Poverty is everywhere, along with fanatical sectarianism, from which sexual preferences does not escape
14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, 1 September 2024 — Castro’s totalitarianism is immersed in a process of self-demolition regardless of acts against its opponents. The social crisis is very profound, consistent with the ocean of lies and myths on which he built his abusive fiction.
The population’s knowledge of the reality weakens social control and increases the lack of trust in the authorities. People are realizing that they have been deceived and manipulated, which does not satisfy anyone.
For decades, the vast majority of Cubans have suffered political repression; more than half a million citizens have passed through prison with sentences of between one day and 30 years. Thousands of people have been executed by firing squad.
The misery has kept its distance only from the elites. Poverty is everywhere, with the addition of a fanatical sectarianism, from which sexual preferences did not escape.
People are realizing that they have been deceived and manipulated, a reality that does not satisfy anyone
However, the regime, through surveillance and repression, hid everything that could damage the image of peace and tranquility that it sought to present to both Cubans and foreigners, including the social problems.
They did it so well that a popular song in which “Lola” was murdered at three in the afternoon, an atrocious femicide I would say today, disappeared from the radio waves, as did the red chronicles of the press media.
It was shocking: the media stopped reporting on weddings, baptisms and parties, in addition to murders and street fights, as if the endangered social class was responsible for the mess. Even more, rumors — “las bolas” [the balls] as we called them — were extinguished because they were misinformation, and with that accusation you could end up in prison.
Unfortunately, there was no lack of subjects who believed the stories, since they collaborated in the gestation and development of a complicit silence that hid political abuses and social injustices.
The Castros, by decree, made the public believe that in their paradise there was no domestic violence, no robberies and, even less so, murders, except those that the rulers themselves committed by executing thousands of their citizens for conspiring against them.
Even more, rumors, “las bolas” [the balls] as we called them, were extinguished because they were disinformation, and with that accusation you could end up in prison
It is true that violence in any of its expressions is present in every society. However, in Cuba, as part of the great farce that has been the totalitarian dictatorship, only the most immediate neighbors of the tragedy know the facts.
However, the exaggerated control that the totalitarian system imposed on everything related to information during the last 65 years is breaking at the political and social level, a result that will undoubtedly negatively affect its survival.
The Castro slogan of “Homeland or Death,” as the writer Jose Antonio Albertini points out, was useful for the narrative of a threatened homeland, but the supporters of totalitarianism realize that they no longer have a homeland and that only the dead and the prisoners remain.
The breaking of silence is not the will of the autocrats, but thanks to a new generation of journalists, very different from many of their peers in the early days of totalitarianism, who were silent out of fear or simply believed in the proposals of the false redeemer, the silence has been broken.
It is important and fair to recognize the risks run by those who strive to report from behind the walls of Castroism. They have chosen a difficult path, full of danger, in which the only sure compensation is jail and the satisfaction of fulfilling a duty.
It is an indisputable truth that social tension throughout the country is increasing
If political censorship was effective, social censorship has been even more so. I remember that the press, from time to time, reported a shooting or the capture of a group opposed to the dictatorship. On the other hand, it never reported a murder.
It is an indisputable truth that social tension throughout the country is increasing. Disagreements between neighbors sometimes can end in murder, and, as if that were not enough, social insecurity and a lack of police protection have encouraged robberies with homicides, as happened recently in the town of Ceballos, in Ciego de Ávila.
Social disintegration in Cuba affects everybody and is the sole responsibility of present and past authorities. The Island is an erupting volcano, and, hopefully, the explosion will be political and not social.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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