Vol. 72/No. 10      March 10, 2008

BY FIDEL CASTRO  
But above all, we have our dignity and our independence, our bravery and our heroism, even in the difficult times in which we live—and we will have them even if times become yet more difficult… .

What are they going to tell us about? About that society of racial discrimination? Where in some provincial capitals whites walked on one side and Blacks on the other, on different streets, or on different paths in the park. I don’t remember whether it was in Santa Clara or Villa Clara where these things went on; I can imagine the exclusive spots here. It took different forms.

What are they going to tell us about? About discrimination? About prostitution and all the vices of that society? About barefoot children begging and not attending school? About illiteracy? About women working as domestic servants and in open or de facto prostitution? [Shouts of “No!”] They better not come to us with stories about their capitalism, their market economies, and all that madness, because we already know about that, and I think we remember it quite well… .

Before the revolution women made up only 10 percent of the work force and now they are 40 percent. And not only that. But those women facing discrimination, without any future other than the one I mentioned, that of domestic work, of open or de facto prostitution—because sometimes they chose her for a particular job to serve as a lure or an attraction for shoppers—those women now constitute about 60 percent of the technical work force of Matanzas. [Applause] Thus, the bulk of the trained minds in this province are women.

How far we slaves have come! [Applause]

Who wants to return to the days of the slave barracks? [Shouts of “No one!”] And how will they force us to return there? With the threat of hunger perhaps, with a tighter blockade, with imperialist triumphalism following the disasters that have occurred in Eastern Europe? [Shouts of “No!”] What can they threaten us with, we the descendants of Maceo and Martí, of Máximo Gómez and Agramonte, of Che and Camilo, of Abel Santamaría and Frank País? [Prolonged applause] With the threat of famine, blockades, wars? [Shouts of “No!”] We can never experience a tighter blockade and more suffering than what our ancestors suffered, because today we are owners of the land; now it belongs only to the people. Today we are owners of the factories; now they belong only to the people. The people own the means of production and everything else. And we will solve our problems, we will solve them however we must. But we will never return to the slave barracks! [Shouts and applause]

They may threaten us with their sophisticated weapons. Perhaps they don’t believe they are dealing with a courageous and intelligent people that knows how to fight. And if we fought fourteen thousand kilometers away—however far it was—if we got into the trap at Cuito Cuanavale that the enemies had created and that turned into a trap for them, then here, on our coasts, in our countryside, in our mountains, in our cities, in our canefields, in our ricefields, in our swamps, we will fight as we fought at Cuito Cuanavale. [Applause] We will fight even harder than we fought at Cuito Cuanavale, and we will resist for more years than we resisted in Angola, until victory. [Prolonged applause]  
 
 
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