By Alejandra Garcia on December 31, 2023 from Havana
photo: Bill Hackwell
This January 1st, Cubans mark the beginning of a new year full of hopes, full of challenges, and we will wait for this 2024 as usual, with our families, in a peaceful country. But we will also celebrate that January 1, 1959, when our people woke up to the news they had been longing for for centuries: The Revolution, the definitive Revolution led by Fidel, had won.
“Here is Radio Rebelde, at the gates of Santiago de Cuba…. In a few moments we will give our orientations to the people…. It has just been announced that the tyrant (Fulgencio) Batista has fled…” These were the first words that penetrated the houses of the country through the radio stations. After almost a decade of clandestine struggle in the city and the mountains, the Barbudos succeeded in overthrowing the government of the dictator Batista, hated and feared by a largely impoverished and ailing people. The victory also vindicated the struggle for the total and absolute independence of Cuba, initiated several centuries ago by the hand of independence fighters, mambises, poets, brave men and women.
“Batista is gone, Batista is gone… The rebels are coming/ Fidel, Fidel… Revolution Yes; military coup No… Raúl is in Moncada… Radio Rebelde can no longer be listened to on the sly”. These were the next words played on the radio station.
Sixty-four years later, the images of that day shared by newspapers of the time take the reader back to those early hours of January 1, when millions of people took to the streets in a great national celebration. “The women were dressed in Red and Black, as the colors that have identified since then the 26th of July Movement. The joy, the music, the drums, the flags, many flags, hugs,” as was related by the witnesses of that day.
That day marked the beginning of the change of Cuban reality towards the daily construction of a fairer society and the road has been arduous. When you think that the hard part is over, new challenges arise that make Cubans reinvent themselves, but it has been worth every second. The Revolution has been a cause for social emancipation, seeking justice for all in a society where everyone matters.
The Revolution -which has been one since the first mambises fought with machete in hand – has also meant understanding that we have to help and share with others what we have. This process of collective construction has also meant changing everything that had to be changed as the only way to grow in spite of adversities.
Today, the eyes of Cuba will be on Santiago, the Heroic City where the foundations of this struggle lie. Army General Raul Castro Ruz, who is a witness and hero of those days of the Revolution, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, other leaders of the people and the government will be there. Fidel’s words will resound there once again, the same words he pronounced when all of Cuba knew that the Revolution had triumphed, and which today are more alive than ever.
“This time, fortunately for Cuba, the Revolution will really come to power. It will not be like in 1895, when the United States came and made themselves masters of the island. They intervened at the last minute, and then they didn’t even let in -to Santiago- the independence fighters who had battled for 30 years. This Revolution will not be like that of 1933 when the people began to believe that a Revolution was being made, and then Mr. Batista came and seized power and established a dictatorship for 11 years. This will not be like that of 1944, the year in which the multitudes were aroused believing that finally the people had come to power, but those who came to power were thieves. Today, there are neither thieves, nor traitors, nor interventionists. This time it really is the Revolution, the definitive Revolution.”
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano – English