TO ALL THOSE KIND AND PATIENT ENOUGH TO READ THIS MATERIAL
 

This speech, delivered at the main lecture hall of the University of Venezuela, is especially significant for me. I delivered it just a month and a half ago, on February 3, 1999.

I do not know how many mortals have had such a special and unique experience as I lived that afternoon.

After a spectacular political victory and supported by a gulf of people, a new young President had been inaugurated only 24 hours before. During the visit I paid to that country on the occasion, together with many other guests, the authorities and students of the aforementioned university insisted that I deliver what people call a Master Lecture. The sole qualifier is embarrassing and gives rise to angst, especially to those of us who are not academics nor have mastered anything beyond the humble craft of using words to say what we think in our own personal way and style.

After overcoming my perennial resistance to such adventures, I agreed to the engagement, always risky and delicate for someone who, as an official guest, visits a country in full political excitement. Furthermore, I was inexorably compelled by the unchanged solidarity towards Cuba of those inviting me to speak. I had been there once already and never forgot it. I felt as if I was going to meet the same people again.

Only as I was about to leave for the campus something struck my mind: time goes by and we do not realize it.

Exactly forty years and ten days had gone by since I had had the privilege of speaking to the students in the imposing main lecture hall of the same militant and prestigious University of Venezuela, on January 24, 1959. One day before, on January 23, 1959 that year, I had arrived in Venezuela. It was the first anniversary of the people’s triumph over an authoritarian military government. Only three weeks before we had achieved our own revolutionary triumph on January 1^st, 1959. A huge crowd awaited me at the airport and followed me everywhere during my stay. There was no difference with the experience lived in my own homeland.

I am trying to recall precisely what was going on inside of me. Such a rich mixture of ideas, feelings, and emotions coming from my mind and from my heart! In that confusion of recollections I rather rely on logic than on my memory.

I was 32 years old. In 24 months and 13 days we had overcome a force of 80 thousand men; we had started with 7 rifles, gathered after the great setback of our small group of 82 men, three days after our landing, on December 2, 1956.

Full of ideas and dreams but still very inexperienced, we took part in a gigantic rally held on January 23 at Plaza del Silencio. The next day we visited the National University, a traditional bulwark of the Venezuelan people's intelligence, rebelliousness and struggles. Personally, I still felt like the young graduate who had left the university only 8 years before. Since the treacherous March 10, 1952 coup d’état, we had spent almost 7 of those 8 years preparing for armed rebellion, in prison, in exile, in our return and successful warfare, without ever losing touch with our university students.

That time I spoke to University professors and students of liberating the oppressed peoples of Our America. Now I was coming back with the same revolutionary fever and 40 years of experience in the epic struggle of our people against the mightiest and most selfish power ever.

Nevertheless, I was facing a great challenge. These were other University professors and students, another Venezuela and another world. What did these young people think? What would their concerns be? To what extent did they agree or disagree with the current process? To what extent were they aware of the objective situation in the world and their own country? I had accepted the kind and friendly invitation upon arrival in Venezuela two days before. I did not even have the minimum amount of time to inform myself properly. What were their interests? What was I going to tell them? How much freedom to speak could a state guest have when attending the inauguration of a new government? I felt compelled by a fundamental respect for the sovereignty and pride of the country that began our wars of independence to avoid interference in its domestic affairs. How would the most diverse social media, institutions and political parties interpret my words? Still, I had no other choice but to talk and I had to do it with complete honesty.

With some facts in mind, four or five pages of references that had to be typed for exact quoting and three or four basic ideas, I headed resolutely for my meeting with the students. I had been asked to hold the rally outdoors so that there would be more space. I insisted on the convenience of meeting indoors, in the main lecture hall, as the ideal place –in my opinion- to meditate and communicate.

When I reached the campus I saw thousands of chairs in different open spaces, full of students who, in front of huge screens, wanted to watch the lecture. The 2800 seats of the main lecture hall were occupied. The ordeal began. I spoke with candor and, at the same time, with full respect for the rules I felt I should respect. I expressed my essential ideas. In summary: what I think about neo-liberal globalization and how absolutely unsustainable the economic order imposed on humankind is, both socially and environmentally. Also its origin designed by imperialist interests and encouraged by the progress of productive forces and scientific and technological breakthroughs as well as its temporary nature and inevitable demise for historical reasons. Likewise, the swindling of the world and the unimaginable privileges usurped by the United States. A special emphasis was made on the significance of ideas and the demoralization and uncertainty of neo-liberal theoreticians. The strategies and tactics for struggle, probable course of events and our full confidence in man’s ability to survive were also analyzed.

Here and there I told anecdotes, stories, and small autobiographical references that came up spontaneously in the course of my reflections; that was the absolutely non-Master Lecture I gave. With my usual passion and devotion and greater conviction than ever, I shared the ideas I uphold with cold and reflexive fanaticism. As a combatant who during the long 1959-99 period has not stopped fighting for a minute, I had had the rare privilege of meeting in a historical and renowned University with two different generations of students in two radically different worlds. Both times I was received with the same warmth and respect.

After all the emotions I have lived through I should have been accustomed, but I was not.

Hours had gone by. At the end, I promised that when we meet again, in forty years time, I would be briefer. Many from the enthusiastic and militant crowd stayed in their seats until the end following my words with interest and attention; others left. Perhaps, it was too late. I shall never forget that meeting.
 

Fidel Castro Ruz

March 18, 1999
 
 
 
 

I do not have a written speech, unfortunately (LAUGHTER), but I brought some notes that I thought would be useful for the sake of precision. Still, I have realized that a booklet is missing, one that I had read, underlined, noted with great care and then... left at my hotel. (LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE) I have sent for it, and I hope they find it because this copy here is not underlined.

At least I should address this audience formally, shouldn’t I? (LAUGHTER) I am not going to make a long list of the many excellent friends we have here. (SOMEONE IN THE AUDIENCE SAYS: "WE CANNOT HEAR!") Listen, I do not have that much voice (LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE) and if I start shouting... I thought there were better microphones here. (LAUGHTER)

How many of you cannot hear over there? Please, raise you hands. (HANDS RAISED) If someone does not fix this, we can invite you to sit around here or some place where you can hear. (APPLAUSE)

I am going to try to get closer to this small microphone, right? But allow me to begin properly.

Dear friends, (APPLAUSE)

I was going to say that today, February 3, 1999, it is 40 years and 10 days to this day that I first visited this university and we met in this same place. Of course, you understand that I am moved --without the melodrama you find in certain soap operas at the moment-- (LAUGHTER) as it would have been unimaginable then that one day, so many years later, I would return to this place.

Several weeks ago, on January 1^st, 1999, on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the triumph of the Revolution, I stood on the same balcony where I had spoken on January 1^st, 1959 in Santiago de Cuba. I was reflecting with the audience gathered there that the people of today are not the same people who were there at the time because of the 11 million Cubans we are today, 7 190 000 were born after that date. I said that they were two different people and yet, one and the same eternal people of Cuba.

I also reminded them that the immense majority of those who were 50 years old then are no longer alive, and that those who were children at that time are over 40 today.

So many changes, so many differences, and how special it was for us to think that there was the people that had started a profound revolution when they were practically illiterate, when 30% of adults could not read or write and perhaps an additional 50% had not reached fifth grade. We estimated that with a population of almost 7 million, possibly little over 150 000 people had gone beyond fifth grade while today the university graduates alone amount to 600 000, and there are almost 300 thousand teachers and professors.

I told my fellow countrymen --in paying tribute to the people who had achieved that first great triumph 40 years before-- that in spite of an enormous educational backwardness, they had been able to undertake and defend an extraordinary revolutionary feat. Something else: Probably their political culture was lower than their educational level.

Those were times of brutal anti-communism, the final years of McCarthyism, when by all possible means our powerful and imperial neighbor had tried to sow in the minds of our noble people all possible lies and prejudices. Oftentimes, I would meet a common citizen and ask him a number of questions: whether he believed we should undertake a land reform; whether it would be fair for families to own the homes for which at times they paid big landlords almost half their salaries. Also if he believed that it was right that all those banks where the people’s money was deposited should be owned by the people in order to finance with those resources the development of the country instead of being owned by private institutions. Whether those big factories –-most of them foreign-owned-- should belong to, and produce for, the people... things like that. I could ask ten, fifteen similar questions and he would agree absolutely: "Yes, it would be great."

In essence, if all those big stores and all those profitable business that only enriched their privileged owners belonged to the people and were used to enrich the people, would you agree? "Yes, yes, he would answer immediately. He agreed completely with each of these simple proposals. So, then I asked him: "Would you agree with socialism? (APPLAUSE) Answer: "Socialism? No, no, no, not with socialism." Let alone communism... There was so much prejudice that this was an even more scaring word.

Revolutionary legislation was what contributed the most to creating a socialist consciousness in our people. Then, it was that very people –-illiterate or semi-illiterate at the beginning-- who had to start by teaching many of its children to read and write. The same people that out of love for liberty and yearning for justice had overthrown the tyranny and carried out, and heroically defended, the most profound social revolution in this Hemisphere.

In 1961, only two years after the triumph, with the support of young students working as teachers about 1 million people learned how to read and write. They went to the countryside, to the mountains, the remotest places and there they taught people that were even 80 years old how to read and write. Later on, there were follow-up courses and the necessary steps were taken in a constant effort to attain what we have today. A revolution can only be born from culture and ideas.

No people become revolutionary by force. Those who sow ideas have no need to suppress the people ever. Weapons in the hands of that same people are used to fight those abroad who try to take away their achievements.

Forgive me for touching on this issue because I did not come here to preach socialism or communism and I do not want to be misinterpreted. Nor did I come here to propose radical legislation or anything of the sort. I was simply reflecting on our experience that showed us the importance of ideas, the importance of believing in man, the importance of trusting the people. This is extremely important when mankind is facing such complicated and difficult times.

Naturally, on January 1^st this year in Santiago de Cuba it was fitting to acknowledge, in a very special way, that that Revolution which had managed to survive 40 years and mark this anniversary without folding its banners, without surrendering, was mainly the work of the people gathered there, young people and mature men and women. They had received their education under the Revolution and were capable of that feat, thus writing pages of noble and well-earned glory for our nation and our brothers and sisters in the Americas.

We could say that thanks to the efforts of three generations of Cubans, vis-a-vis the mightiest power, the biggest empire ever in Man's history, this sort of miracle came true: that a small country would undergo such an ordeal and achieve victory.

Our even greater recognition went to those countrymen who in the past 10 years –-the latest 8 years, to be precise-- had been willing to withstand the double blockade resulting from the collapse of the socialist camp and the demise of the USSR which left our neighbor as the sole superpower in a unipolar world, unrivalled in the political, economic, military, technological and cultural fields. I do not mean the value of their culture but rather the tremendous power they exercise to impose their culture on the rest of the world. (APPLAUSE)

However, it was unable to defeat a united people, a people armed with just ideas, a people endowed with a great political consciousness because that is most important for us. We have resisted everything and are ready to continue resisting for as long as need be (APPLAUSE) thanks to the seeds planted throughout those decades, thanks to the ideas and the consciousness developed during that time.

It has been our best weapon and it shall remain so, even in nuclear times. Now that I mention it, we even had experiences related to that type of weapons because at a given moment, who knows how many bombs and how many nuclear missiles were aimed at our small island during the well-known Missile Crisis in October 1962. Even in times of smart weapons --which sometimes make mistakes and strike 100 or 200 km away from their targets (LAUGHTER) but which have a certain degree of precision-- man’s intelligence will always be greater than any of these sophisticated weapons. (APPLAUSE AND EXCLAMATIONS)

The type of fight becomes a matter of concepts. The defense doctrine of our nation, which feels stronger today as it has perfected these concepts, is based on the conclusion that at the end –-the end of our invaders-- it would be a body combat, a man-to-man and a woman-to-invader combat, whether man or woman. (PROLONGED APPLAUSE)

We have had to wage, and will have to continue waging, a more difficult battle against that extremely powerful empire: a ceaseless ideological battle that they stepped up with all their resources after the collapse of the socialist camp when fully confident in our ideas we decided to continue forward. More than that, to continue forward alone; and when I say alone I am thinking of state entities, without ever forgetting the immense and invincible support and solidarity of the peoples which we always had and which makes us feel under a greater obligation to struggle. (APPLAUSE)

We have accomplished honorable internationalist missions. Over 500 000 Cubans have taken part in such hard and difficult missions. The children of that people which could not read or write developed such a high consciousness that they shed their sweat, and even their blood, for other peoples; in short, for any people in the world. (APPLAUSE)

When the special period began we said: "Now, our first internationalist duty is to defend this bulwark". We meant what Martí had described in the last words he wrote the day before his death, when he said that the main objective of his struggle had to go undeclared in order to be accomplished. Martí, who was not only a true believer in his ideas but also a wholehearted follower of Bolívar's, (APPLAUSE) had set himself an objective. According to his own words, it was "to timely prevent with the independence of Cuba that the United States should expand itself over the Antilles and fall, with this additional might, on our lands in the Americas. Everything I have done up so far, and everything I will do, is for this purpose." (APPLAUSE)

It was his political will and he expressed his life's aspiration: to prevent the fall of that first trench which the northern neighbors had so many times tried to occupy. That trench is still there, and will continue to be there, with a people willing to fight to death to prevent the fall of that trench of the Americas. (APPLAUSE) The people there is capable of defending even the last trench, and whoever defends the last trench and prevents anyone from taking it begins, at that very moment, to attain victory. (APPLAUSE)

Comrades, if you allow me to call you that. That is what we are at this moment and I also believe that here, at this moment, we are defending a trench. (APPLAUSE) And trenches of ideas –-forgive me for quoting Martí again-- are worth, as he said, more than trenches of stones. (APPLAUSE)

We must discuss ideas here, and so I go back to what I was saying. Many things have happened in these 40 years but the most transcendental is that the world has changed. This world of today in which I am talking to you --to those who had not been born then, and many were far from being born at the time-- does not resemble the world of those days.

I tried to find a newspaper where there might be a note on that rally at the university. Fortunately, we do have the complete text of the speech delivered at Plaza del Silencio. The revolutionary fever we had come down with from the mountains only a few days before accompanied us when speaking of revolutionary processes in Latin America and focusing on the liberation of the Dominican people from Trujillo’s clutches. I believe that issue took most of the time --or a good part of the time of that meeting-- with a tremendous enthusiasm shared by all.

Today, that would not be an issue. Today, there is not one particular people to liberate. Today, there is not one particular people to save. Today, a whole world, all of mankind needs to be liberated and saved. (APPLAUSE) And it is not our task, it is your task. (APPLAUSE)

There was not a unipolar world at that time, a single, hegemonistic superpower. Today, the world and all mankind are under the domination of an enormous superpower. Nonetheless, we are convinced that we will win the battle (APPLAUSE) without panglossian optimism -–I believe that is a word writers sometimes use (LAUGHTER). I believe so because you can be sure that if you drop this notebook (SHOWING IT) it will fall in a second, that if this table were not here, this notebook would be on the floor. And the table on which this mighty superpower ruling a unipolar world is objectively standing, is disappearing. (APPLAUSE)

These are objective reasons, and I am sure mankind will provide all the indispensable subjective ones. For this, neither nuclear weapons nor big wars are necessary but ideas. (APPLAUSE) This I say on behalf of that small country we mentioned before, which has struggled staunchly and unhesitatingly for 40 years. (APPLAUSE)

You were saying, calling –-to my embarrassment-- the name by which I am known, I mean "Fidel", because I do not have any other title actually. I understand that protocol demands the use of "His Excellency the President" and so on and so forth. (APPLAUSE AND CALLS OF FIDEL! FIDEL!) When I heard you chanting: "Fidel! Fidel! What is it with Fidel that Americans cannot put him down?" I had an idea. So I turned to my neighbor on the right, I mean on the right in terms of geography, (LAUGHTER AND EXCLAMATIONS) there are some people making signs I do not understand, but I say that all of us are in the same combat unit. (APPLAUSE) So, I told him: "Well, actually what they should be asking is: What is it with the Americans that cannot put him down? (LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE) And, that instead of saying "him" when asking: "What is it with the Americans that cannot put him down? They could say: "What is with the Americans that cannot put Cuba down?" It would be more accurate. (APPLAUSE) I realize words are used to symbolize ideas. That is the way I have always understood it. I never take credit, nor can I take credit, for that myself. (EXCLAMATIONS OF "LONG LIVE FIDEL!")

Yes, we all hope to live long, all of us! (APPLAUSE) In the ideas that we believe and in the conviction that those following in our steps will carry them forward. However, your task --it should be said-- will be more difficult than ours.

I was saying that we are living in a very different world. This is the first thing we need to understand; then, I was explaining certain political characteristics. Furthermore, the world is globalized, really globalized, a world dominated by the ideology, the standards and the principles of neo-liberal globalization.

In our view, globalization is nobody’s whim; it is not even anybody’s invention. Globalization is a law of history. It is a consequence of the development of the productive forces --excuse me, please, for using this phrase which might still scare some due to its authorship-- it is a consequence of scientific and technologic development, so much so that even the author of this phrase, Karl Marx, (APPLAUSE) who had great confidence in human talent, possibly was unable to imagine it.

Certain other things remind me of some of the basic ideas of that thinker among great thinkers. It comes to one’s mind that even what he conceived as an ideal for human society could never come true --and this is increasingly clear-- if it was not in a globalized world. Not for a second did he think that in the tiny island of Cuba –-just to give you an example-- a socialist society, or the building of socialism would be attempted, least of all so near to such a powerful capitalist neighbor.

But, yes, we have tried. Furthermore, we made it and we have defended it. And we have also known 40 years of blockade, threats, aggression, and sufferings.

Today, since we are the only ones, all the propaganda, all the mass media mastering the world are used by the United States in the ideological and political warfare against our revolutionary process in the same way as it uses its immense power in all fields --mainly the economic-- and its international political influence in the economic warfare against Cuba.

We say "blockade", but blockade does not mean much. I wish it were an economic blockade! What our country has been enduring for a long time is true economic warfare. Do you want evidence? You can go anywhere in the world, any factory owned by an American company, to buy a cap or a kerchief to export to Cuba. Even if produced by nationals of the country in question with raw materials originated in the same country, the United States government thousands of miles away, bans the sale of such a cap or kerchief. Is that blockade or economic warfare?

Do you want an additional example? If by any chance one of you wins the lottery -–I do not know if you have lottery here-- or finds a treasure, that is possible, and decides to build a small factory in Cuba, you can be sure of receiving very soon the visit of a senior American diplomat, perhaps even the ambassador himself. He will try to persuade you, put pressure or threaten with reprisals so that you do not invest your little treasure in a small factory in Cuba. Is it blockade or economic warfare?

Neither does it allow the sale of medicine to Cuba, even if that medicine is indispensable to save a life, and we have had many examples of such cases.

We have withstood that warfare and like in all battles -–whether military, political or ideological-- there are casualties. There are those who may be confused, some really are, softened or weakened by a combination of economic difficulties, material hardships, the parading of luxury in consumer societies and the nicely sweetened but rotten ideas about the fabulous advantages of their economic system, based on the mean notion that man is an animal moved only by a carrot or when beaten with a whip. We might say that their whole ideological strategy is based on this.

There are casualties, but also, like in all battles and struggles, other people gain experience, fighters become veterans, multiply their qualities and help preserve and increase the morale and strength needed to continue fighting.

We are winning the battle of ideas. (APPLAUSE) Still, the battlefield is not limited to our small island, although the small island has to fight. Today, the world is the battlefield; it is everywhere, in all continents, in all institutions, in every forum. This is the good side of the globalized struggle. (LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE) We must defend the small island while fighting throughout the huge world they dominate or try to dominate. In many fields they dominate it almost exclusively but not in all fields, nor in the same way, nor in absolutely every country.

They have discovered very intelligent weapons but we, the revolutionaries, have discovered an even more powerful weapon, more powerful: man thinks and feels. (APPLAUSE) We have learned that around the world, in the countless internationalist missions we have discharged in one field or another throughout the world. Suffice it to mention a single figure: 26 000 Cuban doctors have taken part in them.

The country that was left with only 3000 out of the 6000 doctors it had at the triumph of the Revolution, many of them unemployed but always wanting to migrate to obtain such and such income and salaries. The Revolution has been able to multiply those 3000 who stayed by training more and more doctors from those who began studying first or second grade in the schools immediately established throughout the country after the Revolution. These people have such a spirit of sacrifice and solidarity that 26000 of them have accomplished internationalist missions (APPLAUSE) just as other hundreds of thousands Cubans have worked as professionals, teachers, constructors and combatants. Yes, combatants, and we take pride in saying this (APPLAUSE) because fighting against the fascist and racist soldiers of apartheid and contributing to the victory of African peoples to whom that system was the greatest insult is, and will forever be, a reason to feel proud. (APPLAUSE)

But in this ignored -–highly ignored-- effort we have learned a lot from peoples. We have come to know those peoples and their extraordinary qualities. Among other things we have learned, not only through abstract notions but also in ordinary everyday life, that all men may not be equal in their features but all men are equal in their talents, feelings and other virtues. This proves that, in terms of moral, social, intellectual and human abilities, all men are genetically equal. (APPLAUSE)

Many have made the big mistake of taking themselves for a superior race.

I was saying that life has taught us many things, and this is what nurtures our faith in the people, our faith in man. We did not read this in a little book, we have lived through it; we have had the privilege of living through it. (APPLAUSE)

I have elaborated a bit on these first ideas because of the lost booklet and the microphone problems (LAUGHTER) so I will have to be briefer on other topics. Yes, I should to be briefer, among other things, for personal reasons. Later, I will have to revisit what I said here, (LAUGHTER) check if a comma or a dot are missing, if any data was wrong. I can assure you that for every hour of speech -–which may seem easy-- two and three hours of revision are needed, going over it once again. A word might be missing. I never remove an idea I have expressed but at times I have to complete it or add a supplementary concept because oral language differs from written language. If I point out to my neighbor, whoever reads it in a paper does not understand anything, (LAUGHTER) or almost anything. Written language only has exclamation and quotation marks (LAUGHTER) while the tone, the hands, the soul you put into things cannot be put in writing.

I realized this difference and now we take good care in transcribing and reviewing papers because the issues we discuss can be important, objectively speaking. Besides, one needs to be extremely careful with a great number of things you cannot even think of.

At a given moment, while I was thinking of the rally I was going to have with you at 5 p.m., I asked myself: What am I going to tell the students? (APPLAUSE) I cannot mention any names, with few exceptions. I can hardly mention any country because at times when I say something in the best of intentions to illustrate an idea I run the risk of being immediately misquoted and then broadcast throughout the world creating a lot of diplomatic problems. (APPLAUSE) And since we have to work together in this global struggle, we cannot make it easy for the enemy and its well-designed and efficient propaganda mechanisms to carry out their permanent work of planting confusion and misinformation. They have done a lot already but not enough, you see? (LAUGHTER) I have to limit myself a lot for these reasons and I apologize for it.

There is no need here for an extensive explanation on what neo-liberalism is all about. How can I summarize it? Well, I would say this, for instance: Neo-liberal globalization wants to turn all countries, especially all our countries, into private property.

What will be left for us of their enormous resources? Because they have accumulated an immense wealth not only looting and exploiting the world but also working the miracle alchemists longed for in the Middle Ages: turning paper into gold. At the same time, they have turned gold into paper (LAUGHTER) and with it they buy everything, everything but souls --more accurately said-- everything but the overwhelming majority of souls. They buy natural resources, factories, whole communication systems, services, and so on. They are buying even land around the world assuming that being cheaper than in their own countries it is a good investment for the future.

I wonder: What is it they are going to leave us after turning us practically into second class citizens -–pariahs would be a more precise term-- in our own countries? They want to turn the world into a huge free-trade zone, it might be more clearly understood this way because, what is a free-trade zone? It is a place with special characteristics where taxes are not paid; where raw materials, spare parts and components are brought in and assembled or various goods produced, especially in labor-intensive sectors. At times, they pay not more than 5% of the salary they must pay in their own countries and the only thing they leave us with are these meager salaries.

Sadder still: I have seen how they have put many of our countries to compete with one another by favoring who offer more advantages and tax exemptions to investments. They have put many Third World countries to compete with one another for investments and free-trade zones.

There are countries --I know them-- enduring such poverty and unemployment that they have had to establish dozens of free-trade zones as an option within the established world order. It is this or not having even free-trade zone factories and jobs with certain salaries, even if these amount to only 7%, 6%, 5% or less of the salaries the owners of those factories would have to pay in the countries they come from.

We stated this at the World Trade Organization, in Geneva, several months ago. They want to turn us into a huge free-trade zone, yes, that precisely, then with their money and technologies they will start buying everything. It remains to be seen how many airlines will remain national property, how many shipping lines, how many services will remain the property of the people or the nations.

That is the future we are offered by the neo-liberal globalization. But you should not think that is offered to the workers only. It is also being offered to the national businessmen and to the small and medium-size owners. They will have to compete with the transnational companies technologies, with their sophisticated equipment, and their world-wide distribution networks; then, look for markets without the substantial trade credits their powerful competitors can use to sell their products.

We in Cuba can have a great factory, let’s say a fridge factory. We have one but it is not great and it is far from being the most modern in the world. It suits us well down there, of course, with warm weather raising in the tropics. Let us assume that other Third World countries manufacture fridge of acceptable quality and even at a lower cost. Their powerful competitors constantly renew their designs, invest huge sums of money to lend prestige to their trade marks, manufacture in many free-trade zones paying low wages or anywhere else, tax-free. They also have abundant capital or financial mechanisms for credits that can be repaid in 1, 2 or 3 years, whatever. They dump the market with electric appliances produced in a world riddled with anarchy and chaos in the distribution of investment capital, under the generalized motto of export-based growth and development, as the IMF advises.

What space is there left for national industries? How can they export and to whom? Where are the potential consumers among the billions of poor, hungry and unemployed living in a large part of the globe? Shall we have to wait until all of them can buy a fridge, a TV set, a telephone, an air conditioner, a car, a PC, a house, a garage, fuel and electricity or until they get an unemployment subsidy, market shares and a safe pension? Is that the path leading to development, as they tell us millions of times by all possible means? What will happen to the domestic market if the accelerated reduction of customs barriers -–an important source of budget revenues in many Third World countries-- is imposed on them?

Neo-liberal theoreticians have been unable to solve, for instance, the serious problem of unemployment in most of the rich countries, let alone the developing countries, and they shall never find a solution under such a ridiculous conception. It is a huge contradiction in the system that the more they invest and resort to technology, the more people are left jobless. Labor productivity and the most sophisticated equipment born out of human talent multiply material wealth as well as poverty and layoffs, what good are they to mankind? Perhaps to help reduce working hours, have more time for resting, leisure, sports, cultural and scientific upgrading? That is impossible because the sacred market laws and competition patterns --increasingly more imaginary than real-- in a world of transnationals and megamerges do not allow it at all. Anyway, who are competing and against whom? Monopoly-and-merger-oriented giants against giants. There is not a place or a corner in the world for the other alleged players in this competition. For wealthy countries, state-of-the-art industries; for Third World workers, manufacturing jeans, tee-shirts, garments, shoes; planting flowers, exotic fruits and other products increasingly demanded in industrialized societies because they cannot be grown there. We know that in the United States, for instance, they even grow marijuana in greenhouses (LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE) or in courtyards, and that the value of the marijuana produced in that country is higher than all their corn production, although they are the biggest corn producers in the world. (LAUGHTER) In the long run, their laboratories are, or will wind up being, the biggest narcotics producers in the globe, for the time being under the label of sedatives, anti-depressants and other types of tablets and products which young people have learned to combine and mix in various ways.

In the happy developed world, tough agricultural tasks like picking tomatoes -–for which a perfect machine has not yet been invented, a robot capable of picking them according to ripeness, size and other characteristics-- cleaning the streets and other unpleasant jobs that nobody wants to do in consumer societies, how do they solve this? Oh! That is what Third World immigrants are for! They themselves do not do that type of work.

For those of us turned foreigners inside our own borders -–as I already said-- what they leave is the manufacturing of blue jeans and things like that. Under their "wonderful" economic laws, they make us produce blue jeans as if the world population already was 40 billion and every person had enough money to buy a pair of jeans. I am not criticizing the garment; it is very becoming to young people, more so in the case of young women. (LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE) No, no, I am not criticizing the garment I am criticizing the jobs they want to leave for us and that has absolutely nothing to do with high technology. So, our universities will become redundant and be left to train low cost technical staff for the developed world.

You may have read in the press these days that the United States, in view of the needs of their computer, electronic, etc., etc. industries has decided to acquire in the international market -–actually the Third World-- and grant visas to 200 000 highly-skilled workers for their state-of-the-art industries. You had better be careful because they are looking for trained people. (LAUGHTER) This time it is not to pick tomatoes. They are not very literate, and many people can see this when they confuse Brazil with Bolivia or Bolivia with Brazil, (LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE) or when surveys show that they do not even know many things about the very United States. They do not even know if a Latin American country they have heard of is in Africa or Europe, and this is not an overstatement. (LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE) They do not have all the geniuses or highly skilled workers for their state-of-the-art industries, so they come to our world and recruit a few who are then lost for our countries, forever.

Where are the best scientists of our countries, in which laboratories? Which of our countries has laboratories for all the scientists it could train? How much can we pay that scientist and how much can they pay?

Where are they? I know many outstanding Latin Americans who are there. Who trained them? Oh! Venezuela, Guatemala, Brazil, Argentina, any Latin American country did but they have no possibilities in their homeland. Industrialized countries have the monopoly of laboratories and the money. They recruit them and take them away from poor nations. But not only scientists, athletes too. They would like to buy our baseball players the way slaves were sold on one of those stands, I do not remember what they are called... (LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE)

They are treacherous. Since there is always a soul to be tempted. So says the Bible and that referring to the first human beings that were supposed to be better, right? Because supposedly they were not so wicked nor were they familiar with consumer societies. In those days there was no dollar. All of a sudden, even an athlete who is not absolutely first rate, gets paid a couple of millions, or four, five or six millions, he is given an enormous publicity and since Big League batters seem to be so bad, they have some success. I mean no offense for American professional athletes; they are hard working, highly motivated people. Also a commodity bought and sold in the market, although at a high price, but there must be shortcomings in their training because they smuggle in some Cuban pitchers --who, would rank first, second or third-- or a shortstop, or a third base. These get there and the pitcher strikes out their best batters and the shortstop does not let a ball go past him. (APPLAUSE AND EXCLAMATIONS)

We would be practically rich if we auctioned Cuban baseball players. (LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE) They no longer want to pay American baseball players because those are too expensive. They have organized academies in our countries to train players at a very low cost and pay them lower salaries, but still a salary of millions of dollars a year. Together with this, all the TV advertising, plus automobiles from here to there (POINTS OUT) and beautiful women from all ethnic groups linked to automobile advertising (LAUGHTER) and the rest of the commercial advertising you see in some tabloids can tempt more than one of our countrymen.

In Cuba we do not spend any newsprint or other resources in such frivolous advertising. The very few times I watch American TV, I can hardly stand it because every three minutes it stops for a commercial, sometimes a man working out on an exercise bike which is the most boring thing in the world... (APPLAUSE AND EXCLAMATIONS) I am not saying it is wrong, I say it is boring. Any program, even soap operas are interrupted in their sweetest moments of love... (LAUGHTER)

In Cuba we buy some soap operas from abroad because we have not been able to cover our needs and some made in Latin American countries are so attractive to the Cuban audience that they even cause people to stop working. At times, we also get good films from Latin America but practically everything circulating in the world is sheer Yankee-made, canned culture.

Actually, what little paper we have in our country is used for textbooks and for our few newspapers with few pages. We cannot use resources to print those glossy magazines --I do not know what they are called-- with many pictures, read by beggars in any street of our capitals, advertising those fancy cars with their beautiful escorts and even a yacht and other things, right? (LAUGHTER) That is how they poison people with propaganda, so that beggars are also cruelly influenced and made to dream of a Heaven -–unattainable for them-- offered by capitalism.

As I said, in our country we operate differently. Still, they have an influence with the image of a society that is not only alienating, and economically unequal and unfair but also socially and environmentally unsustainable.

I usually say as an example that if the consumer pattern means that in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Pakistan o China there may be an automobile in every household... I apologize to those present who have one. Apparently there is no other choice, there are many avenues and the distances are long here. I mean no criticism but a warning against a model not applicable in a world that has yet to develop. (LAUGHTER) You will surely understand me because Caracas cannot accommodate many more cars. You know they are going to have to build avenues three or four stories high. (LAUGHTER) I can imagine that if they were to do the same in China, then the 100 million hectares of arable land would have to be transformed into highways, gas stations and parking-lots leaving practically no space to grow a single grain of rice.

The consumption pattern they are imposing on the world is sheer madness, chaotic and absurd. (APPLAUSE)

It is not that I think the world should become a monastery. (LAUGHTER) However, I do believe that the planet has no other choice but to define which are going to be the consumption standards or patterns, both attainable and obtainable, in which mankind should be educated.

Everyday, a lower number of people are reading books. And why should human beings be deprived, for example, of the pleasure of reading a book, or of many other satisfactions in the field of culture and recreation, not only for the sake of acquiring material wealth but also spiritual richness? I am not thinking about men and women working, as in the times of [Frederick] Engels, for 14 or 15 hours a day. I am thinking of men and women working 4 hours a day. If technology so allows it, then why work 8 hours? It is only logical that, as productivity increases, less physical and mental effort will be required; that there be less unemployment and the people have more spare time. (APPLAUSE)

Let us call a free man he who does not need to work all week, Saturdays, Sundays or double shifts included, to make ends meet, dashing at all hours in large cities, rushing to the subway or to take a bus... Whom are they going to convince that that is a free man? (APPLAUSE)

If computers and automatic machines can work wonders in terms of the generation of material goods and services, then why cannot man benefit from the science that he created with his intelligence for the well-being of humanity?

Why must the person endure hunger, unemployment, early death from curable diseases, ignorance, the lack of culture and all sorts of human and social afflictions for exclusively commercial reasons and profits? Why, for the sole interest of an over-privileged and powerful elite operating under frenzied economic laws and institutions which are not, were not, and will not be eternal?

Such is the case of the well-known market laws. The market has become today an object of idolatry, a sacred word pronounced at all hours. Why should this be so when it is possible to generate all the wealth required for meeting reasonable human needs compatible with the preservation of nature and life on our planet? We must ponder and reach our own conclusions. Obviously, it is reasonable for people to have food, health, a roof, clothing and education. Also adequate, rational, sustainable and secure transportation means; culture, recreation, a broad variety of options and many more things that could be at the reach of human beings and not, of course, a private jet or a yacht for each of the 9. 5 billion who will live on the planet within 50 years.

They have impaired the human mind.

Thank goodness that these things did not happen back in the days of the Garden of Eden or of Noah's Arc in the Old Testament. I can imagine that life was a bit more peaceful then. (LAUGHTER) Even if they did have a flood, we are also the victims of floods, all too frequently. Observe what happened recently in Central America. No one knows for sure if as a result of all the climatic constraints we might end up buying tickets or standing in line to board an arc. (LAUGHTER)

This is the situation, they have instilled all this in people’s minds. They have alienated millions and hundreds of millions of people and made them suffer even more, as those people are unable to meet their basic needs because they do not even have a doctor to see or a school to attend.

I mentioned the anarchic, irrational and chaotic formula imposed by neo-liberalism: the investment of hundreds of billions without rhyme or reason; having tens of millions of workers manufacturing the same things: television sets, computer parts, and clips or chips, whatever they are called... (LAUGHTER) an endless number of gadgets, including a large numbers of cars. Everyone is doing the same thing.

They have doubled the capacity for manufacturing cars. Who will buy these cars? Buyers can be found in Africa, Latin America and in many other parts of the world. Only that they do not have a dime to buy cars nor gas, or to pay for the highways or repair shops, which would ultimately ruin Third World countries even more by squandering the resources needed for social development while further destroying the environment.

By creating unsustainable consumer patterns in industrialized countries and sowing impossible dreams throughout the rest of the world, the developed capitalist system has caused great injury to mankind. It has poisoned the atmosphere and depleted its enormous non-renewable natural resources, which mankind will need in the future. Please, do not believe that I am thinking of an idealistic, impossible, absurd world; I am merely trying to imagine what a real world and a happier person could be like. It would not be necessary to mention a commodity, it suffices to mention a concept: inequality has made more than 80% of the people on the planet unhappy, and this is no more than a concept. Concepts and ideas are required that will make possible a viable world, a sustainable world and a better world.

I find amusing the writings of many theoreticians of neo-liberalism and neo-liberal globalization. Actually, I have little time to go to the cinema, practically never, or to watch videos, however good they may be. I rather amuse myself reading the articles these gentlemen write. (LAUGHTER) I can see their analysts, their wisest and most perceptive commentators, immersed in many a great contradiction, in confusion and even despair; they want to square the circle. It must be awful for them. (APPLAUSE)

I recall that once they showed me a squared figure with two lines on the top like this, one in the middle and another one downwards. (HE POINTS) The object of the game was to draw over the lines with a pencil without lifting it once. I do not know how much time I lost attempting to do it instead of doing my homework or studying math, languages or other subjects. In my childhood days there were no toys like those invented by the industry to entertain children during school time so that they fail their grades but we used to invent games ourselves in which we lost a lot of time.

But they amuse me and I truly enjoy them, at least, I am grateful to them for that (LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE) but I am also thankful for what they teach me. And do you know whose articles and analyses humor me the most? Oh, the most conservatives, the ones who do not even want to hear about the State, who want no mention of it, whatsoever. Those who want a Central Bank on the Moon (LAUGHTER) so that no human being will dare to lower or rise interest rates. It’s unbelievable!

They are the ones who make me happiest because when they say certain things, I ask myself: " Am I wrong? Could this article not have been written by a left wing extremist, a radical?" (LAUGHTER) But, what is this? After seeing [George] Soros write book after book and the last one... yes, I had to read that one too. I had no alternative because I reasoned: "Well, this man is a theoretician but he is also an academician and, furthermore, he has I do not know exactly how many billion dollars as a result of speculative operations. This man must know all about this, all the mechanisms and the tricks. However, he entitled his book: 'Capitalism Global Crisis', which is quite something. There he states it with absolute seriousness (LAUGHTER) and apparently with such a conviction that I said to myself: "Goodness, it seems that I am not the only madman in this world!" (LAUGHTER) Actually, many have expressed similar concerns. I pay more attention to them than to the adversaries of the current World Economic Order.

The leftists want to prove that the system will inevitably collapse. (LAUGHTER) This is only logical since it is their duty and, after all, they are right. (LAUGHTER) However, the others do not want this to happen. They become despondent and write many things when faced with a crisis and all sorts of threats. They baffled. The least you can say is that they have lost faith in their own doctrines.

Then, those of us who decided to resist in solitude... I do not mean geographical solitude but almost complete solitude in the field of ideas because in the aftermath of these disasters there is a skepticism, which is then multiplied by the expert and powerful propaganda machinery of the empire and its allies. All of this causes many people to feel pessimistic and confused since they do not have all the necessary elements for analyzing circumstances from a historical perspective, consequently, they lose hope.

Those first days were truly bitter, and even before that, as we watched how many people, here and there, became turncoats --and I am not criticizing anyone but the coats... (LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE) Then, again, things change so quickly! Those illusions are now way behind --as we say in Cuba, and I do not know if you also have this saying here-- they lasted less than a candy bar at a schoolyard. (LAUGHTER)

They took to the former Soviet Union their neo-liberal and market recipes, causing destruction, truly incredible destruction, disintegrating nations. They brought about the economic and political dismantling of federations of republics reducing life expectancy in some cases by 14 and 15 years, multiplying infant mortality by three to four times and generating social and economic problems which not even a resurrected Dante would dare to imagine.

It is truly pathetic. Those of us who try to be as well-informed as possible about everything that happens everywhere, and we have no other choice but to be more or less well informed, more or less profoundly, otherwise, we would be disoriented. We have what we think is a quite clear notion of the disasters that the market god and its laws and principles have caused. They, together with the recipes that the International Monetary Fund and other neo-colonizing and re-colonizing institutions have recommended and practically imposed on every country. Even wealthy countries like the Europeans have found it necessary to unite and establish a currency so that experts like Soros do not to bring down even the pound sterling. That is a currency not so long ago reigned as a medium of exchange and was the sword and the symbol of a dominating empire that was the master of the world's reserve currency. All these privileges are now in the hands of the United States while the British had to suffer the humiliation of watching the fall of their pound sterling.

Such was the case of the Spanish peseta, the French franc and the Italian lira; they staked their bets on the immense power of their billions because these speculators are gamblers who play with marked cards. They have all the information, the most prominent economists, Nobel Prize laureates, such as the case of the famous company which was one of the most prestigious in the United States, called the Long Term Capital Management. You will have to excuse my "excellent " English pronunciation, (LAUGHTER) but I prefer the title in Spanish, and practically everyone knows it by its original name, which has been hispanicized. With a total fund of almost 4.5 billion dollars, the company mobilized 120 billion for speculative operations.

The Company had two Nobel Prize Laureates on its payroll together with the most experienced computer software producers. And there you have it. The illustrious gentlemen made a mistake because so many unusual things are happening that they did not foresee some of them. For instance, the difference between treasury bonds at 30 and 29 years was larger than reasonably expected, immediately all the computers and Nobel Prize laureates decided that they had to straddle. Apparently, they had problems with the crisis that ensued, which they did not anticipate. They thought that they had discovered the miracle of a ceaselessly growing Capitalism, without crisis... We are fortunate that this did not occur to them two or three thousand years ago! It was fortunate that it took Columbus some years to discover this Hemisphere, (LAUGHTER) proving the Earth was round. Also that other economic, social and scientific advances were equally delayed since it was on them that such a system, inseparable from its crises, took root, otherwise there would not be any human beings left on this planet. Perhaps there would be nothing left.

Those from the Long-Term, as it is commonly known, made a mistake and lost. It was a disaster and it was necessary to go to their rescue, violating all international, ethical, moral and financial norms that the United States had imposed on the world. The President of the Federal Reserve declared in the Senate that if that fund was not bailed out, there would inevitably be an economic catastrophe, both in the United States and in the rest of the world.

Another question: What kind of economy is that prevailing today where a handful of multi-millionaires can cause an economic catastrophe in the United States and in the world? I do not mean the big ones, not Bill Gates and others like him since Bill Gates' fortune is about fifteen times the initial capital with which Long Term mobilized enormous sums from savers, obtaining loans from over 50 banks. But, oh! The international economy would have collapsed had it not been bailed out. And this was stated by one of the most competent and intelligent persons in the United Sates, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

That distinguished gentleman knows more than a thing or two. The problem is that he does not say everything he knows because part of the method consists in a total lack of transparency and strong doses of sedatives in case of panic accompanied by sweet and encouraging words: "Everything is all right, the economy is running smoothly". This is the accepted and always applied technique. However, the President of the Federal Reserve had to admit before the US Senate that a catastrophe would have occurred if the Fed had not done what it did.

These are the bases of neo-liberal globalization. Do not worry, you may subtract one or 20 more from their fragile structure. What they have created is unsustainable! However, they have caused anguish for many people throughout the world. They have ruined nations with the International Monetary Fund's formula and continue to impoverish countries. They cannot avoid the ruin of these countries, yet they do not cease to do foolish things and in the stock markets they have inflated the prices of shares and continue to do so ad infinitum.

In the U.S. stock markets, more than one third of the families’ savings and 50% of the pension funds have been invested in shares. One can imagine the impact of a catastrophe similar to that of 1929, when only 5% of the population had their savings invested in the stock market. Today, they would feel terrified and run in haste. That was what they did in August after the crisis in Russia whose share of the world's gross product is only 2%. That crisis made the Dow Jones, the key index of the New York Stock Market, fall in one day by more than 500 points; 512 to be exact, causing an enormous commotion.

The truth is that the leaders of this dominating system spend most of their time running around the world, from banks to financial institutions. (LAUGHTER) And when they saw what occurred in Russia, a track and field Olympics ensued. They met with the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Clinton delivered a speech, stating that recession and not inflation was the real danger. In a matter of days, in practically a few hours, they made a 180 degree shift and instead of increasing interest rates what they actually did was to lower them. On October 5 and 6, all the directors of central banks met in Washington. Speeches were delivered, an undetermined number of criticisms were raised to the Monetary Fund and the so-called measures were adopted to reduce the danger. A few days later the US government met with the G-7, which decided to contribute 90 billion dollars to stop the crisis from extending to Brazil and from there to the rest of South America. They were trying to impede the flames from reaching the over-inflated stock markets of the United States. A small pin, the smallest of holes and the balloon would deflate. These are the risks threatening neo-liberal globalization.

That was what they did. Then some of us, myself included, reflected on it and I said: "They have resources, they have the possibility to maneuver and postpone the great crisis for a time". They could postpone it but not ultimately avoid it. I reflected on the matter and said: "Apparently they have succeeded thanks to all the measures adopted or imposed: lowering interest rates; 90 billion dollars to support the Fund which had no funds; (LAUGHTER) the steps taken by Japan to confront the bank crisis; Brazil’s announcement of harsh economic measures and the timely statement that the US economy had grown more than expected in the