"An Island on a Continent"

More than attacking history, he conquered it by force of courage, principles and example. Ernesto Guevara, for all of us our Che, is one of those men that we can love infinitely, not only for the Cuban Revolution that he helped to birth, make and consolidate, but also for that aroma of integrity, determination, discipline with the task, with the work entrusted to him, with his condition, always, as a combatant.

The days of October 8 and 9, 1967 fix the memory of his last breath in the little school of La Higuera, Bolivia, with his long hair and rebellious beard, his feet almost bare because of the worn boots and that strength in his gaze that made more than one soldier doubt the shot that did not deserve to come from those rifles.

Only an order of hate and rage brought down his physique. And right there the Che of America was reborn, the symbol for generations of young people around the world. His figure, 57 years later, does not seem stuck in the past, but rather elevated in the present, like a beacon of light to fight the same injustices and abuses, the same imperialism to which we must not give “even a little bit.”

His bond with Cuban workers since 1959 bore the imprint of overcoming the impossible. Rarely has a leader been seen to better understand a worker after sweating profusely carrying sacks, cutting sugar cane, innovating in a factory or, simply, eating the same lunch in the dining room. That was Che. That is how we all feel.

If that is not love, what else can define such revolutionary passion. His example always ends up teaching  people how much we all need to be the new man that he was.

Published in the newspaper Trabajadores