Cuba: The Courage of a People

By Carlos Aznárez, Resumen Latinoamericano on June 16, 2021

photo: Bill Hackwell

When the government of a country with the dimensions of the United States, which to all the inhabitants of the Third World represents the Empire, decides to blockade another country, as it has been doing with Cuba for 60 years, there is no doubt that what it is trying to achieve is to bring it to its knees, to corner it in such a way that it renounces its revolutionary process, to destroy it with a tsunami full force against its entire economic infrastructure. Not all at once, like a climatic catastrophe, but little by little, day after day, year after year.

The word blockade is easy to say but only those who suffer it know the dimensions of cruelty hidden behind it. Everything that is usual for any people that is not blockaded begins to be restricted, it becomes scarce, it runs out, it disappears. And this list of evil includes essential products of the food market, health, education, any type of industry and thousands of other aspects that make the machinery of any society function.

A year of blockade against any country is simply devastating, suffocating and demoralizing. So, how can one endure 60 years without surrendering to an enemy that, to top it all off, is only 90 miles away? How can one convince the world’s accomplices of the blockade that what has been set in motion is frankly a crime against humanity, because of its systematic nature and its level of perversity?

That is where the power of a people in Revolution appears, the strength of those women and men of Cuba forged under the legacy of Fidel, Che, Vilma and Celia, to name but a few of the many patriots of the island. There is no other explanation than the conscience and commitment of millions of Cuban men and women, the love for what they worked so hard to build for those who came before them, the conviction that to compromise with that enemy that tries to drown them in a thousand ways would be an unworthy suicide as a society. Cuba resisted and resists because its people, the veterans of the old guard still standing as well as the new generations, children and grandchildren of those bearded emancipators, showed that the blockade can be defeated. That it is sacrificial and often distressing and generates impotence, yes, but it is a Revolution that in the worst conditions has managed to provide its sons and daughters with education, health and the necessary food, must be defended in all necessary fields. A process of the quality of the Cuban one, which has trained thousands of students from the country and others from the Third World, which has produced innumerable advances in medicine, biotechnology and other sciences, which has exported literacy and medical care to numerous countries of the world, even those that call themselves “developed”, is something that fills one with pride and reinforces the identity and self-esteem of the people.

In this way, Cuba continues to defeat the criminal Empire and gain the respect of all humanity, which today is going through a very difficult time, but knows that despite all the difficulties, the Cuban Revolution continues to take care of its people, achieving new victories at the scientific level with the anti-Covid vaccines or coming to the aid of any other nation that requests it, including those that in all their hypocrisy still maintain the blockade.

For these reasons and many more, solidarity with Cuba, its people and its revolutionary leadership is a duty and a token of gratitude for all that the island generates selflessly at a time when capitalism seeks to continue destroying Nature and coexistence among peoples. Shouting with all our might “down with the blockade” and spreading this slogan like wildfire is the task of all of us, now as the island will once again have to pass through the sieve of the United Nations Assembly. Let it be heard.

Source: Resumen Latinoamericano