Carlos Eire is an author and the T.L. Riggs professor of history and religious studies at Yale University.
Imagine yourself living in Cuba right now, with no steady supply of electricity, day after day. Never mind the gloom at night. The worst thing about this pre-industrial lifestyle is that without reliable refrigeration you can’t keep food from spoiling.
So, you spend lots of time scrounging for food, which is always in short supply, waiting in line for bits of meat that are often unavailable. If you do find some protein, you have no fuel or electricity with which to cook it. You might not have running water either. That, too, is available only intermittently and unpredictably.
But how can you scrounge for food and other necessities? Good luck finding transportation to take you where you need to go. Few buses. Few taxis. If you are among the lucky ones with access to a car, you’ll have to wait weeks to get just a few gallons of gasoline.
Worse, inflation and currency devaluations constantly eat away at the purchasing power of your meager income or pension.
Monstrous heaps of stinking trash clog the streets, except in the enclaves reserved for tourists or communist oligarchs and apparatchiks. Garbage trucks disappeared a while ago — including the 100 Hinos and Kyokutos donated by Japanin 2019. These are broken down and irreparable, save for the few reserved to cart away the refuse of tourists and elites.
Unsurprisingly, vermin and insects multiply, including swarms of mosquitoes that spread dengue and chikungunya fever.
Good luck, too, finding medications for these epidemics, or any other malady. There are few to be found. This is true of all medical supplies and equipment. Ambulances are as rare a sight as snowflakes. Then, a final indignity: No hearses for funerals. No coffins, either.
But one thing remains abundant: repression. Should you dare to complain about these ludicrous privations, or call for change to address them, you will be warned to shut up. If you refuse to heed that warning, you will end up in some prison. Be careful: There, the guards reward common criminals for abusing political prisoners.
Cuba’s 67-year-old dictatorship is dying, or so it seems from news reports and personal accounts of the millions who struggle to subsist beneath it. It is a victim of its own monumental failures, which have strangled the island’s economic development and driven nearly one-third of its people into exile.
Cuba has been a hellish place ever since its takeover in 1959 by the military junta that still rules today. But in the past few years, due mostly to the inane policies pursued by its communist leadership, it became a failed state, unable to feed its own people. It survives on life support provided by other nations and — ironically — by the 3 million Cubans in exile who send billions of dollars in remittances back to their families.
All is collapsing: infrastructure, agriculture, power plants, social and medical care, sanitation, transportation, schools, the tourism industry and everything else — with the exception of the machinery of repression. Sadly, as essential goods and services vanish, the one thing that Cuba’s inept government keeps in tip-top shape is its eagerness to stifle and punish dissent. It is this fiendishly effective repression that prevents the final disintegration of the callous communist junta that calls itself “the Revolution.”
You might ask yourself: What is next? Will Cuba’s dictatorship strike some kind of deal with President Donald Trump? What are the chances of positive changes?
Unfortunately, the prime directive of Cuba’s communist dictatorship remains what it has always been: Stay in power. Nothing else matters to them.
Consequently, the immediate future of Cuba cannot be predicted, because as Trump ramps up the pressure on Cuba’s leaders and speaks of ongoing negotiations with them, he keeps the details of all potential “deals” under wraps.
Trump’s intervention in Venezuela offers no clues. He seems to have chosen a cautious and gradual transition for that nation. But Cuba is in much worse shape than Venezuela, and it has no oil to fund the massive reconstruction that the island desperately needs.
What will happen if the people of Cuba, especially its youth, take to the streets to demand regime change, as Iranians did last month? Such a popular revolt is possible, you bet, but what would be the outcome? Would Cuban protesters be slaughtered by their dictatorship? Or could a massive, unprecedented display of discontent cause the dictators to flee the island?
What if, in other words, Cuba suddenly finds itself freed from its long nightmare?
We exiles, along with the brave Cuban dissidents on the island, have plans. Many plans. I affixed my signature to one such plan, which is linked to a petition drive, a few days ago. Naturally, our plans share common goals but are beautifully diverse, the exact opposite of the rigid ideology that enslaved our island. But reaching a consensus will be a challenge, for sure. Creating a genuine democracy will take time, and plenty of arguing and negotiating.
But first the nightmare must end. The gloom lift. The dawn arise.
As much as I and most other Cubans would love to see Cuba rebuilt and quickly transformed into a free, democratic, prosperous nation, this moment in history, right now, is full of uncertainty, too freighted with the potential for chaos, violence, disappointment.
This is not a time for optimism — not yet. I am keeping my optimism under lock and key. At least for now. But oh, how I itch to unlock it. The sooner, the sweeter.
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