Cuba / Cuban Affairs

I’ve been thinking about how we were domesticated… and how they could domesticate us again, Part V

                                                   Vulgarization

If someone were to say to a child from Spain or to an Argentine child, with all the possible enthusiasm, “Pioneers for Communism!”, the child would probably look back in confusion, not knowing what to say. But for every Cuban who grew up on the island, the response immediately comes to mind: “We will be like Che!”. They answer automatically.

According to Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Propaganda, in a totalitarian system propaganda must be popular—adapted to the level of the least intelligent among those it targets. Thus, the larger the mass to be persuaded, the smaller the mental effort required of them.

This is the principle of vulgarization—which doesn’t mean using coarse language, but rather language simplified to the extreme so that the “common people,” the “masses,” don’t have to think, only to feel and repeat.

Because the goal of a totalitarian system is to control, to manipulate—to make society function as an obedient mass where critical thinking does not exist. The phrases taught are repeated without much thought.

How is this achieved? Through simple, direct, emotional messages—easy to remember, constantly repeated, and always dividing the world into “them” (the bad ones) and “us” (the good ones).

The objective is to “save” people from the effort of thinking, unifying the masses into behavior that constantly props up the system.

 Hence the avalanche of slogans that cancel thought and reflection:

“Fatherland or Death!”

“We Shall Overcome!”

“Socialism or Death!”

“Until Victory, Always!”

“Cuba Yes, Yankees No!”

Hence this produces the avalanche of irrational activities: acts of repudiation, “reaffirmation of the revolution” signature campaigns, torch marches, endless parades, passionate speeches…

But these phrases and acts are not random. Behind them lies a message—a domestication of thought built on very specific keys:

The external enemy is always Yankee imperialism, which seeks to destroy our sovereignty according to those who have power and wish to protect “achievements of the Revolution.”

The internal enemy consists of dissidents, independent journalists, and human rights activists, who are portrayed as “mercenaries” in the service of a foreign power—traitors sold to the Empire, rather than citizens with legitimate opinions. Therefore, repression is not seen as injustice, but as an act of patriotic defense.

The cult of leadership is cultivated. Fidel Castro, Che, Raúl… are presented as flawless heroes; their images are everywhere, and their words are quoted as if sacred. National symbols—the flag, the anthem, the figure of José Martí—are merged with the ideology, so that to be patriotic automatically means to be “revolutionary.” National identity fuses with the ideology of the one-party state; thus, criticizing the government becomes an unpatriotic act. If you are not with the Revolution, you are not with the homeland.

In the end, the message is clear: we do not suffer because of our own mistakes, or because we chose a failed ideology, but because of the attacks of a powerful external enemy. This turns every hardship into an act of “heroic resistance,” and every internal criticism into an act of treason.

And so we have lived for decades—resisting a make believe enemy, in the midst of a miserable life that crushes us—without asking ourselves: “ why we must go on living this way?”, while shouting slogans, like the one below, at the top of our lungs: “We shall overcome, we shall overcome, we shall overcome!”