HAVANA CUBA.- Four days before the unpopular ruler Miguel Díaz-Canel visited a polyclinic on the outskirts of Havana, a worker says, they painted the edges of the sidewalk with lime, at the entrance of the medical center they placed little Cuban flags of paper and Lunch is given white rice, pea stew and a chicken thigh.
In advance, municipal officials from the communist party, public health ministry and union warned staff to contain their complaints when Díaz-Canel arrived. “Due to the blockade (United States embargo on the Caribbean military dictatorship) we are suffering from the current economic crisis in our economy and we have a fuel deficit. Yankee imperialism and its henchmen pursue every financial transaction and every oil ship we manage. The country is experiencing a scenario of asymmetric war,” a guy from the sector union told them, who, like the rest of the unions and the labor union, are affiliated with the regime.
These stagings have become a routine in the political propaganda strategy used by the anachronistic olive green autocracy. Before a ministerial visit, they give a coat of paint to the façade and sites of the organization that visitors will visit, they post photos of Fidel and Raúl Castro, also of Díaz-Canel, and they mobilize government supporters who, together with the bodyguards, and technocrats of the communist party, form a security ring to try to ensure that the visit does not tarnish the president’s ‘mass bath’ with an ‘inappropriate request’.
“When Díaz-Canel visited the polyclinic, the workers were more than fifteen meters away. The impression the president gave me is that of an actor playing his role in a movie. The entire setup is artificial, surreal. It is noticeable that he does not walk much or get much sun, because on the tours that he takes weekly through the provinces, as soon as he gets out of the car or the helicopter, he immediately begins to sweat and gets cold. colorao. It’s just that he is used to air conditioning in his office and in his residence. It seems that he eats well, especially meat, fish and seafood, because he is potbellied and plump,” comments an employee of the polyclinic.
Another employee remembers that once the speech was over, “which is the same as always, asking for creative resistance, applause and shouts of cheers for the revolution began from numerous men and women who I don’t know where they brought them from. In half an hour, Díaz- Canel toured previously chosen places in the polyclinic, all freshly painted and cleaned with air freshener. With his hoarse voice he asked two or three questions and left accompanied by a caravan of vans and air-conditioned cars, I don’t know if to have lunch or to perform the same staging. somewhere else. Then the report appears on the television news, pretending that things in Cuba are going wonderfully, although the economy is getting worse and worse. But in the sale of smoke we have number one”.
The ideological operators of the Island are experts in disguising reality. A state cameraman explains that “when a political event is held, DOR (Department of Revolutionary Orientation) officials and State Security officials suggest the shots you should film and if you go to the bathroom they accompany you. At the end they review the recording and choose the images that will appear on television. For example, in the last May Day parade in the Anti-Imperialist Tribune, five times smaller than the Plaza de la Revolución, open shots could not be made, so that the viewer would not see that the participation was much lower than the figures given. by the authorities. When Raúl, Machado Ventura, Ramiro Valdés or another of the ruling elders participate, the censors take care that their faces are not shown up close, so that their aging is not noticeable or they do not come out bored, yawning or with their eyes closed.”
In the real Cuba, not in the fictitious one designed by the regime, popular discontent is notorious and the population’s criticism of the terrible administration is forceful. Silvio, a barber, confesses that he feels exhausted from so many teeth. “I can’t stand one more lie. The government should get away with the millions it has stolen and let us Cubans rebuild the country. With Díaz-Canel nothing works. There is no food, there is no gasoline, there is no water, there is no medicine. .. And right now in Havana every day they cut off our electricity for 5 to 8 hours. Outside the capital the blackouts are 18 and 20 hours a day. What they have with the people is an abuse.”
Idania, a retired teacher, advises against watching the distortion of reality transmitted by television, which has become a means of propaganda. “For mental hygiene, it is best to disconnect with foreign films and serials. The thing is that in Cuba every week we have a new lack. For six months they have not distributed the packages of chicken that they sold in the markets. Now MSMEs, many managed by government front men, sell the same chicken purchased in the United States for 3,700 pesos per four-kilogram package. Ten times more expensive than six months ago. “Evidently they want to starve us.”
Carlos, a university student, believes that “because of the government’s inability to run the country, Cubans have lost their smile and joviality. People walk through the streets like zombies, without looking up. In the last five years, numerous families have begun to live in extreme poverty. “If urgent changes do not come, in ten years the population could be reduced by 40 percent due to aging and diseases caused by malnutrition.”
The majority of citizens in Cuba recognize that the communist model does not work. And they wonder when Castroism will stop its social experiment.
