IN any emotional or intellectual assessment (together or separately) that we make of Latin America and the Caribbean, we will find Cuba as an inevitable reference and representing an unpayable debt. Many political, intellectual or artistic figures, in their life and work, have an original reference point in Cuba. Those of us who grew up with the Revolution, who knew of it through victories and setbacks, have the special benefit of its ethics, of the resistance expressed in all its battles. Cuba taught us the importance of being and acting as a revolutionary, no matter what. No matter, even, the differences or the similarities. Cuba was and Cuba is there, always steadfast.

The “Latin American left” is unimaginable without the influence, unequal and combined, that Cuba implies on attempting to understand the continental present and the tasks of the immediate future. The “Great Homeland” is inconceivable without the revolutionary brilliance of Cuba at the decisive hours for continental unity and in the crucial hours of “individual” struggles.

It is not only the figure of Fidel (who alone constitutes a monumental legacy of theory and practice), it is not only the role of Raúl, as strategist and supporter of a thousand tasks; it is not only Camilo and Che with their straightforward didactic action… it is also the “Casa de las Américas,” the Agrarian and the Urban Revolutions. It is the Revolution of Health and Education, the Revolution of Science, the Revolution of Philosophy, the Revolution of Poetry and Song. The resistance and the intelligence to live life with dignity. And none of this without debates, doubts or reconsiderations.

Thus, we learned that love for Cuba (among other “requirements”) includes hatred of the blockade; that we cannot speak of Cuba without a precise evaluation of what it has lost through the “embargo” (what has been snatched away from it in the objective and subjective senses). One can’t, one shouldn’t, speak of Cuba without a correct estimate of the moral value that, house-to-house, facing all adversities and defending in an organized manner the revolutionary praxis against any economic, political, or media offensive represents; which have not ceased, not even for a second, since the triumph of the Revolution with its “bearded men.”

In addition, under harassment of all kinds, Cuba developed its democratic project, determined to set its own parameters and to stake its political life by differentiating itself from all hegemonic formats and the certain stubborn incapacity of some to understand other forms of democratic life, in concrete historic conditions, without the predominant formulas. The shrapnel of some “friendly fire” has also rained over this. In any case, it is an open debate… as it should be.Principio del formulario

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When talking about the Cuban economy, all sorts of valuations, speculations and errors converge. Together or separately. Some with certain doctoral superiority, feel authorized to deploy their remote-controlled recipes to become the self-proclaimed Messiahs of perfect solutions. On the other side of the irrationality, there abound those who dream of a “wide open” Cuba, surrendering its sovereignty and socialist principles. There is no shortage of “middle ground,” appeasing or conciliatory terms, that suppose the possibility of a little capitalism and a little socialism to offer a moderate cocktail spiked with illusions and trickery.

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But it is the power and prerogative of the Cuban people to explore and try all sorts of solutions that, in the concrete conditions and without becoming accustomed to them, guarantee the indispensable requirements for a good and dignified life, without renouncing principles and without abandoning the struggle for socialism. “With the Revolution, everything. Against the Revolution, nothing.” And with the empire just a few kilometers away.

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So one can not, and should not, remain indifferent, or just expectant, before the Cuban electoral process, with all that it implies and all that it involves. It is, although some don’t know it and others don’t want it to be, also a process of continental and historic transcendence, which demands clear attention and solidarity of the peoples from every corner of the globe, and even the exemplary hearts of the revolutionary people of Cuba.

A grassroots political agreement is required to explain, step by step, what is happening (and will happen) in Cuba, and organized communicational action is essential to let Cubans know how we feel and experience their crucial decisions, with the magnitude and the validity of the Cuban Revolution. A beloved Revolution, which is also ours.

The only valid expression for Cuba is the internationalist and energetic participation of the workers, of its people. Their unabated, direct intervention in the problems that arise, and the strengthening of the forces and instruments to organize themselves, always based on advanced training methods. Giving the assemblies, workers’ and district councils renewed vigor, without privileges or bureaucracy.

The deepening of a living, direct democracy, exercised as an expression that sculpts history and the Party, so as not to be reduced to the mere choice of people and circumstances. That the people govern themselves, massively and transparently, in periodic elections and with a dynamic program capable of being permanently perfected, based on their methods. Democracy against the blockade and the errors, the dialectical democracy of a cultural and educational Revolution, converted into suffrage and vice versa; a participatory and protagonic democracy of permanent scrutiny at all levels. Serious and organized consultation in all areas of the political economy and the systematic practice of collective will.

Cuba is a permanent insurrection of dignity transformed into a serene, advisory didactic of ideas and invigorating action. It is a bridge extended between the Revolution of a people who have decided to be free, and the struggles that view themselves in its mirror image to advance their rebellions.

Cuba is bigger than the blockade, than all blockades, because it built itself on its own historic foundations in order to perpetuate its stubborn renovation of the future. Because, despite what has been said, despite it all, despite the attacks and the abuses, there is Cuba with its Socialist flag dancing and saluting in the wind, in the face of history and hand in hand with the peoples who, with the poor of the Earth, have decided to try their luck. Iron will, sister Cuba, moral bastion ready for the fight. •

* Mexican writer and philosopher.