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Vilma's
Struggles
By Fidel Castro Ruz Vilma is dead. Even though the
news was expected, it was still an impact. Out of
respect for her delicate health condition, I never
raised her name in my reflections.
Vilma's example today is more
necessary than ever. She devoted her entire life to the
struggle for women's rights when in Cuba most women were
discriminated against as human beings, the same as in
the rest of the world, with only the honorable
revolutionary exceptions.
It was not always this way
throughout the historical evolution of our species,
leading her to fulfill the social role befitting her as
a natural workshop where life is forged.
In our country, women came out from
under one of the most horrible forms of society, that of
a Yankee neo-colony under the aegis of imperialism and
its system, where everything that the human being is
capable of creating was turned into merchandise.
When what has been defined as the
exploitation of man by man started far back in history,
the mothers and children of the dispossessed bore the
brunt of the burden.
Cuban women used to work as
domestic servants, or in luxurious shops and bourgeois
bars, selected for their good looks. Factories assigned
them the simplest jobs, the ones that were the most
repetitive and worst paid.
In education and
healthcare—services provided on a small scale—their
indispensable cooperation was as teachers and nurses who
had only been offered basic training. The country,
2,009.92 miles from end to end, only had one higher
education center located in the capital and later,
several faculties in university campuses in two other
provinces. As a rule, the only young women who could
study there were those from the most affluent families.
In many activities, the presence of a woman was not even
dreamed of.
For almost half a century, I have
been witness to Vilma's struggles. I cannot forget her
presence at the meetings of the July 26 Movement in the
Sierra Maestra. She was eventually sent by the
movement's directorate to carry out an important mission
on the Second Eastern Front. Vilma did not shrink from
any danger.
After the triumph of the
Revolution, she began her ceaseless battle for the
rights of Cuban women and children, which led her to
found and lead the Federation of Cuban Women.
There was no national or
international forum too distant for her to attend in
defense of her assailed homeland and of the noble and
just ideas of the Revolution.
Her gentle voice, steady and
timely, was always listened to with great respect in
Party, State and mass organization meetings.
Today women in Cuba make up 66
percent of the technical work force of the country, and
they take part, in the main, in almost all the
university degree courses. Previously, there were
hardly any women involved in scientific activities,
since science and scientists did not exist, but
exceptionally. In this field as well, today women are
in the majority.
Revolutionary duties and her
immense work load never prevented Vilma from fulfilling
her responsibilities as a loyal wife and mother of
several children.
Vilma is dead. Long live Vilma!
June 20, 2007
HAVANA (Reuters) -
Thousands of Cubans lined up in the hot Caribbean sun on
Tuesday to pay their respects to Vilma Espin
(1930-2007), the late wife of acting President Raul
Castro and one of the most powerful women in Cuba's
political system. . . .
Espin, who was Cuba's unofficial first lady because
Castro kept his own wife out of the public eye, died on
Monday in Havana from an undisclosed illness. She was
77. . . . Cubans of all ages waited for up to
three hours to pay their respects to Espin, some holding
umbrellas to shield themselves from the blistering sun.
Many of the mourners were women who said they were
grateful to Espin for promoting gender equality in Cuba,
where sexism runs deep. . . . Cuban television aired
live coverage of the tributes throughout the day and
showed footage of Espin's days as a dashing rebel in the
Sierra Maestra mountains. The Communist Party daily
Granma ran an obituary that took up its entire front
page, calling Espin the "heroine of the Rebel Army."
Espin was a member of Castro's inner circle since the
early days of the revolution. The daughter of a wealthy
executive at the Bacardi rum distillery, she rebelled
against her upbringing and joined the armed struggle
against right-wing dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1956.
Soon afterward she met Castro's younger brother Raul,
whom she married in Havana in 1959 after Batista fled
Cuba. A year later, Espin founded the Cuban Women's
Federation, an organization that mobilized women for the
revolutionary cause and to advance gender equality. She
was also a member of the Communist Party's Central
Committee since its creation in 1965, and sat on the
party's Politburo from 1980 until 1991.
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posted 23 June 2007 |
