Por: Yurina Piñeiro Jiménez, Ismael Francisco

Ayer algunos decidieron homenajear al Comandante abrazando la ciudad de Matanzas. Kcho con su arte, Gerardo con su tropa en el barrio, Popi con sus valientes de escafandra en el lugar del siniestro…

“El mejor lugar para estar un 13 de agosto, -por la demostración de unidad, solidaridad y otros principios que nos enseñó Fidel- precisamente era Matanzas y por eso estamos aquí”, dijo ayer Kcho en el Taller de Lolo donde junto a obras de artistas contemporáneos dedicadas al Comandante estaban unos dibujos que realizaron los niños para honrar a los bomberos que participaron en la extinción del incendio en la Base de Supertanqueros.

Un día después de extinguido el fuego, en la Atenas de Cuba la tranquilidad de saber que ya no peligran vidas humanas unido al calor hogareño, les alivia un poco las quemaduras a muchos de los héroes de casco rojo o amarillo y les permite traer a la luz a otros titanes anónimos.

Ayer cuando Dilan escuchaba el reconocimiento del miembro del Consejo de Estado y coordinador de los Comités de Defensa de la Revolución, Gerardo Hernández Nordelo, hacia él y los otros rescatistas vecinos del consejo popular Peñas Altas, el joven aclaró quién era el verdadero superhéroe de su grupo.

“Yo quisiera que también se homenajeara a un hombre que no es rescatista ni bombero, pero de no ser por él que nos esperó a todos y se mantuvo allí a pesar del peligro cuando aquel tanque explotó, hoy ninguno de nosotros estaríamos aquí. Es él, el chofer de la guagua”.

No solo se compartió la gloria, sino también el sentir por los compañeros ausentes, aquellos que perecieron en el intento de apagar el volcán de llamas en los almacenes de combustible o los que no pudieron sobrevivir a las marcas del fuego en sus cuerpos.

Un minuto de silencio, unos rostros contrictos, las palabras de una mujer entrecortadas por la emoción; esa fue la manera de acompañar a los familiares allí presentes de algunos de los desaparecidos.

When on July 26, 1953 Raul Castro snatched the pistol wielded by a Batista police chief attempting to take him prisoner in the Santiago de Cuba Court and pointed the gun at his would-be captors, in less than a second he radically changed the course of the history he was living, saving not only his life and those of his comrades, but also a piece of the Revolution that had begun to take shape that very day.

Fidel spoke of his loyalty and service to the homeland at the First Party Congress, when he recalled that in the Revolution “nepotism cannot and will never exist,” but that sometimes “two cadres get together,” and that Raul, beyond being an extraordinary cadre, happened to be his brother.

Something very similar was recalled by Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, upon assuming the position of Party First Secretary, when he evoked Raúl’s immeasurable contribution to the Revolution, from the Moncada and the Sierra to the process of continuity that he prepared, conducted and led, always on the basis of loyalty and modesty.

This is the same altruism described by Nikolai Leonov in his biography Raul Castro, a Man in Revolution, when he came across a seemingly insurmountable obstacle to his literary project: His hero, also his friend, does not seek publicity, “he rather avoids it,” Leonov stated.

When the collapse of the Soviet Union and the disintegration of the socialist camp fell like a curse on Cuba, and the usual enemies began to rub their hands in glee, he made no apologies for the Revolution, assuring his people, as he had already proven in the luminous days of the Second Front, that resistance was possible; and in the long run he was right: it was possible and is possible.

This was not the last difficult test. He faced the death of Vilma, his companion in all battles, and Fidel’s illness, that obliged him to assume positions to which he never aspired.

At the head of the country, he did his job, not allowing the blockade to prevent him from looking to the future and undertaking the updating of our socio-economic model; renegotiating foreign debt and promoting non-state forms of management; achieving the release of the Cuban Five and leading talks with the United States; while supporting transcendental laws for the country and leading the democratic process of drafting the new Constitution of the Republic.

He has done more than enough to earn some rest, but always the guerillero, he told Cubans last April 16 that, as long as he lived, he will be ready “with his foot in the stirrup,” a phrase that, for a people who know him well, needs no translation.

(Taken from Granma)

-On what album does this song appear?

-The song “Todo el mundo cuenta” is on Pi 3,14, born in the context of some very particular years. Buena Fe’s work cannot be interpreted in a comprehensive manner without understanding the context in which our songs were written. This is an album from 2011 that addresses the social reality of that time. Those were the years when the convocation was made for the 6th Party Congress, which was held in April of that year, after 14 years without a Congress being held, and Raul called for debate, for people to say what they thought, to go deeper in changing a number of things.

This is one of the albums we have made that most reflects Martí, given the very Cuban character it has. It is no accident that we had Eliades Ochoa on “Mamífero nacional;” “Despedida” with Pablo Milanés, and Los aldeanos for “Miedos.” We brought in guest artists because it was a year that needed consensus, needed for everyone to see themselves reflected in the country that was to be constructed, and to chart the guidelines we needed to move forward. That song is a summary of everything we wanted to express in the album, of the need to build a nation with everyone and for the good of everyone, but also emphasizing the need to understand all the parts. We could no longer think of Martí in stock phrases, but of another Martí who can be a father, a teacher, who accompanies us as a brother, blood of the poor, in doing our duty; a Martí who leaves us wondering how he could do so much without the Internet. I tell you that song is the one I am most proud of, since, apart from the context in which it emerged, it is a song that can still accompany us.”

-What value do you give the dimension of Marti’s thought in setting an ethical course for us, as a referent for conduct in the 21st century, addressing issues ranging from morality to altruism, goodness and beauty, to mention only a few?

-Martí cannot be understood if one does not comprehend his great school. It was not only the pro-independence, revolutionary environment in which he was born. I think that to have punished such a young boy, with his sensitivity, a boy who took to poetry, literature, to have condemned him to such a horrible prison in which, incredibly, the boy did not die, was the bomb. This is what forged his moral universe, his ethical universe. What horrors could that boy have seen, what pain he must have faced, making all other sacrifices seem like mere trifles? God knows how many horrible things that young boy witnessed, a boy who came from an intellectual environment, suddenly finding himself surrounded by delinquents, where some even younger than him died. This is what broadened his vision of the world, of human nature, in terms of the perverse and sends him running toward the light of beauty, toward valuing everything beautiful as if it were the last of the day. This is why when we open ourselves to Martí, his enormous moral stature shines through, his enormous vocation for service, his tireless capacity for work, his dedication and love for others.

How lucky this country has been to have a man like this, to have an example like this! Everything great and everything good is summarized in Martí, because he hoped for nothing more than that his thought survive him. If Marxists define human beings as actors and thinkers, Martí adds feeling. Martí always makes clear to us that, if ideas do not first pass through the heart, they are sterile. This is almost a revelation, a revealed truth. For me, Martí is someone to whom I always return, not to quote him by heart, but to try to understand his formula for triumphant love. Martí’s way of understanding the character of human nature, the prism through which he sees life and attempts to make thinking, doing and feeling go hand in hand. This is admirable and I try to get closer to it every day.

-Do you think that Martí’s indomitable will to fight on the battlefield against the enemy represents an eloquent example for those of us who are willing to give our lives for the welfare of our people?

There are small men, the homeland’s shrimp, who attempt at all costs to make Martí look like a conciliator, a man incapable of being radical, incapable of being intransigent. They have tried many times to sell us a faint-hearted Martí, a soft Martí. This is totally false. Martí was as radical and as intransigent as Antonio Maceo and Máximo Gómez. He was always very clear that it was impossible to build a republic, to win Cuba’s independence, trying to get along with everyone. He understood that all work was done for the good of all, he understood willpower, effort and dedication, attempting to summon all on the basis of their best side, the side that illuminates. He was very clear about human nature, about the beast that dwells inside every man and, of course, he spoke of the need for good to prevail over that beast. But he was not calling for tigers and rabbits to live in the same cage. Whoever attempts to say that does not understand Martí. This is why I have more respect for those who do know that Martí was a radical and attack him today. It is clear to them that Martí’s stature is so great that they do not have the courage to emulate him. They prefer to deny it. They prefer to judge him on the basis of their own smallness. Those who are not capable of understanding insult him. Those who prefer to fabricate a fifth column Martí and know very well that’s not the way it is, are an offense to his greatness. Martí was capable of signing in blood everything he dreamed, everything he loved. Martí was for real.

(Quelle: Granma)

December 2, 1956, at a point on the southern coast of eastern Cuba known as Los Cayuelos, the men under Fidel’s leadership disembarked, intent upon honoring the blood spilled in the name of independence before them.

It took the expedition members almost four hours to cross the 1,500 meters of swampy mangroves that separated them from the mainland, in a slow, painful march, losing their boots, clothes and valuable war material, but never their confidence in Fidel’s statement upon leaving Mexico: “If I leave, I will arrive; if I arrive, I will enter; if I enter, I will triumph.”

The days that followed were worse. Three days later, with practically no food or rest, the baptism of fire arrived, in Alegría de Pío, leaving the deaths of combatants, the capture of others… the dispersion.

But much more than this setback was needed to defeat the expedition. Just days later, on December 18, at Cinco Palmas, with eight men and seven weapons reunited, Fidel exclaimed: “Now, yes, we have won the war!”

With this conviction they landed on Cuban soil; and this would be the guide for every battle in the Sierra Maestra, until the final victory, and today, 64 Decembers later, it is the same conviction that Cuba holds dear, as we confront new efforts to break us.

Landing on the Granma, in 1956, were not only the utopia of the possible and the homeland imagined by Martí, but also the commitment to sovereignty of a people that does not allow its history to be disgraced, and much less is easily confused.

(Taken from Granma)

On the world’s soccer fields, where he was recognized for his ability, but rejected for his ideas, no one was as misunderstood. His rebelliousness, and later his drug addictions were the pretexts used by the suits to censure him. The real reason was his sharp criticism of the powerful, speaking out against the injustices that players and fans experienced.

Those who were never going to understand him, did not care to do so. They would have been obliged to first pass by kilometer zero of this man, in Villa Fiorito, a forgotten point in the geography of his country, in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area. “There was no water, no bread, no meat there,” he said more than once. As a boy in those pastures, he dreamed of playing on the national team. He came from the bowels of Argentine neoliberalism, the same system that delivered the blows he suffered in life, and against which he armed himself with ideas.

Like all mortals, Diego Armando Maradona is gone. Of course, he was a genius of soccer, the sport of the multitudes, not because of the money of the rich, but because, since antiquity, individual physical skill has been exalted. The masses need only a coconut as a ball to play. The same thing happened in medieval times. There were only a few knights, but the many, the commoners would launch a fratricidal battle over this round object.

Maradona is mourned by these masses. The fields, the stadiums seem to cry, even the goalkeepers he defeated with his magic. But those who feel the loss most deeply are the Latin American peoples who he never betrayed; the humble who traveled on his powerful left leg, author of his works, the same leg that waded through the mud in Fiorito and carried the people, led them, to make headlines. The people he always greeted with an “Onward to victory!”

He turned his commitment to the integrationist causes of Latin America and the Caribbean into beautiful goals. Never before were the masses so well represented, nor did anyone defend the Argentine flag as he did.

Cuba hurts and hurts deep, because he loved our country as his own, and history rewarded him by uniting him with the man he considered his second father. “I lived in Cuba for four years and Fidel would call me at two in the morning. We would have a mojito to talk about politics, or sports, or whatever was happening in the world, and I was always ready to talk. That is the most beautiful memory I have. If there was an event, he always called to see if I wanted to go, if I wanted to collaborate, and that is not easily forgotten,” he said, upon learning of Fidel’s departure, on another November 25.

“When clinics in Argentina closed their doors to me, Fidel opened his heart to me in Cuba. The number one revolutionary was Che, with Fidel at the head; I came along in the rear platoon. I came to be with my second father; the greatest still here. I am a Cuban soldier; I am here for whatever Cuba needs. They gave me love when I was sick. I get up every morning and I can talk, and I owe that to Fidel, who honored me by giving me his Comandante en jefe’s jacket, putting it on me.”

Maradona crowned his ideas, alongside journalist Victor Hugo Morales, with another great goal on the teleSur network program “De zurda.” On January 16, 2015, in a legendary exchange with the Comandante en Jefe, Diego stated: “Fidel, if there is one thing I have learned from you, over the years of a genuine, beautiful friendship, it is that loyalty is priceless, that a friend is worth more than all the gold in the world, and that ideas are not negotiable. That’s why De Zurda is a tribute to our friendship.”

He was a militant of the left, of feeling and of action. In 2017, when Venezuela was again attacked by U.S. imperialism, in an attempt to destabilize the Chavista government, Maradona declared himself a soldier of the Bolivarian Revolution, keeping his word, his promise to Comandante Hugo Chávez.

“A soccer legend has left us much sadness, a brother and unconditional friend of Venezuela. Dear, irreverent Pelusa, you will always be in my heart and in my thoughts. I don’t have the words to express what I feel at this moment. So long, Pibe de America,” tweeted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. From Bolivia, Evo Morales commented: “With pain in my soul, I learned of the death of my brother Diego Armando Maradona. A person who felt and fought for the humble, the best soccer player in the world.”

Maradona is the man we remember with his tattooed body affirming his principles. On one shoulder, an image of Che and, on his invincible left leg that scored so many goals and showed his love for the fans: Fidel.

The golden kid, el Pibe de Oro, became a legend as number 10, idolized around the world, but also, as Dios, in the hopes of those who, like him, aspire to score goals for humanity.

(Taken from Granma)

Cuba’s President of the Republic Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez paid tribute to the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution on his Twitter, writing: “Fidel: How do I greet you? Every day we strive to follow in your footsteps”.

For his part, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro Moros described Fidel in a tweet as “the teacher, father and man of ideas” who taught us to never surrender when it comes to defending the cause of the oppressed, and reiterated, “Four years since your departure to eternity, the Venezuelan people take your presence into every battle and every victory.”

A communiqué from the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry also evokes the greatness of the man who Comandante Hugo Chávez defined as the “Caesar of dignity and socialism,” while recalling “his legacy of unwavering struggle for sovereignty and independence, and his example of integrity, courage, solidarity and justice, which continues to guide the awakening of the peoples, in spite of the permanent, criminal attacks of imperialism.”

In a message to Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba Central Committee and President Miguel Díaz-Canel, from Nicaragua, Comandante Daniel Ortega and Vice President Rosario Murillo emphasized that Fidel is “the intelligence and heart of our Revolutions, of our struggles, of our efforts, of our invariable commitment.”

The official website of the leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei published for the first time statements made at a meeting with Fidel on May 9, 2001. “I have known him for years, and our people hold his name and his correct positions in high esteem. Undoubtedly, the common points and affinities we share have played an important role in creating the cordial and spiritual ties that exist between us (…). I hope that your visit to Iran will open a new chapter in relations between our countries. Although we are far apart geographically, we can have close ties and relations,” Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei stated at the time.

Legislators, Cuban diplomats, representatives of friendship associations and graduates of Cuban universities also paid tribute, in different regions of the planet, to the Comandante en jefe, recalling his enduring legacy supporting humanity’s just causes.

(Taken from Granma)

This last year we have seen you riding, as an invincible warrior, into combat against an epidemic, the consequences of which you anticipated, with your vision of future, when you filled the island with doctors and research centers to confront – with science – the many diseases that would appear over time.

You knew that it would be poor countries that would be the most affected and made much-needed solidarity a fundamental banner of the Revolution, unfortunately little practiced where selfishness and greed prevail under the name of neo-liberalism.

Although you left for another dimension, you are leading the current battles, from the depths of a rock extracted from the mountains of your Sierra Maestra. We confirm how necessary you are – perhaps indispensable.

But the current year of 2020, four years after we accompanied you to immortality, has been singular, given the challenges, the battles fought, the action of a people who know you are present, who saw and felt you in every effort undertaken, on every front, in every victory achieved and every adversity faced.

I can imagine how you would feel knowing that a doctor or nurse, of those tens of thousands you saw trained, today face, there in the red zone or in the rear of a hospital, doctor’s office or polyclinic, a terrible pandemic that has endangered all of humanity.

What would you say when those who by the thousands departed to confront Covid-19 in other lands around the world, making a reality of that phrase you repeated so many times, “We do not give away what we have left over; we share what we have.”

How present you have been at the Finlay Vaccine Institute, among those who have set out to make your teaching a reality and to produce the candidate vaccines Sovereign 01 and 02, to combat the pandemic not only in Cuba, but making them available to the entire world, to the poorest countries.

How many times have you visited the exemplary Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology Center, and how many times have you discussed the role of science in the development of our homeland, with workers, doctors, scientists?

You are recalled here and now, within every institution located in the Scientific Pole. Working there are many of those who shook your hand, those who answered your questions, those who accepted the challenge you posed to undertake the necessary work of those who cannot wait, over time and with quality.

When I see the thousands of members of the Henry Reeve Contingent brigades depart and return victorious, I am reminded of the first health professionals organized to offer solidarity abroad.

Today, more than ever, your thoughts are present, as expressed in the constitution of this medical contingent: “We have shown that human beings can and must be better. We demonstrate the value of conscience and ethics. We offer lives.”

I remember the time in May of 2001, when I participated as a journalist in your visit to Algeria, the meetings with leaders and professionals of that nation, who were always grateful for the honor of being the first to receive a Cuban medical brigade, just a few months after that nation achieved its independence.

On May 24, 1963, a group of 58 health professionals departed to Algeria, including 32 doctors, four dentists, 14 nurses and eight technicians who worked in different parts of the country for some 18 months.

Nor can I forget Barbados, when in December 2005, you spoke to Caribbean leaders at the Cuba-CARICOM Summit, and referred to Operation Miracle that had saved the vision of so many in these small countries. You were moved by what leaders like Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, said, who, with tears in his eyes, thanked you for Cuba’s great solidarity with the world’s most needy.

Today, when you are not physically present among us, you continue to be a daily reference that marks a human work of extraordinary magnitude.

This is why, across the Caribbean, you are remembered and venerated, in the countries of Africa, in a grateful Vietnam, in Latin America where Cuban solidarity, our medical and educational missions, and others, have contributed to millions, saving lives, curing disease, and more millions learning to read and write.

Another battle waged this year, one of those in which you always took the lead, was the battle against tropical storms like Eta, with their devastating impact on agricultural, housing, schools and other institutions. We remember the great flood control works you conceived when a hurricane named Flora, October 3, 1963, struck our country, mainly areas in the present provinces of Las Tunas, Holguín, Granma and Camagüey.

What would have become of our island without the dams, the canals, the reservoirs of various sizes throughout the country, which as you would so often explain, store the water needed for human and agricultural use, and most importantly prevent floods, overflowing rivers and other phenomenon that cost human lives and destroy food crops?

During this year’s great battles, like others in previous years, we have had in you, Fidel, an obligatory reference, the example to follow, the lesson that makes every Cuban part of a better present and future for our people.

We can assure you that you are present, Comandante, as is the Revolution you made, which this people continues to carry forward.

(Taken from Granma)

The Presidency’s Twitter account reported that the event featured the creations of prolific pianist and composer José María Vitier, accompanied by the interpretative excellence of the Niurka González on flute, violinist Javier Cantillo and soprano Bárbara Llanes, as well as the screening of a documentary directed by Omelio Borroto, entitled “Leal insuperablemente fiel” (Leal: unsurpassably faithful) which includes the revealing testimony of close collaborators and of Eusebio himself, as a tribute to this distinguished Cuban.

(Taken from Granma)

Che himself affirms, “The true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love,” leaving us another creed to steer us along the road of just causes.

These are times to live this love, turn it into action, into an example, struggle… not a slogan, or a cold image sculpted in bronze, but rather the common man, the everyday person who, without asking a single question, marches off to save lives, unaware that he or she is a hero.

There are human beings who are beyond time, who disregard borders to give themselves to the world, even dashing the dreams of their enemies, like Che’s in Higuera, who took his life without knowing they were handing him over alive, forever.

As the poet sang: …Che has no other road to take / other than that of resurrection / and remaining to the left of men / demanding that they quicken the pace / for centuries on end /Amen.

When do men stop being simple mortals to become legendary beings? Does the mythical figure appear to us irremediably divorced from the human one that preceded it in time? How healthy is it to choose one side and reject the other?

These ideas haunt me today, at a time when the Havana City Historian would have reached his 78th birthday. And such questions have much to do with the mania of some biographers of great figures in history, of offering an immaculate profile that does nothing but separate the bird’s two wings.

Eusebio was a Cuban man of his time who created himself, at the cost of sweat and sacrifice. A self-taught man who overcame difficult challenges and more than a few obstacles to see his dreams come true. He was a young patriot fascinated by the history and the island’s ideal of freedom, who proposed to magnify that heritage with his work at the service of the nation.

He had defects, no doubt, and he neglected his personal life to defend the utopia in which he courageously believed. But none of this takes away from the fact that he was an enlightened being, a unique creature that lived his life among cobblestones, cannons, flags and machetes.

Because he believed in the value of symbols and, like an armed dove, he defended everything related to our moral greatness, to the Cuban ethics by which we would like to live, so beautifully described by Cintio Vitier in Ese sol del mundo moral (That sun of the moral world).

Today, barely a month after his physical departure, apart from making a lasting ritual of the beautiful spontaneous gesture of hanging white sheets from balconies, the best tribute we can pay Eusebio Leal is to delve into his life with our heads uncovered, as he hoped we would in the case of our forefathers, accepting them as they were, without denying their contradictions or defects.

Only in this way, those who did not live in his times, those who will know him only in bronze or marble, will be able to feel the reverberation of an extraordinary man, but one of flesh and blood.

(Source: Granma)