We will continue to fight for the balance of the world, as a contribution to the preservation of the human species
Speech delivered by Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, at the closing ceremony of the 6th International Conference for the Balance of the World, at the Convention Palace, on January 31, 2025, "Year 67 of the Revolution"
Author: Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez | internet@granma.cu
february 2, 2025 09:02:51
(Shorthand Versions - Presidency of the Republic)
Dear friends, Martí's followers who fight for the balance of the world with the weapons of ideas, the only ones capable of saving and emancipating human beings:
I want to begin by thanking you for your participation, enthusiastic and contributing, in this event that summons a man of 172 years who, however, is not an old man: José Martí is an eternal man, something that does not need to be explained in Cuba, because we feel it everywhere.
And it needs less explanation before an audience like this one, because it is precisely that eternity that makes José Martí a contemporary of ours, but also of the children who are about to be born, that is what you have talked about most during these Martí's days in Havana.
I always like to begin by thanking the visitors for daring to make their solidarity with Cuba effective in person, because not only do they do it by assuming the costs of airfare and stay, but they also face threats and punishments, especially designed to condemn us to loneliness, since no other weapon has worked in the attempt to surrender the rebellious and worthy people of Fidel and Raúl Castro, leaders of the generation that did not let Marti die in the year of his centenary.
The massive attendance at this conference, with more than a thousand people from 98 countries, including more than 400 Cuban delegates, is also a tremendous encouragement to the Cuban people, because it is a recognition of their heroic resistance in the context of a world in threatening imbalance for the human species, where even dignity is being negotiated.
Cuba, which for 66 years has been paying the very high price of being priceless, knows this very well. Because, as the eternal man who summons us and brings us together said, «poverty passes: what does not pass is the dishonor that, under the pretext of poverty, men tend to cast upon themselves.»
José Martí was perfectly defined by the Cuban poet José Lezama Lima as "the mystery that accompanies us", an expression that could be interpreted as the depths of knowledge and love that, so immense, are never fully revealed.
And it is very true: José Martí accompanies us Cubans incessantly. His presence goes from a simple bust dedicated to him in a school, a workshop, a factory or a hospital, to the dazzle that still assaults us while we read his verses or his definitions that seem written for the 21st century. And that discovery takes place while we go through total admiration for the coherence of his thought and his way of acting.
But Martí accompanies not only Cubans, but all citizens of the world who firmly believe in the possibility of improving and balancing this world, and who do so against the current of barbarism today visible in the apogee of greed and in the infinite pain caused by the greedy for their absolute disregard for human suffering.
I speak first of all of the Palestinian holocaust at the hands of the Israeli government and those who feed that desire to kill, but also of the brutal persecution and humiliating deportation, handcuffed and chained, of thousands of migrants who have broken their backs under the whip of the economic imbalance that forced them to emigrate. From here, we demand that Palestine be free! (Applause.)
And I speak, of course, of Cuba, hundreds of times a victim of terrorism, whose noble name has been included and re-included in an infamous list of alleged sponsors of terrorism, so that the obedient international banks close their doors to any commercial or financial management that contributes to the basic needs of the Cuban people.
I am talking about Cuba, from which the United States stole a piece of land in the name of a friendship it never honored by using that territory, illegally occupied for more than a century, as a military base and prison where people the empire declares enemies and guilty, most of the time without a single evidence of their crime, are tortured and locked up in a legal limbo.
As if this infamy, which has been condemned hundreds of times by international tribunals, were not enough, now we are told that 30,000 deportees will be sent to the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo. Once again the illegality, the disregard of international treaties, and the unacceptable idea that there are countries and people superior to the rest of humanity.
In spite of all the sorrows, as we say here, and the presidential orders of the masters of the world, we will not remain silent in the face of infamy, nor will we lose confidence and faith in human betterment, future life and the usefulness of virtue (Applause).
José Martí also accompanies us in optimism, because in him we have the hopeful being for whom Pope Francis cries out, and we have the fighter who came to express that "Human honor is imperishable and irreducible, and nothing disintegrates it or threatens it, and when on one side it manages to oppress and fade it, it leaps out inflamed and powerful on the other."
Because of statements like that, he becomes a reference point and an essential person to undertake the daily battle for justice in a planet on the verge of agony under the rule of greed. We do not surrender! We learned with Martí that from pain and the need to put an end to it, the strength and will to face and overcome the greatest challenges are born.
The great poetess and devoted Martí's follower, Fina García Marruz, tirelessly studying the work of the Apostle, pointed to some keys to understand the routes of the radicalization of his political thought.
Fina, the companion of Cintio Vitier, also a teacher and a fervent Martí's follower, said the following about Martí: «The revolutionary organizer was born in the Presidio. There he understood that it was unfeasible to build, with hatred, a triumphant revolution. He thought that our battle obeyed justice, not revenge. With his fiery speeches, he turned the worst of enemies into friends. He lit the flame of love.»
And Martí is the same human being who -perhaps because of his poetic essence, his extreme sensitivity and his capacity for analysis that allowed him to see where others remained blind- became radicalized to such an extent that in an unfinished letter to his beloved brother, Manuel Mercado, he wrote a paragraph that is central to Cuba's destiny, which almost all Cubans know by heart.
Martí says: «I am already every day in danger of giving my life for my country and for my duty -since I understand it and I have the courage to do it- to prevent in time, with the independence of Cuba, the United States from spreading through the Antilles and falling, with that force more, on our lands of America. What I have done until today, and will do, is for that purpose.»
It would seem that he said it all and for all times, as if he had no epochal barriers. Martí is read and his ideas continue to be inexhaustibly useful, even though he has not witnessed the discoveries that humanity has lived after he fell heroically in combat.
Few like him could foresee, at the very hour of his birth, this danger that now overflows before our eyes, of a modern empire that disrespects rights in the name of a divine mandate, ready to sweep away the very balances of civilization.
He seems to have expressed himself at this time when he predicted that «when empires reach the peak of their prosperity, they are on the verge of the precipice that devours them.»
He defined like no one else the «greedy neighbor, who confessedly desires us» and asked to be alert «in the face of the possible greed of a strong and unequal neighbor»; and in the case of Cuba, he spoke about «the independence of the happy archipelago that nature placed in the knot of the world.»
Knowing that, for reasons of origin, while those of the North bought, those of the South wept, he emphasized the need to understand that essential difference, so that only a bridge of mutual respect between two cultural universes would be viable.
He never promoted animosity against the good and talented sons and daughters of the Northern landmass, but his reflection on the risks of accepting that the nations recently liberated from the decadent Spanish empire would be subordinated in an unequal relationship with the new empire in gestation.
It can be verified in his essential essay «Our America", where he states: "We can no longer be the people of leaves, living in the air, with the top loaded with flowers, resounding or buzzing, according to the whim of the light, or the tempests that shatter and cut it down; the trees must line up, so that the giant of the seven leagues does not pass! It is the hour of the recount and of the united march, and we have to walk in a tight square, like the silver at the roots of the Andes.»
That Marti's warning serves today for the whole world and not only for our America, as we all face, in some way, the desires of the Rome of the 21st century that has shown itself capable of passing, arrogantly, over human diversity.
Surely there are many of us, even in this Marti's audience, who have wondered why Martí's emphasis on the centrality of Cuba and by extension of the Antilles in the balance of the world.
Dr. Armando Hart Dávalos, father of these events For the Balance of the World, answered the question in more than one text or conference. I quote one of his articles:
"The question we must ask ourselves is why Martí wanted a free Cuba, a free Antilles and a free America." He expressed it in such a clear way that there should be no room for doubt or confusion. In his article on the occasion of the commemoration of the second anniversary of the Cuban Revolutionary Party, published in 1894, he stated:
«In the faithful of America are the Antilles, which would be, if slaves, mere pontoon of the war of an imperial republic against the jealous and superior world that is already preparing to deny it power, - mere fortress of the American Rome; -and if free - and worthy of being so by the order of equitable and laboring liberty - they would be on the continent the guarantee of equilibrium, that of independence for the still threatened Spanish America and that of honor for the great republic of the North, that in the development of its territory - unfortunately already feudal and divided into hostile sections - will find more certain greatness than in the ignoble conquest of its smaller neighbors, and in the inhuman fight that with their possession it would open against the powers of the world for the predominance of the world.»
Another indispensable Martí's follower when it comes to understanding the fulfilled predictions of the Apostle is Dr. Pedro Pablo Rodriguez, who is here, patient and diligent director of the Critical Edition of the Master's Complete Works. His comprehensive essay «José Martí and his concept of the balance of the world» is essential to get to the bottom of Martí's anguish about the balance of the world. And here it will be longer what I read about the author Pedro Pablo, because the following fragment seems fundamental to me:
«A thinker of aphoristic and polysemic style, from the beginning of his stay in New York (Martí) systematically warned about the expansionist danger represented by the nascent monopolies in the United States, which increasingly controlled the governmental leadership and were dedicated to the exercise of politics through the corruption of democracy, and imposed a foreign policy that controlled the Latin American markets, suppliers of raw materials and food, and consumers of the northern industry. For those plutocratic interests, which Martí also considered harmful to the popular majorities of the United States, there were, in his opinion, no mercantile or geographical borders to prevent, with the territorial, the consolidation of economic domination over Latin America.
«Proof that these were neither suppositions nor poet's daydreams, but a brilliant analysis of the realities of his time and a lucid look at the immediate future is that between 1898 and 1930 the United States intervened militarily, and even governed directly in some cases, in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Panama, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Mexico and Nicaragua.»
Later on, Pedro Pablo explains something that is very present today, in our days, and says Pedro Pablo: «Obviously the foreseeable proximity of the opening of the Panama Canal made Martí agree with many observers of that time in the perception that with that route the importance of the Antillean and Central American zone would increase for the geopolitics of the hegemonic States at that time. So convinced was he of the importance of a balance between the great powers that in the Manifesto he wrote in the Dominican city of Montecristi to explain why the last Cuban War of Independence had begun in February 1895, he states: 'The war of independence of Cuba, knot of the bundle of islands where the commerce of the continents has to be crossed, in the term of few years, is event of great human scope, and opportune service that the judicious heroism of the Antilles lends to the firmness and fair treatment of the American nations, and to the still vacillating balance of the world'.»
So much for the indispensable fragment of our dear Pedro Pablo's essay. Surely you will find in several moments of what he read, how much he foresaw, and with how much reason José Martí, of the grave dangers that lie ahead of us today, when we are not yet even the united America that can face them.
Let us say it with absolute clarity. The conduct and aggressive pretensions of the United States, as manifested by the recently installed government, threaten the very population of that country, especially the most humble and dispossessed segments. They also threaten international peace, including that of our region of Latin America and the Caribbean. This reality cannot be ignored.
In the political scenario of that country, the political, economic and social forces that have gained most influence embrace xenophobic, racist, discriminatory and supremacist ideas that humanity struggled to overcome after the end of World War II and the defeat of Nazi-fascism 80 years ago.
It is a worrying phenomenon that can be observed in several countries in various regions. Reactionary political parties and political figures have been gaining ground. It even manifests itself with the frequent and dangerous support of poor, humble and working class sectors, who identify with politicians and programs that are exponents of these currents. It is a phenomenon often reflecting despair, impotence and pessimism in the face of growing injustice.
These currents are the fruit of capitalism, of its selfish, predatory and exclusionary nature. They have gained strength as a consequence of the expansion of neoliberal policies over the last 40 years and their resounding failure to respond to the interests and needs of the majority, to guarantee better standards of living and to promote social justice.
These are policies whose most palpable result is the growth of inequalities, social polarization, exclusion, distrust of others and cultural, ethnic and religious frictions. The results are also disorderly emigration, the growth of illegality, drug trafficking and corruption.
To a large extent they have contributed to the erosion of sovereign power in several countries, the loss of true self-determination and the coming to power of governments clearly subordinated to the will of imperialism and the large transnationals and corporations that feed it.
Unfortunately, even when progressive or leftist forces have governed, they have, on certain occasions, lacked the time, strength, will or sufficient independence to confront the neoliberal economic programs that are at the root of many of the political and social problems suffered by developing countries today.
The international order born of the end of World War II, which to a large extent is the one that prevails today, is the heir of colonialism, of the history of exploitation, plunder and slavery that enriched a specific set of colonial powers and their societies, at the cost of the suffering, uprooting, destruction, submission and underdevelopment of the former colonized territories.
Imperialism as a system of domination is not a new phenomenon. However, the era of neoliberal globalization has taken on more sophisticated and less visible forms. It is no longer only a matter of direct territorial occupation, although this is still a current practice, as the heroic Palestinian brothers and sisters are suffering in their own flesh. It also manifests itself in the control of markets, natural resources, supply chains and, above all, technology and information.
The oligarchies that dominate the world today not only accumulate wealth, but also concentrate political, cultural and social power, perpetuating a profit that favors the few at the expense of the many. Large industrial corporations, financial conglomerates and technological giants have woven a web of influence that transcends borders. Their decisions affect the lives of millions of people, from access to medicines to the privacy of our data. These elites seek not only to maximize their profit, but also to consolidate their hegemony, imposing standards and norms that perpetuate the dependence of what is increasingly recognized as the Global South.
Although colonialism was almost completely abolished in the second half of the twentieth century, its conditions and remnants have prevailed in new forms.
This is the essence of the current international order and explains the unacceptable reality that the gap between developed and underdeveloped countries tends to widen, far from narrowing, with no prospect of changing this trend.
There is an abundance of documents, declarations, speeches and resolutions of the United Nations and its agencies describing this scenario. Proposals on how to respond and what to do have a history dating back at least to the 1960s. It is well known that the possibility of change and the prospect of a more just and sustainable international order have met with stiff resistance from the major economic and military powers, largely representative of the former colonial powers.
The developing nations, and especially their peoples, have the right to dream that a better world is possible, and they have the right and the duty to fight for it! (Applause.)
This will not be possible unless significant progress is made in favor of an international order different from the present one. It must be a truly democratic order, in which all nations have the opportunity to contribute and be truly represented on an equal footing. It must be a sustainable order that promotes peace, security for all, social justice, equitable prosperity, respect for cultural, ethnic and religious plurality; that promotes democratic access to science and technology, and human rights for all, not just for privileged elites; that is based on solidarity, cooperation and respect for the right of each country to choose its political, economic and social system without foreign interference.
In this new order, what is fundamental is its content and the commitment we are capable of mobilizing to achieve it.
The challenges to achieve it or even come close to it are immense. How to do so is a difficult question to answer. But there is no doubt that it requires unity, strategy and a clear vision of what we want to achieve. And, as Fidel said: Sow ideas, sow ideas, sow ideas, sow ideas; and sow conscience! (Applause.)
After reviewing José Martí and evaluating the present moment, all doubts are cleared. He is the one who warns us and he is also the antidote against all imbalances, because he helps us to understand the only possible language, the common one: the human one.
His spirit leads us to the defense of our ancestral roots, of our identities that the new colonizers dream of dismantling, of our dignity, of our creative possibility, of the unity so necessary, of our self-esteem for being the natural women and men that we are, of courage, of stoicism, of sensitivity, of that powerful force about which Martí said: "Through love we can see. With love one sees. Love is the one who sees" (Applause).
From this tribune that we erect to his memory, I would like to share with you the fervent wish that Martí continues to summon us, that his optimism, raised like a sword, even in the most adverse scenarios, be a horizon and a teacher and that, protected by him, we never abandon the certainty that, as he firmly said: "Honor can be sullied. Justice can be sold. Everything can be torn apart. But the notion of good floats above all, and is never shipwrecked" (Applause).
Let us have as a legitimate yearning to become, with daily effort and the best dreams, true disciples of José Martí, just as Fidel did and with him the Martí Centennial Generation, as did so many worthy men and women who brought the Apostle to our time.
Through these paths I am sure that we will find, day by day, meaning to his tremendous affirmation that «Happiness exists on earth; and it is conquered with the prudent exercise of reason, the knowledge of the harmony of the universe, and the constant practice of generosity.»
From free and sovereign Cuba, which resists and creates without tiring, carrying on its chest «the doctrines of the Master», as Fidel did before those who judged him in 1953, we ratify to the Martí's followers from everywhere who have accompanied us in these days, that we will continue fighting for the balance of the world, as a contribution to the preservation of the human species!
Long live Martí! (Exclamations of: «Long live!»)
Long live his ideas! (Exclamations of: «Long live!»)
Ever onward to victory! (Exclamations of: «We shall overcome!»)
(Prolonged applause.)
