In order to Cuba, where social protest had not been seen in six decades, since the revolution of Fidel Castro, since this was only a distant expression of other societies in which, badly or well, there is a democracy walking, the demonstrations of these days constitute an unequivocal sign that the situation is deteriorating much faster than anticipated, to the point that people are losing their fear of the regime, expressing it in the streets.
There is no doubt that in an already tight situation, the pandemic hit Cuba very hard. A recent report by Infobae, at the end of June of this year, realized that the shortage of food and the consequent rise in its prices became increasingly distressing for families, given the difficulty of importing and producing them locally after years of inefficient policies in the field. Cuban Creole humor summarized the situation like this: “On the island there are only three problems: breakfast, lunch and dinner.
For this reason, on July 11, thousands took to the streets to march shouting ‘freedom’, starting in San Antonio de los Baños, a city located an hour and a half southwest of Havana, where I was sometimes in 2016.
In that small city of about 35,000 inhabitants, which houses the International School of Film and Television, the protest began on Sunday, but the drama came from further back, as it has been expressed by cultural and artistic groups that are persecuted by the Cuban regime. The San Isidro Movement being particularly important, one of whose songs has served as a cry from the streets that no longer repeat the slogan ‘homeland or death’ of the 1959 revolution, but rather ‘homeland and life’.
The government in charge of Miguel Diaz-Canel has announced a strong repression of the protests, pointing out that “celebrating what they have orchestrated in San Antonio de los Baños only reveals the worst nature of people.”
It is not clear at this time how far the protest can go, but there should be no doubt that the beautiful country of Cuba must urgently move towards democratization and economic modernization for the benefit of its great, brave and suffering population, and shout now ‘homeland and life’ instead of ‘homeland or death’.
Augusto Álvarez Rodrich Newsletter in LR
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