Politics and Culture

Link: http://www.nelsonguirado.com/index.php/asymmetric/2006/12/15/quick_tell_me_fidel_s_fifteen_greatest_q

As I've mentioned before, I try to take ideas I disagree with seriously and I began an analysis of this speech by Roque. I might finish it some day, but I'll just present this to you and you can add your own mental soundtrack. The translation isn't perfect because, for some reason, Granma didn't translate this article into English. The original is long, but I've summarized Fidel's fifteen great characteristics, according to Roque. The people in the audience liked it; the article mentions a standing ovation.

These people were obviously surprised to hear a pro-castro speech by Roque

15 qualities of fidel according to Felipe Perez Roque, foreign minister of Cuba.

1. ability to unify
2 superb ethics
3. humility and Spartaness
4. coherence of ideas
5. personal example
6. truthfulness
7. good sense
8. modesty and lack of vanity
9. curiosity and quest for learning
10. personal striving for protection
11. refusal to accept defeat
12. Aspiration to justice for all
13. Force of his ideals
14. his ablility to remember that he’s human.
15. lack of hate for any person.

The original is here

Translation below:

Follow up:

Colloquy the International Memory and Future: Cuba and Fidel
15 qualities of Fidel
Intervention in the plenary session of the Colloquy the International Memory and Future: Cuba and Fidel, celebrated in the Palace of the Conventions, the 30 of November of the 2006, "Year of the Power Revolution in Cuba"

FELIPE PEREZ ROQUE MINISTER OF OUTER RELATIONS
Dear friends, from the other diverse Earth borders, have come nonsingle to celebrate birthday 80 of Fidel, but also to give a new testimony of solidarity and affection with the Cuban Revolution, the noble and generous town which he has defied storms, blockades and aggressions without losing the optimism, without they have been able to him to kill the hope and the joy, and receives them to you, at this moment peculiar of our history in which Cuban, calm, the firm ones, esperanzados, we accompanied the convalecencia by Fidel, unpublished fact in these almost five decades to struggle, because Fidel has had, in addition, the luck of an iron health, that probably is the turn out of a body forced by the idea not even to have right to become ill, and has been able to heave enormous tensions, with hardly some that another possible cold or smaller suffering. Therefore, these months have been for us a new experience, and our town has faced them a maturity and a confidence in itself, that already register also like a result of the lessons and the example of Fidel, and like a page of learning for the present and future generations of Cuban; our town, in this peculiar circumstance, gives more value him to the presence of you between us.

We know the effort personal that each one has made to be here, and créanme that speaking like Minister of the Revolutionary Government, but like son of this town, we did not feel in the presence of you a special desire to encourage to us here, to give force us, besides to come to celebrate and to wish improvement and happiness to the companion Fidel.

When it thought what to say this late had doubts, because most of which are here have probably visited Cuba other times, are near the subject of the fights of the Cuban Revolution, of the action in solidum that from its triumph has exercised and that from before his triumph it had proclaimed. Many have said here the words that I could neither improvise nor say although she tried it. Many they have made us a knot in the throat to whom we are here and to million of Cuban that by the television have been able to follow the debates that have taken place in these panels.

Therefore, more than to try a speech done and remade, and to try to review it trying the perfection, or to fix the minimum details to him, I decided that better era to open in torrent the feelings and to say what any Cuban, in any corner of Cuba, could say to them to you on which stops we is Fidel, the Revolution and our independence, that, after all, all that is the same and deeply is mixed today and for always.

For that reason garabateé these ideas, that they do not try, to dictate chair nor to assume by concluded east subject, and that they have the single virtue of the honesty, the respect and the affection by you, who you have come to attest in our mother country its affections with our fight, its firm belief in our capacity to defend now and the future, and to make extend beyond our lives, the ideas by which we have fought.

For that reason I identified 14 either 15 ideas that I consider that, being qualities personal of Fidel, have finished being qualities of Revolution Cuban and even of town Cuban, because an unquestionable contribution of struggling and the teaching of Fidel in these almost 50 years is that some of his qualities, of his conceptions and of his ideas have finished being part of new nation, that is the Cuba that took the inheritance, of course, that has of the previous centuries, but that is marked by last the 50 years, in which a deep, genuine and native social revolution was carried out and it was defended victorious in this small island.

The first quality which I consider that Fidel contributed to the Revolution and that it is today center and compass of the action of our town is its concept of the unit, the contribution of Fidel to the unit; the unit like basic condition for the defense and the sobreexperience of a revolution and for the triumph of one even devises. An idea, by joust that will be, if cannot prevail those are not united that create in her to add and to defend together the idea.
The Cuban Revolution was saved, it has been saved and it has stayed victorious because it knew to construct and to defend the unit, and single will be able to remain and to be saved in the future if it conserves the unit.

Other revolutions were lost indeed because it lacked the unit; because at the culminating moment in which they arise, like he is natural in processes of such intensity and as much depth, divergences, different points of view, can cause that the unit fractures, or that does not set at the moment and the hour at which it was necessary and they can ruin a revolution.
The unit in Cuba is specially the contribution of the character and the ideas of Fidel. It is not a unit obtained with the imposition of the criteria of a man or a group, on other men and other groups.

In this room it has seated some of the protagonists who could, with more authority than I, to give faith from how the unit of the revolutionary forces, the construction of a single Party like guarantee of the continuity of the Revolution arose in Cuba, and how this it is not the result of the persecution of which they had the different opinion, or of the imposition, or the negotiated one of the quotas of being able or participation, but the result of a process that intimately is bound to the personality and the contribution of Fidel.

That that it arose to the heat of the Revolution is today quality of the Cuban revolutionaries and the Cuban town, and wherever there is one of us it will be always advocating the unit. They arise, as it is logical, between us, sometimes, disensiones - quarrels call to them in Cuba -, but always all under definitive and key the idea that the unit is precondition for the triumph and the victory. That is a contribution of Fidel. That was not thus in Cuba before Fidel.

Previous wars and days of fight by the rights of the Cuban town to independence, to the sovereignty were frustrated by the lack of unit. The first great war of the Cubans by its independence of the Spanish colonial power, that lasted 10 years of bloody fight, between 1868 and 1878, was frustrated by the lack of unit, and was in her leaders and men with not less commitments and not less qualities than Fidel; nevertheless, that heroic war did not finish in the triumph, in individual, by the lack of unit, and many other times that happened in the history of the Cuban Revolution until the moment which Fidel turned essential task - from his modestia, from its capacity to listen the others, from its capacity to convince, to persuade and not to impose or to dictate the construction of the unit.

How he would be so that a man as the Che Guevara decided that night in the house of Maria Antonia, in Mexico, to add his life to that epic after to know Fidel, single in the first conversation, a man of the sharpness of the Che, the level, of the capacity, the honesty and the purity of the Che, how that night could, in the first conversation, to decide to follow those men who proposed the idea that seemed impossible: to come in a small boat to Cuba to develop a guerrilla warfare and to defeat to an army supported by the United States that nothing had nothing else and less than 80 000 men, 1 000 by each one of those expeditionary ones that was sent to the Granma...
I do not know if to you there is past to them, if sometimes they have tried to stop themselves in front of the Granma yacht and to count to see how it is possible that 82 men, plus the arms and the park fit in that small boat designed for 12 or 15 passengers. They say that when the boat leaves calm waters of the river, at night dark, 2:00 in the morning, the Che asked: "But, good, when we arrived at the boat in which we will go towards Cuba" (Laughter.) It thought that the Granma was the barquito in which they would arrive at the greatest boat. The preparations were secret, logically, he was very bulkhead everything, and the Che, and surely that others thought it although they did not ask, it thought that there would be a greater boat to travel to Cuba.

Today it is a day in which 50 years of that are marked to sail. A day as today they lacked still two days to arrive at Cuba.

The unit is the first idea that I wrote down between my pothooks; second, the ethics.
The ethics. Here it was said - I believe that it was Gilberto Lopez and Rivas -, who Fidel and the Cuban Revolution had turned the ethics in regard to State. The ethics has roots in the thought of Martí, but it is the practice of Fidel throughout 50 years which turns the ethics an essential quality of the Cuban Revolution. With the practice of Fidel and the conception of the ethics like essential component of the political and revolutionary performance, the idea that is not assumed the aim justifies means. For Fidel, the aim does not justify means. The objective or the victory cannot be obtained whatever the cost. It is why one has never tortured in Cuba a prisoner, even though his valuable knowledge, the information who could give, had been able to avoid other crimes, had been able to avoid a new terrorist attack.

The old combatants tell that prédica of Fidel to the Cuban fighters, to the combatants of the Security, often the founders were farmers who just alphabetized themselves. Nobody never remembers the idea that it was allowed, was stimulated, the idea of the torture or the murder was tolerated as fight method, and for that reason the Cuban Revolution made the center of its performance the defeat of the enemy army and of its invading troops, and it did not go to other tactics of fight, nor "to the eye by eye and tooth by tooth".

The ethics made the Cuban revolutionaries, in spite of the adverse and tendenciosa propaganda, to be made want, and always respected the idea that it was not possible to be confiscated the farmers to them which they had, and the small guerrilla army, hungry and barefoot, little paid to the farmers the hen or of rice and frijoles that requested for their sustenance.
The idea that the moral authority is lost if lacks the ethics in the performance, is an unquestionable contribution of Fidel to the Revolution, and at moments of very hard confrontations, because there is to remember that more than 3 500 Cubans victims of terrorist acts fell and that in Cuba she has more than 2 000 Cubans with physical limitations due to pumps, to terrorist acts, bombings against civil populaces of aviation or of ships in the coasts, the ethics always presided over the performance of the Revolution.
That is Fidel, and for that reason the Revolution was defended, but within limits in which the idea was never possible to imitate the methods of the enemy or of which, as already I said, the aim justifies means. That is a contribution of Fidel, the Cubans know it well.

They are possible to be taken to Fidel propose of how to act, but knows beforehand that if sets out to him to leave a millimeter which constitutes the ethics, the principles, the ideas in which the Revolution creates, will be obtained, at least, a refusal, and almost always a hurricane of ideas.

Third, the loosening. The loosening of Fidel by the material things, the tributes, the vanities of which all - they say we took something inside, in Fidel reaches category of essential quality. Its personal conduct is not single, almost Spartan; its total absence of vanity is not single. They say that it could be an excellent lawyer, brilliant student; first companions of writing desk say his - finished graduating as the Faculty of Right, other two companions of study founded with him a writing desk who quickly proposed Fidel to leave the writing desk and to dedicate themselves to another thing, because he contracted a rich owner to them of a land to make a lawsuit to evacuate poor men who were in earth, and Fidel ended up defending to the poor men and the writing desk lost the contract (Laughter).
But that loosening of Fidel finished being essential quality of the Cuban Revolution. Here testimonies have occurred today: the idea of given solidarity as to have and not as weapon of political influence. For that reason both testimoniante said here: "Cuba helped without requesting nothing in return".

Often in the world it was helped, but in return favors were requested or the taking of certain decisions. Nobody can never say, is no a single example, that the Cuban Revolution requested something in return. It exerted generously and purely solidarity; he gave what he exceeded to him, but did not share what had without never requesting nothing in return, and I believe that that explains the presence of you and many like you who could perhaps not have been here.

We can be mistaken like all human being, our work is not perfect; we can be mistaken and in fact we do it, but we have never been mistaken, I think, in the exercise of solidarity as to have, and never like instrument of the interest. That is a quality that reaches today to the Cuban town, to that is recognized to him by the visitors. It was, perhaps, quality in sectors of our population, some of those qualities were in the idiosyncrasy of the Cuban; but in the Revolution the idea to share became massive. For that reason, in Cuba a festival became of students and young people, in a while of very hard crisis of the special period, lodging to the visitors in the houses. For that reason everybody recognizes like quality of the town and the Revolution the idea of sharing.
We have other defects, but not the one of the lack of loosening, and for that reason we have defended like town the idea that it is worth plus the dignity and the independence that the material things; for that reason we have not agreed nor we have negotiated our right to be free having rendered to us so that they lift the blockade to us, and for that reason we have known to say that no, and I believe that that is essentially the result of a teaching and a contribution of Fidel.

In fourth place, the coherence. Not it is single that if you Lee which Fidel said in 1961 on a subject will find, with admiration and surprise, that is ideas that returned to repeat often - not all, because there are things whom they change, logically -, but that when I speak of the coherence, I speak, for example, of which never a Cuban diplomat has had to defend in a tribune a cause in which does not create, a principle with which does not agree. A Cuban diplomat has never had to pass the hard and bitter experience that we see newspaper in other diplomats, to have to say to him to somebody: "Perdóname, I am not in agreement with whom they commanded to say to me; my government commanded to say that to me, but I personally do not agree ", never we have been put in that situation. And I say a diplomat, I can say any representative of our Revolution, our town.

The idea that the Revolution has had a coherence in the principles and of which never has put us in the dilemma of if to defend a principle in which we create or to respond to a reason of State. The coherence has been also reason of State in Cuba and the principles over the interests have been also reason of State in the Cuban Revolution. That is work of Fidel.

The personal example is the villa of my annotations.
Fidel enthroned in Cuba the idea that it is not possible to be asked to him people which one is not arranged to do before. Perhaps one does not do it, but those that follow it must know that one is or was arranged to do it. For that reason Fidel, since he received to the first cyclone in Cuba, after the triumph, in the probable place by where the cyclone would arrive - and it thus did it during 45 years and the town saw it there, means of the hurricane, directing, risking with that they were there -, from that moment turned it practice for the Cubans.
There is no a Cuban leader who is not cut with that scissors, that do not understand the idea that the personal example are essential and are to have, and that the heads have to go ahead; that the heads single have right to more sacrifice, and than the only privilege that can give to a position or a militancy in Cuba, because military man in our Party is been from a process that also includes the one that the companions, the mass of whom are not militant, consider that that aspiring has sufficient ejemplaridad and authority, for that reason is not massive our Party; the idea that military man in the Party of the vanguard or to have a responsibility right gives single to more sacrifices and more restrictions, is a legacy of Fidel. For that reason it did not have in Cuba fights, hurricane, work that required sacrifice and effort, in that Fidel was not.
Good, the internacionalist missions; for obvious reasons Fidel could not leave. He did not have the privilege that had the Che, was a commitment with him from that conversation of Mexico of which a day those reasons would not call to each other to him. The internacionalist mission of Fidel went to turn to Cuba, as it were said here, not a lost island the sea, but mainland for all those that anywhere fought by the justice and the dignity of the world.

The personal example, the authority that emanates to go ahead, to give the example, to guide with the own performance is a contribution of Fidel; the idea that one cannot be and back be sent to the others because later it would not have how to watch the eyes to them.

Memory when Fidel said: "I see the men of my escort who prepare themselves for if a day there is a new attack against me; they are prepared to evacuate me, to remove to me to me from the place, and they to remain fighting there. I leave them, I do not say anything to them, but they do not know that the day that that happens, to me it is necessary to kill along with they there to me, because later, with what expensive I could come to watch them if I leave them fighting by me in the place " (Applause.)
That quality taken to all the acts of the life has been one of the essential reasons of the authority of Fidel in Cuba and explanation of the affection of the town by him. The town knows, the town knows more than four things and it cannot be deceived; and the Cuban, that it knows the sacrifice, but it also knows - and it is an element of its nationality the benefit of the pleasure, that is glad, is expansive, it likes the celebration, it likes the joy and it enjoys it, and it is arranged to resign to her, and it has done it more of once, but to the Cuban it does not like that they deceive it, or that sends it ahead and they remain behind.

In order to guide this town it is necessary to head it, and to head means it to go in the end of the vanguard (Applause). That is a legacy of Fidel, is the result of the teaching of Fidel, because he is not that four or five do it like him, that has reached the masividad, it has become phenomenon of masses, and is worth so much for a factory as for an agricultural company or a ministry of the government. The heads must go ahead, the heads give the example, guide the way with their personal conduct.
The Che, minister of the government of whom Fidel was Prime minister, is paradigm.

In sixth place, the truth. The truth is the weapon; the truth, condition to be respected.
Memory when one seted out not to say a part to him of the truth. It did not agree, insisted itself to him: "But, good, not to say all the truth he is not to say lie". Fidel said: "Good, when all the truth is not said, that is an average truth, and we are speaking to say the truth", and for that reason never the enemy has been able to do with us what so many times we have done, who are to say: "He watches, lies; here it is the test that you lie ". The Revolution has never had the weakness to have to recognize a lie. That is practical and education of Fidel.

In seventh place - I wrote here in my disordered pothooks sensitivity. Fidel transferred that personal quality to the policies and the performance of the Revolution.

Memory that when being his young and inexpert assistant or secretary, in 1992 or 1993, I, crushed by the fact that it was the average night, and there was not less than 30 visitors than they wanted to meet with Fidel, and I saw that that was not possible, and after a long and exhausting meeting, Fidel had not eaten in all the day, of one in other meetings; we were in the heat of special period, were very hard the years: the blackouts, the lack of electricity, foods, of medicines, the country put before the challenge to face an unpublished and sudden situation which it cut to 85% of our foreign trade, which made have to look for new markets us, all that under the pressure of a blockade that became more duro in those years, Fidel it did not stop, it was the whole day... Thus he turned his 70 years in 1996, here with Guayasamín, that did that picture to him of the hands, and Fidel protested to him during the picture: "But, Oswaldo, those hands that you are painting to me are very skinny and very pale". And Guayasamín said to him: "But it is that you do not understand, Fidel? These are not hands, it do not give account you, they are doves, they are pure, never they have robbed nor they have been stained of blood "(Applause).

In those hard years he was one of those days, and I said to him: "It watches, it has these visitors, I propose to see to him this morning, this other..., and now I propose to him that she is going to rest. Single it would be without being solved east gentleman, Trudeau, that goes away tomorrow, to first hour "- ex- Canadian prime minister, had come to Cuba, he always united a friendship with Fidel -, and says Fidel: "But, how! It is Trudeau here and you me have not said it? And one goes away tomorrow, I have to do it ". I say: "But, good, it is that they are many; in addition, you have not eaten today in all the day ". Fidel Says: "No, it is necessary to see it". I say: "But, good, he watches, in addition, he is not already Prime minister", I said I. I always learned that day for the lesson (Laughter); but that day I said: "If he is really ex- prime minister. If it were Prime minister... but it were, no longer he is... ". And Fidel gave average return and to two millimeters of my face he said to me: "you never propose that more to me; they do not interest the positions, but the men to me. It is more, interest to me plus the men when they are not in the positions "(Applause).

That sensitivity is not the quality of a man or of few men or women, I deeply along with talk about to how that gypsy dialect the social work of the Revolution.
That sensitivity went the one that Fidel made enter the quarter where Ana Fidelia Quirot, the outstanding runner, campeona Cuban of athletics, it struggled between the life and the death and took to Fidel to take care with passion to save the life to him to Ana Fidelia. That personal sensitivity, that capacity to feel by the others, to feel as own the pain or the anguish of others are a quality that Fidel turned patrimony of million in Cuba.

In eighth place - I do not know if I delay and abuse of you, you are not organized these ideas and it gives pain me (Applause) -, modestia and the total absence of vanities. For that reason Fidel uses in essential the same uniform, often abraded. For that reason there is no a decoration in the chest of Fidel, for that reason never it has had a decoration, and single its personal authority caused that companions with many merits in Cuba accepted to receive it; for example, Raul and Almeida accepted single the star of Heroes of the Republic of Cuba who take today in their chests, because Fidel imposed his argument and its persuasion, because they did not want it to receive, said: "If Fidel has not received it", and Fidel convinced them. Good, the one that is let throw the arm of Fidel by the shoulder and hears its arguments, with much probability is known that will be convinced (Laughter).

Fidel has done of that modestia, of that total absence of vanity an aspiration for us.
To Tomás Borge, which he is seated here and that said in the morning words that moved to all, Fidel remembered the phrase to him of Martí: "All the glory of the world fits in a maize grain". That has been its compass, that has been the always ready phrase to be mentioned of memory by Fidel, not like empty slogan, but like permanent practice in its life. For that reason its degree is the one that it had in the Mountain range, degree of Commander; for that reason the town says Fidel to him, and is when it feels more comfortable, when they say Fidel to him, when do not mention the positions to him.

For that reason Fidel has been involved in a deep discussion on a subject of medio.ambiente with the driver of an automobile, or with the waiter of a hotel where he has gone, taking it totally in serious.
For that reason Fidel never has said: "No, this person is not at my level to discuss with me"; Fidel is absent of all that. For that reason Fidel never has believed in no protocol and for that reason the protocol that is used more or less in Cuba is the one that accommodates to this sensitivity. Today more he is organized, but, good, Fidel never has accepted the idea that it is not possible to be gone to see a visitor, for protocolic reasons, for that reason appeared the night before in that the visitor was officially going to be received and for that reason that quality to have a total absence of vanities. Modestia like daily conduct, that million of Cuban we aspired to imitate and we took today like model, is a contribution of Fidel also to the qualities of our Revolution, would say that of our nation.

In ninth place I wrote: "to have of a revolutionary politician it is to learn", therefore, in Fidel the infinite curiosity, the one hundred and thousand questions of a subject until knowing the details; the eagerness to read that it took to that always is a book by hand in its car with a small lamp. The eagerness to read, to study; it is not single liking by books or a subject, but to have of revolutionary and politician.

In Fidel to learn, to know, to read, to study, is to have and to nonsingle liking or hobby, and for that reason wherever it is are books, but in the office you can open the books that say: "Theory of the grass and the forage for the cattle", because it was the town in the government trying to improve the cattle ranch, to produce, to multiply breads and the fish. You take anyone from those books and has the annotations of Fidel: "Eye, to review; I must see this with Fulano; to ask in the university the result of the study ". Thus it sees: Theory of the pasturing, André Voisin; Ground improvement; Main indicators of the mechanical industry. Any subject of Biology, chemistry is there, not like liking for free time, but like step of learning for a revolutionary who considers to learn and to know, to have and not a liking.

In tenth place I wrote: "the personal rigor", the aspiration perfectly not like subject of personal vanity, but of having with its responsibilities. For that reason in which Fidel is involved, he will deal with which that is the best thing. Often what he did not knows; often they have congratulated to me by a speech, half of which or the two third parts wrote Fidel; sure I cannot say it there where I say it, because it would be a problem, but... (Applause).

Many of us we have been witnesses of that aspiration of Fidel, often anonymous, related to the vanity far from it, and that is not nor will be recognized, because it is not known.

Its aspiration to that the things are well; that rigor, unit for us, to do it or, because it is the commitment with the town, because it is the way to help the cause who we are defending, because it is what it is called on to us to do like revolutionaries or pictures in the Revolution.

In eleventh place: "the defeat is not so until it is not accepted", whereas it is not accepted is in the heat of it fights to revert the defeat and it is single temporary episode that could be turned victory. That is a quality - in Cuba they say: "To Fidel it does not like to lose nor to the postalitas" -, the idea that it does not accept the defeat, and I I believe that that is quality today, beyond Fidel, of the Cuban revolutionaries, our town. That way it is said: "You Cuban them are like are", and for that reason the athletes and for that reason our town, and the idea that more can be done, of than does not accept the defeat.

Garci'a Márquez writes in their prologue to the book of Gianni Miná, whom I see there in the public, who the idea of Fidel of not accepting the defeat is the same if it is for ensartar a needle that stops to fight a battle in Angola to 10 000 kilometers, and it will try it time and time again until it manages to do it. That is not the example that he mentions, but is something as well as that. That already is a quality of the Revolution.

If we had not thought in that the victory is possible while it is fought by her and it is believed in her, perhaps we would not be here, we would not have resisted almost 50 terrorist years of blockade, aggressions, acts; the aggression of the imperial power more powerful than has existed in history.
To the question of how the small country could resist when it remained single later - because during 30 years there was the support of the Soviet Union, but, in the last 15 years, single we here; often the friends thought that it was not possible that we could face the adversity that came before us -, will be necessary to respond: Because Fidel turned patrimony of million in Cuba, the idea that the defeat is not so until is not accepted, of which always exists the possibility of reverting a temporary defeat. For that reason the Granma did not finish in final defeat, was single temporary defeat, as before it it had been the Moncada. And returning always went to begin, beginning of zero again, and for that reason we are here.

Number twelve, I wrote: "the aspiration to justice for all". Perhaps there are some who aspire to single justice for themselves, fight being rich or to reach a certain personal goal; there are some who think closest about justice for their family or her surroundings, I say to the justice understood as the profit of the goals. There are some who have inhaled it even for their town, for his nation; but for Fidel the idea to fight by justice does not have borders and for that reason it has fought by nonsingle her for the Cubans, who already was enough: the sense to dedicate its life to the fight by the justice of a town, but has turned it universal cause.

For that reason when in Cuba there were 6 000 doctors and 3 000 went away, stimulated, paid by the government of the United States who dealed with which it was not left any, were left 3 000 doctors in Cuba in 1959 - the Cubans were 6 million -, remembered here the words of Fidel yesterday: "We will form many doctors". Today we have 25 doctors by each one of which they went, and Fidel said: "We will form, because we will need them in Cuba and the rest the world". If that idea of universal aspiration to justice did not have been present, Cuba would not today have almost 30 000 collaborators of the health, of which 21 000 is doctors, working in 69 countries.
For that reason that aspiration to justice for all, beyond our earth, of our nation, our condition of State, causes that the Cuban scientists work arduously, and Fidel has stimulated all those projects personally, by a vaccine against the malaria, that is a disease that does not exist in Cuba.
Transnational companies not spend money in investigation for that, because they give to more money cosmetic products or the tablets to lower of weight, that the vaccines against the malaria, because those are medicines of poor towns and, therefore, are not destined to have a great market. The Cuban scientists have worked by vaccines to cure diseases that do not exist in Cuba, and work today under the idea that the aspiration to justice is to justice for all, and I believe that that is an education and a contribution also of Fidel.

Number 13, I wrote here, "the force of the ideas". The personal conviction, that she is martiana also, of which one devises joust, from the bottom of a cave, can more than an army. For that reason our battle is called battle of ideas, the key land where to free the fight.

In number 14 I wrote another quality of Fidel who has been transferred, we say, like patrimony of our town, "the idea that never a human being has let feel". To Fidel, nor the recognition, nor the support, neither the myth in which finished being turned, in individual, by the harassment enemy; nor its immense authority, emanated of its example; neither its experience, nor its knowledge superior to which surrounds to him, never did it, nor have done it, to let feel like a human being able to put itself in the place of the other, to imagine what the other is thinking or feeling, to share and to include/understand the pain, the doubt, the fear of the others.

Affluent memory also the day in which I, crushed by an error which I committed - had committed an error, had not given to account when transacting an instructions to me of Fidel, had mistaken to me, and Fidel saw me so crushed, and suddenly he began: "You want that it says a thing to you, now that I see it well? In the end I believe that he has been very positive this that is past, and this that you have done seems to me that it is going to end up helping us ". My depression increased, because it saw that he tried to convince to me of a thing different from which was evident for me. There the Commander-in-Chief was not acting of the Cuban Revolution, was not acting the President there of the Council of State of our country, was not acting at least the tanned fighter there, who knows that an error in a small detail can ruin a great project; there the human being was acting who understood that I wanted that swallowed the Earth to me, but the Earth does not finish to me swallowing as I wanted, and I died of the shame and no longer she could fix what there was past, and Fidel insisted - often I have also seen it with other companions in demonstrating me that my error, after all, was going to be very positive for the final result of the work. That is Fidel to be human, who even though he sets out the perfection for himself and he is flagellated if he does not obtain it, nevertheless he is able of not demanding it to it to a degree from injustice to the others, and is able to include/understand that the other can be mistaken and Fidel has a phrase of breath for him. And that is its teaching, because in Cuba the one that it does not do that, that the Cubans in million have seen make Fidel, is a "heavy one", a tramp, the Cubans do not accept it, because that is quality already today, straight, we say, that the town in the conduct of the others protests.

Finally, I wrote number 15, "the total absence of hatred towards any person". The Che had said that a revolution is a deep work of love. Single Fidel has hatred for the injustice, deep hatred towards the injustice, the operation, towards the racial discrimination, but not towards the people, even if they have been or they are his enemies. The Cuban Revolution taken by feelings has never acted of hatred, like is not hatred to the injustice, but towards that they have not caused, we say, or are responsible for the injustice. The Cuban Revolution, for that reason, is not based on hatreds, not even for the traitors. It is necessary to see Fidel responding to him to Ramonet - that I also see it there in the public -, when Ramonet asks to him for treasonous. It does not distill hatred, is no a word of hatred in more than 700 pages of answers of Fidel to Ramonet. And thus it is in the book of Gianni Miná and thus it is in the one of Tomás Borge. It asks to him for treasonous, it asks to him for men who attempted against their life, and Fidel as soon as it says a phrase. It is not in that where it is concentrated, it does not make the great description of which it deserved the punishment.
For that reason many still live on the terrorists who made suffer and today are responsible for the suffering of thousands of Cuban families. Because the Revolution has been very strong; and it could go, guided by hatred, to persecute men who committed very serious murders and acts of terrorism against our country, and the Revolution has not done it, did not do it. That is an inheritance of the thought of Fidel, the idea that it is not necessary to try to execute to the instruments, because in the end others can arise, but that there are to defeat to the imperialism, that is the one that created them and it supported them. And, for that reason, assassins, torturadores that escaped of Cuba in the dawn of First of January, the Revolution did not persecute them, and it did not even execute them when they returned like invaders to our mother country. Some are alive and they can attest it. There is total absence of hatred in Fidel.
It is asked to him Fidel for the presidents of the United States, is asked to him for Kennedy, their brother Robert. Kennedy was the President of the time of the Mangosta Operation, of the plans - he was not the unique one, because that lasted decades, has not finished until today -; you do not see hatred in Fidel.
Memory the day in which the sister of John and of Robert, Eunice, asked Fidel who gave a testimony, because 30 years of the Crisis of October were marked. Fidel had much work, he did not want, and she said to him: "I come it to request in name of our family, President, who, knowing the way in that our brothers adversaron it to you, and not being in agreement with some things of which they did, we respected in you its total absence of hatred, and the fact that you never have had towards our brothers, who gave reasons him for it, hatred feelings". Fidel ended up acceding and gave an interview that is one of the most complete testimonies on the Crisis of October and their antecedents.
Fidel has seeded those qualities in us, that is not single patrimony of the conduct of Fidel. The Cuban revolutionaries do not act taken by hatred. They were more than 350 000 Cubans to fight in the south of Africa - he was spoken here of that -, to face the powerful troops of the apartheid, who even had several nuclear weapons, and they did, as she loved it the Che, guided by a deep feeling of love. Two thousand Cubans fell there. Our combatants faced a powerful army there. Fifteen years that war lasted that sealed with the territorial integrity of preserved Angola and the independence of Namibia. It would not exist Angola today and it had much more delayed the defeat of the apartheid, if the Cuban troops had not faced there the racist army, in the south of Africa, to thousands of kilometers of our mother country, that still has more merit when that was made in a while in which already the Soviet Union collapsed, disintegrated the socialist field, single.
Piero Gleijeses spoke here and wrote a revealing book on those subjects, and when that war finished and returned our combatants, and it was fulfilled what there was this Amílcar Cabral: that the Cubans would return of Africa having taken single the bones of their deads, because we are not owners of mines there, neither of oil wells, nor of earth, nor of forests, because we were not there looking for diamonds, petroleum, we were fighting by an idea of justice, quality and inheritance from Fidel to our town, can be said that there was nor no a single moment of hatred, nor our troops acted, but with a great altruism. Thus he had been in the Masterful Mountain range, where first a was cured the wounded of the enemy army. Thus he was in Girón, thus he was always, and thus he was in Angola.
That total absence of hatred, as it is not hatred to the injustice, imperialism, the exclusion, like phenomena, is a quality also of Fidel. For that reason, that total absence of resentment. You ask to him and he does not say a hatred phrase to which he betrayed, to that attacked. I believe that that is another legacy of Fidel.
I have not wanted - or I said it that this is seen like a test, nor an academic or rigorous piece. If it has a virtue, is its total honesty.
I would not say these words here if not outside to believe, as any other Cuban would do it, deeply in them, because Fidel also has taught to the total rejection to everything what is vanities, adulonerías to us. There is nothing bothers more to Fidel than adulón. And if these words have another quality, it is a deep affection that are, would say, the feeling greater than our town feels by Fidel, in whom it sees the father, older brother, own family, beyond his responsibilities and of their merits.
The enemies of the Cuban Revolution, that is to say the enemies of justice, the truth, of the dignity, the enemies count the minutes waiting for and wishing the death of Fidel, without including/understanding that Fidel no longer is single Fidel, that Fidel is his town and that Fidel is, after all, all man and woman who in the world is arranged to fight and fights because a better world is possible.
The enemies dream and they are mistaken with the idea that the absence of Fidel can mean the absence of its ideas, and that the convictions and the principles that Fidel has seeded at massive level in his town and the world can disappear; Fidel, who aspires to that of single him they are left the ideas and that, convalescing, recovering and returning to the combat he will offer to those enemies seated in hatred and the mediocrity a new defeat.
Thanks to all to come (prolonged Applause and exclamaciones from: "the Alive Cuba, lives the Revolution").
Thanks to have allowed to celebrate this way the birthday to us of Fidel. To Cuban the single ones, Fidel us had not allowed it.
Thanks to the Guayasamín Foundation, Little Paul, the rest of its relatives, Small piece Side.
Thanks to the Foundation that, since it had done it before, managed to impose to Fidel the celebration to him of its birthday and to convince it that their birthday was not single their birthday, but an opportunity to give again, in the land of the ideas, a battle in favor of justice and solidarity.
If you they were not here, our celebration would have had to be intimate and modest, and Fidel would not have allowed it; but to have of chivalry, of affection and gratefulness with which they come, he has prevented him to him to be against to this celebration born of - we know to well purer affection and solidarity to it with our town and Fidel.
We thank to them to you and we promise to them that we will continue fighting by the ideas and the dreams to which Fidel has dedicated his life. That we will again do it with him to the front of our town; but that when it and the men of their generation are not, we have the conviction that our town will have made for always already hers those ideas and those principles.
That is our greater gift to Fidel: to defend and to fight every day of our existence by those ideas.
Thank you very much.
(Ovación.)