Articles of Reflections by Fidel

Leaving aside the problems afflicting human beings today, our Homeland had the privilege of being the cradle of one of the most extraordinary thinkers born in this hemisphere: Jose Marti.

Our times are characterized by an unprecedented event: the threat to the survival of the human species imposed on the world by imperialism. The painful reality should not come as a surprise to anyone. It could be seen rapidly advancing in the past few decades, at such a pace as it is hard to imagine.

The human being managed to raise its life possibilities to such limits as exceed its own capacity to survive, and in this battle they are consuming at an accelerated pace the raw materials available to them. Science made it possible to turn matter into energy, as in the case of the nuclear reaction, –through large investments– but there is no sign that turning energy into matter is even viable.

Our country speaks with the moral authority of a small nation that has resisted more than fifty years of brutal repression by that empire foreseen by Bolívar, the most powerful empire that ever existed. The immense hypocrisy of its policy and its disdain for other peoples has led it into very serious and dangerous situations. Among other consequences is the day by day evidence of its cowardliness and cynicism, converted into daily practice in international policy, since the vast majority of honest persons on this Earth don’t have any possibility of making their opinions known, nor of receiving trustworthy information.

It is no exaggeration to say that to me it was one of the most touching moments of my long and hazardous life. I could not be there but I felt inside like someone engaged in a journey along the ideas for which he has fought three fourth of his life. However, ideas and values would be worthless for a revolutionary who did not feel it is his duty to fight every minute of his life to overcome the ignorance we all come with into the world. There will never be easy solutions; strictness and exigency must prevail. Let’s guard ourselves especially from those that throw down the drain the people’s principles and dreams together with the dirty water.

We feel that the Healthcare Reform has been a significant battle and a success of his administration. However, it is really amazing that 234 years after the Declaration of Independence proclaimed in Philadelphia in the year 1776, which drew inspiration from the ideas of the great French encyclopedists, the government of that country has approved medical care for the overwhelming majority of its citizens, something that Cuba accomplished for its entire population half a century ago despite the cruel and inhuman blockade imposed –and still in force– by the mightiest country that has ever existed.

The farthest the horizon of knowledge expands to previously unknown limits, the closer humanity is brought to the abyss. All sufferings known so far are hardly a pale reflection of what could lie ahead of humanity.

We met in Managua, on July 1980, 30 years ago, –during the commemoration of the first anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution?thanks to my contacts with the followers of the Liberation Theology, which had started in Chile when I visited President Allende there in 1971. I hard heard about Lula from Friar Betto. He was a leader of workers, someone in whom the leftist Christians had early placed their hopes.

Human beings have equipped themselves with nuclear weapons of unconceivable accuracy and annihilating power, while taking a shameful step back from a moral and political point of view. Socially and politically we are more underdeveloped than ever. Robots are replacing soldiers; media are replacing educators and governments start to be overtaken by events without knowing what to do.

In the midst of the Haitian tragedy, without anybody knowing how and why, thousands of US marines, 82nd Airborne Division troops and other military forces have occupied Haiti. Worse still is the fact that neither the United Nations Organization nor the US government have offered an explanation to the world’s public opinion about this relocation of troops. Our country is accomplishing a strictly humanitarian mission. To the extent of its possibilities, it will contribute the human and material resources at its disposal. The will of our people, who takes pride in its medical doctors and cooperation workers who provide vital services, is huge, and will rise to the occasion.