The response of the people did not wait. Here! The Cuban women and men said with tears in their eyes and tight hearts. Because it was true: Fidel was in everyone.
That is the man who is reborn every August 13th, a giant, dressed in olive green, storming the Moncada, embraced by the ideas of the Cuban Apostle Jose Marti, the one who went to Mexico to continue the fight, and came on the Granma yacht, and climbed to the Sierra and entered Havana triumphantly.
The same Fidel who warned us then that from that moment on, everything would be even more difficult, the one who, together with his people, challenged several North American governments and won.
The Commander who in international stands defended the salvation of the human species, the unity of the continent, and the future of humanity.
Fidel is Fidel, Raul has told us. Now, when the leader is still alive, walking in Cuba, he teaches us that we must continue fighting against the errors, against bureaucracy, the anti-values, the theft, the selfishness, he is the one who taught us that a country is ran shoulder to shoulder with the people. He is the one who so many times demonstrated that the genius is in the masses.
Fidel would tell us on his birthday that we are not perfect, but that it is worth continuing to fight to defend a better country.
Let’s not see Fidel just to pay him honors at the monolith where his ashes are honored at the Santa Ifigenia Cemetery of Santiago de Cuba. Let’s make the commitment to never fail him, to continue building his dreams even if the road is full of obstacles.
He is the living Fidel that I want to see today as the gladiator who marches in front of his people, a rifle on his shoulder and the breastplate of dignity on his chest, with a Cuban flag in his hands, reminding us that this is a perfectible country, making the Marti’s sentence that “all the glory of the world fits in a grain of corn” and that it will always have to be renewed.
Where is Fidel? Criticizing us, guiding us, and leading us on the long road of building and making of utopias a reality. He is alive, present, necessary, urgent, here, among us, announcing the future.
