New Year’s wishes

For myself I wish for nothing, my life is complete and on a good course. If I ask for anything it is for forgiveness, for allowing myself this opportunity to speak on behalf of others without being qualified to do so.

I wish for my children, in your classrooms, to have in front of you teachers like those I had. Mature and educated people who teach you with patience and correct you firmly without insulting you. First-rate teachers who base their authority on esteem, morale and mutual respect. Let them teach you math and also how to be better human beings.

I wish for the youth the determination to reject the reins and barriers imposed on you and the decisiveness to chart your own course. I wish for you integrity and moderation, to avoid falling into prostitution, as much for the body—most common—as for the most damaging and irreversible, which is the prostitution of the soul. Finally, I wish for you the wisdom and patience to stay here and to not abandon us. Your place is here, together with your elders, even though coexistence at times can be suffocating. Here begins the long and torturous road to your rightful place that has been denied you for so long. Only together can we make the change.

I wish for my country, freedom.

Only this, nothing more is needed.

And with these wishes, I leave you until 2009.

Happy New Year!