Cuba / Cuban Affairs

I’ve been thinking about stating the obvious.

I like to contribute, to suggest new paths, to share fresh ideas. But today, I can’t.

After so many days literally immersed in darkness, I need to cry out—even if only to repeat what everyone already knows, longs for, and is saying.

To those who hold power over this country: please, have at least a minimum of decency and dignity. Show even the smallest measure of empathy for the pain and suffering of this people. Leave. All of you. Leave this country forever, and never come back.

Sometimes I think those who govern us suffer from the same delusion as the ancient Roman Caesars, who, after remaining in power for so long, came to believe they were indispensable—that the empire would collapse without them. They saw themselves not merely as necessary, but as irreplaceable. The very thought of returning power to the people filled them with visions of chaos and catastrophe.

And perhaps there would be some chaos if you left today. But it would be the kind of chaos that comes before order. I am convinced that we can rebuild this country without you. In fact, the only way this nation can function and prosper is if you leave—once and for all.

We are living like primitive beings, as though we had been cast back into a prehistoric age. We struggle to survive without electricity in a society that depends on electricity for every aspect of daily life—and you are not going to solve this crisis.

Every day we fight desperately for food, for medicine, for a little fuel, for the most basic income needed to survive. Yet none of this seems to matter to you, and you have no intention of fixing it. We cook with charcoal. We go to hospitals with no supplies, banks with no money, and schools with no teachers. None of these tragedies appears to be a priority for you.

You have pushed us to the breaking point. We have run out of new ways to tell you so. But you do not listen, because you simply do not care about us. That is why you fail to understand that the so-called “Revolution” has not only failed—it is over. This is the end. And we will not stop until this country is forever free from the darkness and misery you have imposed upon it.

You may repress us again and again. You may fill the streets with soldiers. You may empty the prisons of common criminals and fill them instead with peaceful protesters. You may threaten us all, censor social media, and shut down the Internet to prevent us from communicating.

None of it will work.

The Cuban people know they have nothing left to expect from you. We know that the only path remaining is to demand our right to freedom—or to die of hunger. And dying is not an option.

We do not want reforms. We do not want a “more sustainable socialism.” We do not want a revised version of Marxist ideology. We do not want you to try to pacify us by giving us a little more electricity, a little more water, or a little more food.

We want this nightmare to end.

We want to live in the freedom we deserve. 

We want to live with the dignity that belongs in the twenty-first century.

And we want you to leave—forever.