This article first appeared on La Joven Cuba on July 16, 2021. It is reprinted here with permission and was translated into English by the ISP.
It seems very possible that everything that happened in Cuba since last Sunday, July 11, has been encouraged by a greater or lesser number of people opposed to the system, with even some of them being paid to destabilize the country and bring about a situation of chaos and insecurity. It is also true that, as often happens in these events, we’ll hear that opportunistic and regrettable acts of vandalism occurred. But I think that neither one of these points takes one iota away from the cry from below that we have heard. A cry that comes from desperation in a society that is experiencing not only a long economic crisis and an exceptional health crisis, but also a crisis of confidence and a loss of hope.
To these desperate demands, Cuban authorities should not respond with the usual slogans, repeated for years, and with the answers that the authorities want to hear. Not even with explanations, however convincing and necessary they may be. What is required are solutions that many citizens expect or demand, whether they demonstrating in the street, opining on social media and expressing their disappointment or disagreement, or the many more counting the few and devalued pesos that they have in their pockets and many, many more, lining up in silence for hours in the sun or rain—and a pandemic–to buy food, medicine, our daily bread and for everything else conceivable and necessary.
I believe that no one with a minimum feeling of belonging, with a sense of sovereignty, with a civic responsibility can want (or even believe) that the solution to these problems comes from any type of foreign intervention , much less from a military invasion, as some have come to ask.This certainly represents a threat that is still possible.
I also believe that any Cuban living on or outside the island knows that the U.S. commercial and financial blockade or embargo, whatever you want to call it, is real and has become internationalized and intensified in recent years. It is too heavy a burden for the Cuban economy, as it would be for any other economy. Those who live outside the island and today want to help their relatives in the midst of a critical situation, have experienced the blockade up close as they are practically unable to send money to their relatives, just to mention a situation that affects many. It is an old policy that, by the way, (sometimes some forget),practically everyone has condemned for many years in successive United Nations assemblies.
And I don’t think anyone can deny that there is a concerted media campaign which has trafficked, even in the grossest ways, false information. At the end of the day, this false information will only diminish the credibility of its purveyors.
But I believe, along with all of the above, that Cubans need to regain hope and to have a possible image of their future. If hope is lost, the meaning of any humanist social project is lost. And hope is not recovered by force. One is rescued and sustained with those solutions and changes and social dialogues, which, because they haven’t materialized, have caused, among many other devastating effects, the longing of so many Cubans to flee the country. And it has now provoked the cry of despair. Surely some of them were surely paid people and opportunistic criminals. But I refuse to believe that in my country, at this point, there may be so many people, so many people born and educated among us who sell out or commit crimes. Because if that were the case, , the society that fostered them would be responsible.
Spontaneous and leaderless, without receiving anything in return or stealing anything along the way, the notable number of people have demonstrated in the streets and on social media, should be a warning. I think it is an alarming example of the distances that have been opened between the leading political spheres and the street (and this has even been recognized by Cuban leaders). This is the only way that can explain that what has happened has happened, especially in a country where almost everything is known when it wants to be known, as we all also know.
To convince and calm those desperate people, the method cannot be the solutions of force and darkness, such as imposing the digital blackout that has cut off the communications of many for days, but that nevertheless has not impeded the connections of those who want to say something, in favor or against. Much less can the violent response, especially against non-violent people, be used as a convincing argument. And it is already known that violence can be not only physical.
Many things seem to be at stake today. Perhaps even if calm returns after the storm. The extremists and fundamentalists may not be able to impose their extremist and fundamentalist solutions, and a dangerous state of hatred that has been growing in recent years will not take root.
But, in any case, we need solutions, answers that should not only be of a material nature but also of a political nature. In this way, an inclusive and better Cuba can address the reasons for this cry of despair and loss of hope that, gathered force silently before July 11. Many of our compatriots had been raising those laments, but they were not heard. And from whose rains these muds came.
As a Cuban who lives in Cuba and works and believes in Cuba, I assume that it is my right to think and express my opinion about the country in which I live, work and where I believe. I know that in times like this and trying to express an opinion, it often happens that “You are always reactionary for someone and red for someone,” as Claudio Sánchez Albornoz once said. I also take that risk, as a man who strives to be free, who hopes to be freer.
In Mantilla, July 15, 2021.
Leonardo Padura
Leonardo de la Caridad Padura is an award-winning Cuban novelist and journalist. Padura's novel El hombre que amaba a los perros (The Man Who Loved Dogs) focuses on the murder of Leon Trotsky, who was a key strategist and leader of the successful 1917 Russian Revolution.
