Happy birthday Fidel

Why do we love Fidel?
Because we love the idea of “Fidel”. Because we think there has to be some other way
That there must be more to life and to living than this.
We loathe the things that they force down our throats day and night. We love freedom:Freedom from the chains of television and commercials. Freedom from the chains of futility. Freedom from humiliation.

Yet, we know Fidel’s time is past. We know the idea of “Fidel,” too, will some day succumb to the unipolar world that is getting narrower every day. Still, we keep hoping. Still, we see signs that the idea of “Fidel” may be permeating into other places too.

Fidel who, once the Soviet Union fell, was left isolated and friendless, is finding new friends and allies. But the unipolar world, too, is hard at work. Its slogan is “You are either with us or with the terrorists”. Its slogan is “democracy,” but only if democracy doesn’t harm its own interests. It supports all autocratic governments, but considers Fidel a dictator.

A dictator who has given free education and healthcare to his country’s people. And many other things besides. So we must either be with Bush( by extension all G8 countries) or with Fidel. But even if some day Fidel had to leave, he will go with honor. He will hold his head high. The same way that his nation – his comrades – hold their heads high. Because he never yielded. He was never like autocratic rulers who sell everything that they have and that they are, all in return for worldly power and will become immortal. Because there will never be another Fidel.

In the same way that there will never be another Gandhi, another Mossadegh, or another Allende. And, YES, another Khomeini or another Arafat. And yet…Such words don’t give us fancy clothes. They don’t give us credit cards, loans, debt, and alienation. They don’t give us the “American Dream” or "the luxury to have different brands of coffee from around the world on our supermarket selfs, at the expense of people who grow them, for peanuts". So, long live CNN, TF1, BBC, RFI and the “free” press, the boundaries of whose freedom are set by multinational corporations! Long live the hundreds of meaningless brand names, trade marks and logos! Long live luxury cars and even more luxurious houses, which most of us only see in our dreams! Long live the material world!

Happy 80th Fidel, and many more! Please get well!

P.S: Sourced from the WWW: Cut, edited and pasted