What is Happening to Cubans? The Deadly Price of Disunity

Breaking the communist siege will not be possible with hatred between brothers.

Our strength is wasted trying to find the speck in someone else’s eye. / Social Media

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Jorge L. Léon, Houston, 17 October 2025 — It is our disgrace. Máximo Gómez, the Generalissimo, coined it in his famous phrase: “Cubans either never arrive or they go too far.” And it is true. In this long stretch of our history, we have never arrived on time.

Yesterday, José Martí was accused; today, insidious plots are launched against José Daniel Ferrer. What is happening to us? What mysterious inclination prevents us from uniting forces? Why, instead of supporting those who fight, do we always seek those who fall? Why do envy, suspicion, and gossip become more powerful tools than love of country?

History shows that intrigue has never led to freedom. Tyranny survives — and grows stronger — because we Cubans have not learned to unite. For more than six decades, this regime has survived by feeding off our divisions, our slander, and that sad obsession with looking for traitors around every corner.

If just one time we raised a single voice, if all our arms were raised in a single gesture, no wall would resist the thrust of the Cuban people. But our strength is wasted trying to find the speck in someone else’s eye. If anyone suspects a traitor, let them present proof. If they don’t have it, let them remain silent, because dishonoring a patriot—one who has suffered imprisonment, exile, and beatings—is an undignified act that only benefits the executioner.

But more terrible than poverty is the moral fracture, that habit of degrading one another.

I will never give in to intrigue. I will not listen to those who denigrated Martí yesterday and who denigrate José Daniel Ferrer today. Intrigue does not take sides; intrigue is treason.

Today the nation is bleeding. The prisons are full, hunger is suffocating, and hopelessness is multiplying. But more terrible than poverty is the moral fracture, this habit of degrading one another, of serving the enemy with rumors, with suspicion, with cowardice disguised as criticism.

Either we rise up now — all together — or we will die in the extreme misery imposed by this sick ideology of communism. Enough of the intrigues and the schemers. The sacred task of this hour is to rise up with one fist.

If someone works for the enemy and there iss evidence, report it. If there is no evidence, let your conscience be your guide. Because if we don’t unite, this breed of criminals will wipe out an entire people.

History does not forgive the tiid or the disunited. It is now up to us to rebuild the nation from the depths, to unite the campesino, the worker, the intellectual, the exile, and those who resist within. Breaking the communist siege will not be possible with hatred among brothers, but with the moral strength of a people who have decided to live free or die standing. As José Martí wrote: “When there is division among the good, the wicked triumph.”

____________

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.