The putrefaction of Castroism

By: Pedro Corzo - 03/09/2024

Guest columnist.
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Castro's totalitarianism is immersed in a process of self-destruction, regardless of the actions against its opponents. The social crisis it faces is very deep, consistent with the ocean of lies and myths on which it built its abusive fiction.

The public's awareness of the reality weakens social control and increases the population's lack of confidence in the authorities. People are realizing that they have been deceived and manipulated, a reality that satisfies no one.

For decades, the vast majority of Cubans have suffered political repression to some degree; more than half a million citizens have spent between one day and 30 years in prison. Thousands of families have had people shot in their midst.

Misery has only kept a distance from the elites. Poverty is everywhere, with the added bonus of fanatical sectarianism, from which sexual preferences were not exempt. However, the regime, through surveillance and repression, hid everything that could damage the image of peace and tranquility that it sought to present to both Cubans and foreigners, including social problems.

They did it so well that a popular song in which “Lola” was murdered at three in the afternoon, an atrocious femicide I would say today, disappeared from the radio waves, as did the crime stories in the press. It was shocking, the media stopped reporting on weddings, baptisms and parties, as well as murders and street fights, as if the dying social class was responsible for these outrages. What's more, the rumors, the “rumors,” as we said, died out because it was misinformation and with that accusation you ended up in jail.

Unfortunately, there was no shortage of people who believed the story, since they collaborated in the conception and development of a complicit silence that concealed political abuses and social injustices. The Castros, by decree, made everyone believe that in their paradise there was no domestic violence, robbery and even less murder, except for those that the rulers themselves committed by executing thousands of their citizens for conspiring against them.

It is true that violence in any form is present in every society. However, in Cuba, as part of the great farce that has been the totalitarian dictatorship, only the closest neighbors of the scene of the events knew about the tragedy. However, the exaggerated control that the totalitarian system imposed on everything related to information during these last 65 years is breaking down on the political and social level, a result that will undoubtedly negatively affect its survival.

The Castro slogan of Homeland or Death, as the writer Jose Antonio Albertini points out, was useful for the narrative of a threatened homeland, but the supporters of totalitarianism appreciate that they no longer have a Homeland and only the dead and the prisoners remain. The breaking of the silence is not the will of the autocrats, but thanks to a new generation of journalists who have not done what many of their peers from the early days of totalitarianism did, who remained silent out of fear, or simply believed in the proposals of the false redeemer.

It is important and fair to recognize the risks run by those who strive to report from behind the walls of Castroism. They have chosen a difficult path, full of dangers, in which the only sure reward is prison and the satisfaction of a duty fulfilled.

If political censorship was effective, social censorship was even more so. I remember that the press occasionally reported on a shooting or the capture of a group opposed to the dictatorship, but never did they report on a murder.

It is an indisputable truth that social tension is increasing throughout the country. Disagreements between neighbors sometimes end in murders, and as if that were not enough, social insecurity and the lack of police protection have encouraged robberies with homicides, as recently occurred in the town of Ceballos, Ciego de Ávila.

Social disintegration in Cuba affects all levels and is the exclusive responsibility of current and past authorities. The island is a volcano in eruption, and hopefully the explosion will be political and not social.

«The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author».