“We do not struggle for our own glory or for honors; we fight for ideas we consider fair and to which millions of Cubans have dedicated their youth and their lives,” said Fidel Castro in his address to the Eight Legislature of the National Assembly of People’s Power, which was set up on Sunday.
Fidel said he deeply appreciated the noble gesture by the people to have elected him a Parliament deputy. He said he never thought he would live that long and that his enemies would be that clumsy in their hateful practice of eliminating their adversaries, who are determined to fight.
“In such an unequal battle, our people proved their astonishing capacity to resist and overcome,” he pointed out, and stressed that some eight hundred thousand Cubans have met internationalist missions.
The Cuban Revolution leader recalled important moments of recent Cuban history, like the 1962 missile crisis, where the island was about to turn into a nuclear battlefield; the 1961 Bay of Pigs mercenary invasion backed by Washington; the participation of Cuban internationalist troops in the victory of Cuito Cuanavale, which led to the end of the former Apartheid System.
Fidel Castro said that after the 1959 Revolution triumph, the domestic battle targeted political ignorance and anti-socialist ideas instilled by the bourgeoisie and US imperialism. The fight of social classes unleashed just few miles from the United States was the most efficient political school for the country.
However, he said, the big battle now focuses the need to deal with bad habits and mistakes that are being committed by many citizens, including Communist Party members in different social areas.
Fidel said that humanity is now experiencing a unique stage, which is quite different from centuries ago. The world population increased to 7 billion people, an alarming figure expressing a demand for vital foodstuffs that science, technology and the natural resources of the planet are quite far from meeting.
Fidel also referred to current natural threats on humanity, such as the consequences of climate change.
He concluded his statements by paying tribute Cuban National Hero Jose Marti on the 160th anniversary of his birthday and on the 118th anniversary of the start of Cuban independence war against Spanish colonial rule. He said Marti was the revolutionary, anti-imperialist and Bolivarian man that instilled in the Cuban youths the first ideas about their duty.
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