June 18, 2024
Vilma and Fidel, photo: Liborio Noval
On this 17th anniversary of Vilma Espín’s death, we remember her with photos and fragments of the reflection written by Fidel Castro, “Las luchas de Vilma”, at the time of her death:
“Vilma has died. The news did not stop hitting me because it was expected. Out of pure respect for her delicate state of health I never mentioned her name in my reflections.
Vilma’s example is more necessary today than ever. She devoted her whole life to fight for women when in Cuba most of them were discriminated as human beings as in the rest of the world, with honorable revolutionary exceptions.
This was not always the case throughout the historical evolution of our species, which led her to occupy the social role that corresponded to her as the natural workshop in which life is forged.
In our country women emerged from one of the most horrible forms of society, that of a Yankee neo-colony under the aegis of imperialism and its system, in which everything that the human being is capable of creating has been converted into merchandise.
Since the emergence in distant history of what was called the exploitation of man by man, the mothers and children of the dispossessed bore the greatest burden.
Vilma Espin, leader and revolutionary combatant of the Cuban Revolution; founder of the Federation of Cuban Women. photo: Bill Hackwell
Cuban women worked in domestic services, or in luxury stores and bourgeois bars, where they were also selected for their body and figure. Factories assigned them the simplest, most repetitive and lowest paid jobs.
In education and health, services that were provided on a small scale, their indispensable cooperation was carried out by teachers and nurses who were offered only an average level of preparation. The nation, with an area of 1,256.2 kilometers, had only one higher education center located in the capital, and later, with some faculties in university centers in 2 other provinces. As a rule, only young people from higher income families could study there. In many activities the presence of women was not even conceived of.
I have been a witness for almost half a century of Vilma’s struggles. I do not forget her in the meetings of the 26th of July Movement in the Sierra Maestra. She was finally sent by its leadership for an important mission in the Second Eastern Front. Vilma did not flinch in the face of any danger”.
Source: Cuba en Resumen