© indianexpress.comFidel Castro
"There are men who struggle for a day and they are good. There are men who struggle for a year and they are better. There are men who struggle many years, and they are better still.
But there are those who struggle all their lives: These are the indispensable ones." — Bertolt Brecht
"Fidel! Fidel! Que tiene Fidel que los americanos no pueden con él!" (Fidel! Fidel! What is it that he has that the U.S. imperialists can't defeat him!) — Cuban Revolutionary chant
On August 13 Fidel Castro Ruz, the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, turns 90. Progressive, anti-war and social justice forces across the world will join in the celebration of the life of one of the world's most influential and significant leaders. It is especially worthwhile and necessary to mark and valorize the life and times of a man whose heart, without missing a beat,
has withstood more than 600 assassination attempts by U.S imperialism.© UPI Cuban leader Fidel Castro (L) is pictured with revolutionary icon Ernesto "Che" Guevara in a August 2, 1961, in Havana.
Fidel's life and legacy loom large in world history and development.
Fidel is part and parcel of the wave of the anti-colonial, national liberation and social emancipation struggles that swept Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean in the second half of the 20th century. Fidel is integral to the Cuban-born and international revolutionary and anti-imperialist tradition, theory and practice, stretching through the Taino cacique, Hatuey, Toussaint L'Overture, Simon Bolivar, José Martí, Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong and Ho Chi Minh, among others.
Fidel does not transcend Cuba and history, as some have opined, but, instead, is ineluctably and organically bound to the deepest aspirations of the Cuban people and the demands of the times. Fidel belongs to the world. He does not stand above or outside life. Flesh and blood, brain and bone, he exemplifies the finest traditions of humanity.
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