Dear compatriots:
May Day, International Labour Day, is coming, in honour of those who produce and sustain life.
More than 30 years ago, after the fall of socialism in Europe, the massive celebrations of this day were limited to a few countries, Cuba among them.
With legitimate pride, today we can say that, in the midst of the harshest shortages, we have never ceased to raise the flags of Socialism.
In the years that followed, delegations from all over the world came and came to celebrate the day in this small and exceptional nation where the workers rule.
They want to witness and share the strength of our difficult and yet joyful resistance.
They do not want to miss the impressive example of this people, able to celebrate the rights won, even under the worst economic conditions, and at the same time criticising and demanding that, together with the blockade, we are able to defeat our own inadequacies and mistakes.
That is what the working class has been empowered to do since the triumph of 1959 and that power was strengthened when Cuba declared itself the first socialist state in the western hemisphere.
These days are no better than those days when utopia was an invisible horizon under the weight of the defeat of socialism in other latitudes.
Just as then we paraded celebrating the sustained power of workers and peasants, creators and artists, today we are here, ready to march to continue celebrating.
Over our economy have blown and are blowing today with more force than ever, the hurricane winds of imperial power, determined to erase from the universal political map this example of daring creative resistance.
Let us demonstrate once again that we are not alive and standing because the greatest enemy of the Cuban people wanted us to be. We are alive, standing, resisting and creating, because of the will of Cuban men and women.
And this time with a special inspiration. May Day marks the 25th anniversary of Fidel’s historic speech in the Plaza overflowing with people, when he called on us to act with a «sense of the historic moment», to «change everything that must be changed» and to «emancipate ourselves by ourselves and with our own efforts».
As Fidel said at the time: «Revolution is unity, it is independence, it is fighting for our dreams of justice for Cuba and for the world».
Let us march on the First showing the strength of UNITY. For our independence and our dreams of justice.
Against the blockade and against returning fascism. Against the genocide in Gaza and against the silent genocides provoked by the sea of injustice that threatens our species.
Let us march for the better world that Cuba wants and deserves.
See you on the First in the Square!
