The dignity of the "revolutionaries"

August 21, 2022

These days you see a lot of comments on social networks from people related to the Cuban regime saying that they do not have "this" (generally something material) or that, but they do have dignity.

Let's see, let's start with the first. What is dignity?

According to the Oxford dictionary, dignity "is the quality of one who asserts himself as a person, behaves responsibly, seriously and with respect towards himself and others and does not allow himself to be humiliated or degraded".

Well, it seems that the "revolutionaries" are not very clear about the concept, from what I see. But let's go in parts.

"It is the quality of the one who asserts himself as a person." What Cuban who defends the system asserts himself as a person? If the salary does not give you a minimum living, if the current is taken from you for several hours a day (and at night), if there is no market where you can find a variety of food -and without queuing-, if you cannot go to a hotel or a restaurant in your own country (because it costs the salary of 6 months, or more), if from one day to the next they change the monetary exchange rate and take away 75% of your purchasing power, if the day you retire You won't even have a place to drop dead... what are you doing defending those people, my partner? It's like a woman whose husband has beaten her up 200 times but she keeps saying he's going to do it right next time. And of course, defending her abuser will cost her her life.

But let's continue, "he behaves responsibly, seriously and with respect towards himself and towards others". What responsibility can there be in someone who, seeing that his life has been defended by a system that has only bankrupted his country economically, still continues to defend the party in power? How serious can there be in people who live off what they Their relative "from outside" sends them, they continue to shout empty slogans and worship those guilty of the fact that this son, cousin or aunt lives far from his family and the land where he was born? What self-respect can people have who in the 80s threw stones and eggs at people who just wanted to live a better life and then join the government in supporting direct foreign investment of those exiles?

None, of course.

After all these years they continue to believe the "tale of the good pipe", shouting in marches and acts of repudiation, and vociferating on social networks. In short, allowing their "bosses" to humiliate and degrade them.

But why -after so many hardships and "rectifications that do not rectify anything"-revolutionaries continue to be revolutionaries? Are they blind and brainless people unable to see the reality around them? It is more complex than that.

Man is an animal of habit, and unlearning the bad habits sown by this sinister system is not easy, especially for those who already have gray hair.

It is true that many of the people who still defend "that" do so only because they materially benefit from it. We can include there (although always with their exceptions) leaders, police, military, secret police agents, cyber-soldiers, etc. But that group does not even represent 30% of all the people who still believe in the “revolutionary process”. Cuba is full of old people, retirees, and ordinary people in general, who still believe that the "revolution" must be defended, a people convalescing from Stockholm Syndrome that, although they do not see the light at the end of the tunnel, continue to defend "the same with what same".

And that is, in my opinion, the neutron that is needed to reach critical mass, the counterweight that changes the shape of the balance of power.

They are mostly decent people, who have worked hard all their lives and have never seen any fruit. Cubans who were deceived by the altruistic speeches and the constant slogans. People whose pride does not allow them to admit that they were wrong.

And it is that the "revolution" has its days numbered. That generation will disappear, naturally, and it will be survived by another very damaged one, yes, but that has nothing to do with the old guard and its unproductive drool. History will call them "the deceived generation," and will blame them for not having done anything to have a better country, for not having stopped the systematic destruction to which the dictatorship has subjected every Cuban infrastructure or industry, and for having allowed the country has a gigantic debt (which has only filled the corrupt pockets of those obese guayaberas) and an unsustainable trade balance.

Today Cuba is bleeding generationally. Their young people leave behind a defenseless town, full of hardships, and at the mercy of a ruthless dictatorship capable of anything to maintain its power. Day by day we see Cubans ringing their cauldrons and marching peacefully in the darkness of their streets, asking for freedom and a better life, without so many deficiencies.

And what has been the response of power? Well, the same as always: repress, hit, imprison. The government has zero disposition to dialogue with its people. They know that they cannot do it, listening to the people would mean having to publicly acknowledge that they are inept, good for nothing, that the only thing they know how to do well is destroy and repress the freedoms of each person who wants a better life.

And it is that Cubans just want to LIVE: rest at night, work and earn their money with dignity, be able to buy their food in a market, have a beer in the afternoon, and buy a toy or a chocolate for their children (all luxuries in the Today's Cuba). Politicizing that natural desire for happiness is utter vileness. Criminalizing this is simply inhumane.

That phrase of the Master now comes to mind: “Being good is the only way to be happy. Being educated is the only way to be free. But, in common with human nature, one needs to be prosperous to be good." Always with so much light our Martí.

And it is that in that same article ("Itinerant Teachers") our Apostle makes it very clear when he says: "Men must live in the peaceful, natural and inevitable enjoyment of Freedom, as they live in the enjoyment of the air and the light."

We are a people chained and subjugated by the proxies of the oldest Caribbean branch of international totalitarianism. Sixty-three long years have passed since a man decided to take over our destinies. Entire generations of Cubans have died hoping to see positive change and have only seen destruction and family separation. This long kidnapping has to end.

But when? When will our agony end? When will we be rid of this curse? Well, that moment is getting closer.

At this moment the dictatorship is torn between spending the money to buy oil for the thermoelectric plants or to finance the rapid response groups. At the moment the latter are cheaper, but if each town decides to go out and claim their rights, things will be different. There is no patrol for so many people.

That is why we are seeing again (as in the days after 9/11) the government arming its followers with sticks, stones, and of course, guns. The power leadership does not want to stain its "international reputation" by showing its army attacking an unarmed people, they prefer to show it as a confrontation between opponents and supporters.

Well, the most important moment in the life of those "worthy revolutionaries" of whom I spoke before is approaching. They will have to choose between beating up their neighbor, his brother, his grandson; or get on the right side of history and march together with their families so that once and for all the hell of life that has been imposed on all Cubans ends. They will have to choose between the vain pride that the dictatorship has planted in them with its propaganda and its political-ideological work, or the brotherly love that made so many men give their lives for the freedom of their people in the independence wars of the 19th century.

It will not be easy, the damage is great and very deep, but if our nation has to reemerge from something, it is from the love that each Cuban feels for his family, for his Cuban brothers, and for freedom. Marti's legacy awaits there for good Cubans -after having suffered the longest dictatorship in the West- to assume it as the star to which to tie their car, and build the nation that we all want "with EVERYONE and for the good of EVERYBODY".

It's time.