“I want to be free, it’s my right to have an opinion on the country in which I live”

It seems very possible that everything that has happened in Cuba since Sunday July 11 was encouraged by a greater or lesser number of opponents of the system, paid even some of them, with the intention of destabilize the country and cause a situation of chaos and insecurity. It is also true that later, as often happens in these events, opportunistic and regrettable acts of vandalism occurred.

But I think not one nor any other evidence removes an iota of reason To the cry that we heard A cry that is also the result of despair of a society that is going through not only a long economic crisis and a one-off health crisis, but also a crisis of confidence and a loss of expectations.

At this desperate request the Cuban authorities they shouldn’t respond with the usual slogans, repeated for years, and with the answers these authorities want to hear.

I refuse to believe that in my country there can be so many born and educated people among us who sell themselves or commit crimes. Because if it were, it would be the result of the society that fed them.

Leonardo of Padura

Not even with explanations, however convincing and necessary they may be. What is imposed are the solutions that many citizens expect or demand, some demonstrating in the street, others giving their opinion on social networks and expressing their disappointment or their disagreement, many counting the few devalued pesos who have in their impoverished pockets and many, many more, queuing in resigned silence for several hours in the sun or in the rain, including a pandemic, queues in markets to buy food, queues in pharmacies to buy drugs, queues to reach our daily bread and for everything imaginable and necessary.

I believe that no one with a minimum of sense of belonging, with a sense of sovereignty, with civic responsibility, can want (or even believe) that the solution to these problems comes from somewhere. foreign intervention, much less military, as some have come to ask, and which, it is also true, represents a threat which is still a possible scenario.

I also believe that any Cuban inside or outside the island knows that the blocking The US trade and financial embargo, whatever you call it, is real and it has internationalized and intensified in recent years and it is too heavy a burden on the Cuban economy (as it would be on any other economy. ).

Those who live off the island and today want help their loved ones in the midst of a critical situation, they were able to verify that the blockage exists and to what extent it exists by seeing unable to send a transfer to those close to them, to name just one situation that affects a lot of them. It is an old policy which moreover (sometimes some people forget it) practically everyone condemned for many years in successive United Nations Assemblies.

And I think no one can deny that one media campaign in which, even in the crudest manner, false information has been disseminated which, at the beginning and at the end, only serves to reduce the credibility of its leaders.

But I believe, with all of the above, that Cubans must regain hope and have a possible picture of your future. If hope is lost, the meaning of any humanist social project is lost. And hope is not taken back by force. It is saved and nourished by these solutions and the changes and social dialogues which, failing to happen, have caused, among many other devastating effects, the migratory anxieties of so many Cubans and now they have been chatting the cry of despair of people among whom there were surely paid people and opportunistic criminals, even though I refuse to believe that in my country, at this point, there can be so many people, so many people born and educated among us who are selling themselves or commit crimes. Because if it was, it would be the result of the society that fed them.

The street warning

The spontaneous way, without being linked to any direction, without receiving anything in return or stealing anything along the way, with which a notable number of people have also demonstrated in the streets and on the networks, must be advertising and I think this is an alarming example of the distances that have opened up between the main political spheres and the street (and even the Cuban leaders have recognized this as well).

And it is only in this way that we explain that what happened happened, no longer in a country almost everything is known when you want to know, as we all know too.

To convince and calm the desperate, the method cannot be the solutions of strength and darkness, like imposing the digital blackout which cut the communications of many for days, but which nevertheless did not hinder the connections of those who want to say something, for or against. Much less can be used as a convincing argument the violent response, especially against non-violent people. And we already know that violence can be not only physical.

If hope is lost, the meaning of any humanist social project is lost. And hope is not recovered by force.

Leonardo of Padura

Much seems to be at stake today. Maybe even if calm returns after the storm. Extremists and fundamentalists might not be able to impose their extremist and fundamentalist solutions, and a dangerous state of hatred that has grown in recent years is not taking hold.

But, in all cases, solutions must arrive, responses which must be not only of a material nature but also of a political nature, and therefore a Cuba inclusive and better able to witness the reasons for that cry of despair and the loss of hope that, in silence but with force, since before July 11, many of our compatriots had given these lamentations which were not heard and from the rains from which this sludge was born.