He would have exploded with indignation before the attacks by the oligarchy and military against Evo Morales and Bolivia’s process of change; he would be following the popular mobilizations challenging neoliberal dictates in Chile that traveled from north to south in Salvador Allende’s time; and would share the determination of the vast majority of Venezuelans, who with the leadership of Nicolás Maduro and the inspiration of his dear friend Hugo Chávez, do not yield to the desires of imperialism and their lackeys.

Across the length and breadth of our archipelago, he and his ministers would travel through provinces and communities, talk with people on the street, learn the population’s demands and needs first-hand, discuss every proposal until the most fair and precise was found, and keep attention focused on problems, be they serious and large, or small and incidental.

And he would of course be leading his people’s resistance to the brutal escalation of the empire’s efforts to asphyxiate us. Army General Raúl Castro reaffirmed this in Santiago de Cuba, during the commemoration of the Revolution’s 60th anniversary:“Sixty years after the victory, we can state that we are cured of fear, we are not intimidated by the language of force or threats. We were not intimidated when the revolutionary process was not yet consolidated, and will not be, even remotely, now that the unity of the people is an indestructible reality, because if yesterday we were few, today we are an entire people defending our Revolution.

”Fidel survives. No doubt about it. He survives in the continuity of the process, in its constant, unstoppable renewal, in new initiatives that are launched, in our unwavering solidarity with the most noble causes, in the tireless work to make socialism a real possibility.If we want to be faithful to Fidel, we must assume his absolute commitment to human improvement and social justice.

See ourselves in the boy who reacted early against inequality, growing up in Birán; in the young rebel who, during his trial following the Moncada assault, based his self-defense on irrefutable arguments about the terrible consequences of exploitation and the lack of opportunities for the dispossessed; and in the victorious leader who, immediately after defeating the dictatorship, implemented the Agrarian Reform and organized the massive presence of campesinos in the capital; in the Comandante who, on the eve of Playa Girón, called for the defense of “this Revolution of the humble, by the humble, and for the humble.”We need to keep Fidel in our minds and hearts, because as the poet said in a lucid metaphor, he embodies the fight “against the dark night, like a stroke of love.”