To the new year with new enthusiasm, intelligence and our own hands 

This 2024 has been for Cuba a colossal challenge against adversities: cyclones, earthquakes, disconnections of the National Electric System (SEN), blackouts due to insufficient electricity generation capacity, high prices, difficulties to complete the standard family food basket, lack of fuel, transportation, medicines....

Convinced that the difficulties would not be less, the year was entered with a different government strategy, first to shake the economy of ballast that deforms it; second, to encourage the production that helps to revive it; but, although stimulating results have been achieved, 12 months have been insufficient to straighten out everything that is needed.

It is clear to us: with the enemy in front of us, that neighbor determined to tighten the noose of the economic blockade to the point of asphyxiation, everything continues to be very difficult, and one truth is becoming ever greater: we depend on how much we do with our own hands.

The easy thing is not a condition given to the revolutionary. The proximity of each anniversary of the triumph on January 1st reminds us of this, when the bearded guerrilla, Commander-in-Chief, warned amidst the popular jubilation: “in the future, perhaps everything will be more difficult.”

In 66 years it has never been easy, and if we have resisted, if we remain here, it has not been by divine work. The key lies in the condition of a revolutionary, intransigent, rebellious, sovereign people, of essence and character, the basis of the daily heroics that impose resistance to hardship.

It should never be believed that it is not possible, that individual and national progress is not possible. Each one knows how much he can contribute to it, how much he gives of himself to this aspiration if he fulfills well what he has to do where his intelligence and his arms are required.

How many sacrificed their days of rest to help in the recovery after hurricanes and earthquakes? How many gave up some of their goods to help those affected? There are very few who have more than enough material goods, but many, very many, are overflowing with sensitivity.
If on the one hand we still see the mark of the impact of these natural phenomena, on the other hand the skin of Cuba is tattooed with the detachment, for example, of thousands of electrical linemen who went to the East of the country, after cyclone Oscar, and with hardly time to return to their homes and embrace their families, they continued to the West, to heal the severe traces of hurricane Rafael.

From that exemplary perseverance, which has had this year an expression in every sector of our society, we must permeate the energies of Cubans to do for their country, which is to do for each one, for the family, for the workers' collective, for the community.

May 2025 be a year of a new call for drive and enthusiasm, so that the word we are celebrating these days: triumph, becomes a horizon and a reality in the constant aspiration to be a nation in progress, independent, socialist, free and happy.