Author: Leydis María Labrador Herrera
“They are awaiting a natural and absolutely logical event, the death of someone. In this case, they have honored me by thinking of me. It might be a confession of what they have not been able to do in a long time. If I were a vain man, I could be proud of the fact that those guys admit that they are waiting for me to die, and this is the time.”
Thus Fidel warned on November 17, 2005, in his historic speech delivered in the University of Havana’s Aula Magna, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of his admission to the educational institution.He had directed his words to youth many times, but perhaps never before addressed so purposefully two realities that inevitably touched the hearts of all. The first: due to the irrevocable law of life, he would one day cease to physically exist. The second: “This country can self-destruct; this Revolution can destroy itself, but they can never destroy us; we can destroy ourselves, and it would be our fault.”
Perhaps, during the historic moments that we experience today, and after having faced the irreversible blow of his departure, the message that the Comandante bequeathed to us is more understandable. However, at that moment he confronted us with a reality that, I insist without fear of being mistaken, called for reflection on the part of all revolutionaries, even those who, like me, were just 15 years old. Fidel was, unquestionably, calling us to provide “continuity.”
It’s not that he had not done so before, as from the very beginning of the struggle in the Sierra Maestra, and the first years of the Revolution in power, he always made clear that the social process that was beginning was not limited to his person, not even to the Centennial Generation, but to something much more powerful: the People. But that day he confronted us with the possibility that our social system could be reversible, and not because our enemies had the weapons to achieve it, but only should the true commitment of Cubans to this work collapse.
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