Matt the Traveler & Diaz-Canel: Postcards from Fraggle Rock
While millions of Cubans cope with constant blackouts and the lack of water, our designated president squanders resources on municipal tours.
By Yunior Garcia Aguilera (14ymedio)
HAVANA TIMES – The eternal news broadcasts on Cuban television highlighting Miguel Diaz-Canel’s visits to the Cuban towns inevitably bring to my mind “Fraggle Rock,” a children’s show with puppets that marked several generations of Cubans. I’m not thinking so much about the chorus of workers singing “Time to work, there’ll be time to rest!”, but of a ridiculously endearing character: Matt the traveler.
Uncle Matt journeyed through the “outside world” and sent back postcards to his nephew Gobo, telling of his astonishing “discoveries” – for example, that people put their feet into “rolling machines with rubber soles.” Sound familiar?
Diaz-Canel, in a tropical version of Matt, is also bombarding us with televised postcards from the outer reaches of the homeland. He solemnly informs us that in San German there’s a rabbit farm, or that in Baguanos two students are thinking about the future. The difference – and it’s not a minor detail – is that Matt knew he was a puppet.
In our real lives, while millions of Cubans are coping with blackouts that can last for more than 20 hours a day, and over 600,000 have no regular access to potable water, the designated president moves through the provinces in seven-car caravans, including bodyguards, cameras and a paid cheering squad. His declared mission? “to identify the difficulties in production and promote development.” In plain language: confirm that there are problems, without having any idea how to resolve them.
The “results” of each visit are usually some wall that’s repainted in a hurry, or a streetlight that magically appears before the caravan passes. But the President goes on: town after town, in a permanent propaganda campaign. Raul Castro, at least, was cheaper: he held his bashes in his office area, or in La Rinconada. Diaz-Canel, has opted instead for internal tourism with enormous coverage on the only nightly news program.
And how much does this traveling circus cost? The government, of course, doesn’t tell us. But here’s some good guesswork: between gas, lodging, food, bodyguards, technical assistants, HD cameras, slogan improvisors, and the always useful interpreters of the whisperings, each stop could cost around US $10,000 dollars. And since he’s now visited over 100 municipalities since 2024 – well, do the math.
The inevitable question arises: if the President has to go to every territory to resolve what the local governments should be managing, then what are those authorities there for? Don’t they trust them? Or, as we all know, are they simply decorative figures in this centralized tragi-comedy?
While he poses for the cameras, surrounded by country folks “with goosebumps” upon seeing for the first time a complexion that has never seen the sun, the real problems continue: blackouts, hunger, hospitals without inputs, and prices that rise more rapidly than the people’s eyebrows each time they hear the phrase “creative resistance.”
Meanwhile, the journey of our homegrown Matt continues, leaving televised proof that in Jobabo there’s a childcare center and in Moa a factory without raw materials. What will the next postcard bring? A bakery with bread?
The resources that vanish in these visits could well have been earmarked for repairing electric lines, guaranteeing potable water, or importing antibiotics. Instead, they’re spent on fuel, food, hotels and special effects. All for the photo, the hand on the shoulder of the underling… and the minute on television.
But when the caravan heads off and the lights are turned off, there’s always a confused soul who, without knowing well what to say, stands in front of the camera, looks at the reporter and exclaims with shrill excitement: “Long live Fraggle Rock!”
First published in Spanish by 14ymedio and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.
I’m Cuban. I came here when I was four years old. It’s a shame what they show. That’s what communism is thank God my parents teach me the difference
For a millenia, politicians have trafficked in propaganda as a substitute for real solutions. In defense of Diaz-Canel, the only solution left to Cuba’s problems is a wholesale change in government. At this point, Cuban leadership must be concerned for their safety in a post-Castro Cuba. Can you imagine what could happen when a democratically-elected Cuban government convenes a ‘reconciliation committee’ that would hold hearings about finding justice for all the Cuban dissidents who had been killed or imprisoned? That thought alone must have Diaz-Canel’s butt puckering. Raul won’t be around much longer so someone will be held accountable in his stead. So Diaz-Canel is left organizing these stupid propaganda tours. In the meantime, I would not be surprised if his wife is buying winter clothes to wear outside their future home in Moscow.