On New Year’s Day, 1959 Fidel Castro and his band of Revolutionary Directorate rebels defeated General Fulgencio Batista’s forces and led his country towards a revolution. Few thought it would hold, but here we are some 50 years later, and Castro’s revolutionary ideal for Cuba is still going, if not strong, along.

While the rest of the world was congratulating each other on the New Year, Fidel was congratulating his countrymen on the longevity of his ideals:

“Upon the 50th anniversary of the triumph, I congratulate our heroic countrymen,” said Castro, 82, in a brief note dated Wednesday afternoon and published in on the cover of Granma, the Communist party’s newspaper.

Lacking a non-generic comment from Fidel or anything of substance from Raul on the future of the revolution, we turn to Mariela, Raul’s daughter, the most outspoken member of the family. Check out what she has to say in the video after the jump.

Via / El Universal (Mexico)