With the passing of the great revolutionary leader Fidel Castro on November 25, 2016 it is first and foremost to the Cuban people that we express our condolences and our solidarity.

Fidel was a product of a profound and rich Cuban and Latin American history, but it must be said that the example and legacy of Fidel belongs in truth to the world. And in particular to the oppressed and exploited overwhelming majority of humanity, in every corner of our Earth.

When we look at Fidel’s glorious example, his political ideas and strategic wisdom, his moral authority and ethics, his military skill and tactical savvy, and his outstanding practical accomplishments before and since the 1959 triumph of the Cuban Revolution, this all now passes to the working people of the world of every nationality. It passes to every woman and man who fights for a better world. It passes to the new generations fighting for nothing less than the revolutionary transformation of social relations and the sweeping away of the grotesque inequality, imperialist arrogance, and unsustainable oppression and brutality that mark the crisis-ridden capitalist world order of today.

The living example of the Cuban Revolution and its beautiful advances and conquests in the fight against racism, for the emancipation of women, in medical access and care, in educational and culture, and in the flowering of human dignity, is a tribute to our brother Fidel. It is also a great tribute to Fidel’s leadership qualities that he was able, under the most difficult and challenging circumstances, to unite and forge outstanding teams of leaders in Cuba over many decades. As a head of state and a revolutionary, Fidel navigated the treacherous waters of world politics with great skill. All of these historic, monumental accomplishments took place under the unrelenting pressure from successive United States Administrations dedicated to the destruction and eradication of the Cuban Revolution and its example by any means possible.

Fidel was a revolutionary Marxist who fought his entire life with indefatigable energy and drive for socialism. Fidel embodied the genuine spirit of proletarian internationalism. With great political and military skill, and moral authority, Fidel and the Cuban revolutionary government led the historic fight in the 1970s and 1980s that led to the defeat and unraveling of apartheid South Africa, safeguarding the independence of Angola and winning the independence of Namibia. Under Fidel’s leadership Cuba has built an amazing example of medical internationalism and disaster help and relief that has inspired the world.

We salute our brother Fidel. We pledge to preserve for all time the imperishable example of his ideas and his revolutionary legacy.

Viva Fidel!

Ike Nahem
Cuba Solidarity New York
November 25, 2016