health personnel and facilities, humanitarian organizations, press workers. The threatening language swarms under the banners of Israel and the United States, who pour out their hate speech under the cover of the Western narrative, which places the mentor and the disciple as weak lambs before a terrible enemy: Palestine. They thus justify their extermination campaign, before the eyes of an outraged humanity.
Just a few days ago, my child asked me why there is so much evil. At almost nine years of age, he perceives how convulsed the world is. It is inevitable that he does not see, does not listen, does not read. He knows that we do not live in the era of the caves, but what he does not understand that some of his contemporaries, in the 21st century, behave in such primitive ways. Respect for life is a universal right. He has read Martí and knows it. The Golden Age was for a long time his faithful companion; now it is volume I of the Cuadernos Martianos. They have also done a good job at school, and although in the classroom the children are not exempt from stumbles and disagreements -as in society-, their teachers talk to them about respect, values, the importance of companionship and solidarity.
We also owe access to education to Fidel. To the Moncada Program, which he fulfilled in its entirety when the Revolution eradicated the problems of land, industrialization, housing, unemployment, education and health of the people.
There are moments in life that mark us forever. I remember it as if it were today. I was only fourteen years old. It was 2002. On the block, the Federation of Cuban Women was getting ready to go to the Plaza de la Revolución Calixto García; Fidel would speak!
Mothers, grandmothers, were organizing to leave early. I hardly slept that night. Four hundred thousand people, Holguineros and from neighboring provinces, dawned in the streets and in the Plaza. Flag in hand, we were there to condemn the U.S. blockade against Cuba and the latest threats of W. Bush, who was then president of the empire.
It was the time of the Open Tribunals. Bush had chosen May 20 to lash out against Cuba and insult Martí. That was unforgivable. Fidel delivered an energetic speech in the Plaza, before a visibly moved people.
“The criminal blockade that you promise to tighten, multiplies the honor and glory of our people, against which your genocidal plans will crash. I assure you,” he said, addressing Bush.
As he advanced in his speech, the forces of nature combined with tremendous power and fell in the form of a downpour. Fidel was undeterred. He continued steadfast, with a force greater than that of the natural event.
I remember him as a giant. He never considered the option of an umbrella to protect himself from the rain and immediately rejected the intervention of his team. Fidel was one more of us, under the rain. His words and his attitude corroborated the firmness of the man of Granma, of the Sierra, of Giron. A mythical Fidel for his exploits, but real. A man of flesh and blood who was there, in front of us, reaffirming: “In the face of dangers and threats, long live today more than ever the Socialist Revolution!”
At that time, I did not have the political conviction to understand the dimension of what had happened; but that day remained engraved in the memory of the heart, the affective memory, the memory that moves the fibers of sensitivity for those who suffer and drives you to want to change things. Social justice is not a utopia, it is possible to achieve it, even if sometimes you feel it is slipping away; but an action, no matter how small it may seem, makes the difference.
And the fact is that Fidel is all of us. Because Fidel is part of each one of us. He did not die on November 25, 2016, although today marks seven years since his physical departure. Fidel will not be killed even by death, because even after his death, he continues to give us moments that mark us.
Source: Cubadebate, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English