17M: Another Heroic Link in Cuba’s Liberation Process

Leer en Español

Liberation processes are never construed by a single event. They are typically composed of a long string of actions, often seemingly disconnected, yet all bonded together with an unplanned precision of targeted accuracy. This multidimensional activism has afforded many nations their liberty. At times, these events are constructed through many years of sacrifice, blood, and toil, by different people spanning many generations. That has been the case with Cuba. On Sunday, March 17, the feast day of Saint Patrick, the 5^th century British missionary who became bishop of Ireland and brought Christianity to the Emerald Isle, Cubans massively and with spontaneity, took to the streets to protest. In numerous localities, mostly, although not exclusively, in the eastern part of the island, the people of Cuba have, again, demanded freedom, an end to communism, and raised grievances over abject poverty conditions for the non-politically connected (most of the population).

Severe food and electricity scarcity did evoke expressions of outrage and indignation among the possibly thousands of protesters. Reports and videos of public manifestations of discontent were widespread in Bayamo, Granma, Holguín, El Cobre, Santa Marta, Los Mangos, Caimanera, Matanzas, Ciego de Ávila, as well as, Santiago, Cuba's second-largest city. Popular cries of “we are hungry” and “electricity and food” were constant throughout the demonstrations, as was “Patria y Vida”, the battle anthem of the epic July 11, 2021 (11J) nationwide protests. Equally present was the obvious culpability for everything, something the protesters reminded the world of. It is a sixty-five-year-old communist dictatorship.

In totalitarian regimes, like the one still in power in Cuba, the economic, the social, and the political, are solidly fused. There is no way of credibly compartmentalizing its parts. As one should expect, the Cuban model of total domination is no exception. This fact becomes an extra irritant to Cuban society when its leadership is transitioning its dictatorial paradigm to a socialist kleptocratic system, like Putinism. The people of Cuba are plainly conscious that the Castro-Communist “privatization” scheme is fraudulent by nature and design. The micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises' setup (“mypimes”), for example, are an invention to fool the U.S. government and legitimize theft and corruption among the nomenclature that does not partake in the bigger operations, such as GAESA and the other military-run mega businesses.

Ordinary Cubans are plainly aware that the regime-induced economic hardships are not shared equally. Cuban Marxist egalitarianism is strict about this. Socialist misery is for the people and state-sponsored concessionary capitalism is for the dictatorial rulers, their families, and economic accomplices. This contrasting phenomenon, which heightens social divisions, will only get worse as the communist oligarchy siphons more national wealth.

17M has been preceded by popular outbursts, both constantly and across the entire island. While they are not all the magnitude in numbers of 11J or 17M, they nonetheless reflect the undisputable fact that Cuban communism is in a serious decomposition mode. Its domestication capabilities are wearing out. Not even the true and tried exodus ploy drummed up by the Castro regime seems to be having its pacification effect. All these are evident signs that the book of Cuba’s liberation from communism is having its last chapters (or pages) written.

© The CubanAmerican Voice. All rights reserved.