One of the achievements of the Triumph of the Revolution was the dignity of the Cuban people and the end of humiliation, hence the spirit of resistance that Fidel Castro knew how to instill, declared Salim Lamrani today.

The French writer and professor noted that Italian Gianni Minà, in an interview with Fidel, asked him what human quality he most valued, and Fidel replied that it was loyalty to principles. When asked what he most detested, Fidel answered that it was betrayal of principles, recalled the specialist in the Cuba-U.S. dispute, in statements to Prensa Latina.

"Thus, the resistance of the Cuban people today is the attachment to the principles of national sovereignty, social justice, socialism, internationalism, and the elementary dignity of the human being," he commented.

Cubans are open to dialogue, but not to having conditions dictated to them for good relations, added the doctor and researcher at the University of Sorbonne.

That is why the United States is mistaken in its political projection, from an operational point of view, because Cubans have already demonstrated that they will not yield on matters of principle and will remain faithful to them, the specialist argued.

"One must value this resistance of the Cuban people. No one bet that when the oil blockade was introduced last December—because it was imposed in late January, but since December no tanker had arrived—Cuba would resist for more than two months," he commented.

But Cuba has now been resisting for nearly nine months a medieval measure, an energy siege that has a dramatic impact on all aspects of society, Lamrani considered.

"This is because Cuba knows what capitulation would mean, because capitulating would mean returning to the era of humiliation," he indicated.

"It would mean returning to the era when the U.S. president sends a special envoy to Cuba, without notifying the president of the Republic, to humiliate you publicly," the researcher underscored.

It is often said that after life, the most important thing is dignity, "although sometimes more than life, dignity matters because living without that condition is living on one's knees—something that makes no sense, and Cuba has demonstrated that," the specialist asserted.

That has also been one of the achievements of the Cuban Revolution. That is why Fidel Castro achieved unanimous support. He managed to express the deep yearning of the people for dignity, he estimated.

"The first achievement of the 1959 Revolution is the conquest of dignity, to definitively put an end to the era of humiliation. That is also why the Cuban people resist, because defending dignity is part of the Cuban people's idiosyncrasy," Lamrani affirmed.

In few countries in the world did they have to fight for independence under such adverse conditions, and it was 30 years of struggle for that independence—the longest war in the Latin American region, the expert noted.

Then came a U.S. intervention, giving way to 60 years of a pseudo-republic, and despite that, despite geographic fatalism, and despite the fact that the United States dominated the Cuban economy and controlled the political situation, Cuba managed to conquer its independence, he pointed out.

"That indicates that the nucleus of resistance existing in the Cuban people is very strong, and that is why they have not managed to create a division in revolutionary unity—an objective always present for the U.S. government to end the Revolution," he explained.

They have not achieved that objective, and there exists that legacy of what Fidel taught—not to yield, even in the most adverse circumstances, he underscored.