October 20, 1868 was a Tuesday. I was curious enough to look it up in an old compendium of almanacs. By coincidence, it was the day named by ancient Rome to worship the deity and patriarch of its people and the god of spring, also known as the god of war, represented by the image of a strong young man. A Tuesday coincided with the war cry of a new nation, a new people that had just begun its great battle for emancipation.

One hundred and forty-two years ago, the inhabitants of the small town of Bayamo, on the eastern part of Cuba, gathered in front of the Main Church to receive with cheers the patriarch of the nation-to-be, along with his liberating army. There, amid patriotic fervor, a humble lawyer turned into a soldier created the notes that since then are sung to the glory of the homeland. The birth of the nation had taken place ten days before, which now had a national anthem.

Birth, youth, vigor, spring: the necessary war for a people whose vocation have been -and continue to be- peace. It was an unavoidable war to achieve sovereignty first, and then, to preserve it.

Several centuries before that epic clamor there were neither anthem nor flag, or a shield and feelings of nationality either. There was only a territory made up by a long Island, an adjacent islet and cays, all of them inhabited by aboriginal communities that were later decimated and assimilated by the Spanish conquistadors, which later brought thousands of black people from Africa as slaves.

Those human beings were mixed with the passing of time and, along with the subtropical landscape, the alchemy of our Cuban nature was formed by way of the strength of unifying ideas. It emerged like a quiet root does from the depths, while horizons in the dull moan of the ground are shaped.

The foundations of this spiritual, territorial and human building were laid with firm steps, the building we call and love by the name of Cuba. Built on the land where we were born, it rises zealously on the beloved relics of our predecessors, eternal symbols of the origin and reason of our national identity.

Being Cubans is what we appreciate the most, our credentials to the world as members of a society we take pride in. We’re a synthesis that defines us and consolidates us in its universality.

Being Cubans involves being aware of, accept and love the collective individuality that identifies what we think, dream about, and say and do every day. It is our wealth, what we value the most. With this and for this we fight for; it’s what our lives depend on.

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