14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Generation Y, Havana, 13 December 2023 — There was a time when official stories were better constructed or perhaps we were more gullible. In those years, they painted dangers that were really scary, bad guys that were truly fearful, and attacks that made everyone’s hair stand on end. Perhaps it was our naivety as a people combined with the information monopoly enjoyed by the Communist Party at the time, but it was enough for us to be told that “the enemy” was planning to poison the cisterns of day care centers and schools for us all to stop, for a few days, drinking even one drop of water at school.
Of those skillful narrators and our innocence not even a memory remains. For this end of the year, Cuban Television has launched itself to create the umpteenth story that, from the Cuban exile, sabotage is being prepared, weapons are being prepared and landings are planned. The example given is laughable. A lone man, who supposedly arrived on the island on a jet ski, armed with three pistols and a few bullets. Faced with such a description, one cannot help but remember when, in the stories of yesteryear, the villain really instilled fear and not pity.
For this end of the year, Cuban Television has launched itself to create the umpteenth story that, from the Cuban exile, sabotage is being prepared, weapons are being prepared and landings are planned
It is no coincidence, either, that every time the economic crisis escalates and popular indignation grows, these reports appear with all the traces of following a script to scare Cubans and thus prevent us from showing our discontent, taking to the streets or join a general strike. The theatricality of the scripts created with this objective abandoned realism long ago and has entered the realm of the fantastic, appealing to increasingly bizarre individuals, plans and devices.
The most recent delusions of persecution and invasion that official propagandists have spread show a very high level of desperation. They have lost any hint of objectivity, if they ever had it, to end up in the absolutely grotesque. Thus, with these caricatures of alleged evildoers and attacks, no one believes anything.
A piece of advice for bad writers of so many serials: perhaps training with Marvel or Netflix would give them more credible results.
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
