Neither Meek nor Apolitical, Cubans of Generation Z
at the forefront of discontent on the island
The clash between these young people and those in power is inevitable and is getting closer every day.
HAVANA TIMES – For several years now, they have positioned themselves at the center of popular protest and rebellion in Cuba. Born between the mid-1990s and 2010, they are known as Generation Z and are overthrowing authoritarian regimes, forcing openings, and filling the streets with their demands in countries as diverse as Nepal, Madagascar, Morocco, and Peru. On the island, they are currently leading the discontent, aware that the current political and economic model leaves them only two paths: emigration or perpetual crisis.
When pediatrician Erlis Sierra outlined the serious problems facing the residents of Baire, in Santiago de Cuba, last Friday, many were surprised by the combination of youth and consistency he displayed during that meeting with government officials. Digital natives, despite Cuba’s technological backwardness and the late adoption of the internet by its population, Cubans like this young doctor have grown up with a wealth of information and international political debate far removed from the monopoly that has prevailed in the country for decades.
Derided as indifferent, meek, and apolitical, Cuban zoomers have nonetheless taken the lead in the cacerolazos [pot-banging] that is shaking communities and the denunciations on social media. With a nimble thumb that glides across screens, a mind that works with TikTok, and technology intertwined with DNA, these youngsters are holding in check a power that, despite the proclaimed generational renewal, still has an outdated mentality, stuck in the mid-20th century.
They are also the ones who have suffered the most in terms of the quality of the Cuban education system and public health system. Since entering a classroom, Sierra has only known a shortage of teachers, a lack of supplies, high levels of indoctrination, and a rigid teaching system that contrasts with the increasingly high professional standards of today’s world. Without prospects and less well-educated than their parents, Cubans under 30 have not benefited from any of the so-called “achievements of the Revolution.”
As a result, many have had to manage their own knowledge acquisition, relying on their families’ tenacity and their families’ pockets to complete a university degree or learn another language. Anna Sofía Benítez, the young woman who recently described the island’s everyday situation with realism and grace on her Facebook page, is also one of those zoomers for whom a printed book has become a luxury few students can afford, but the vastness of the internet has granted them, just a click away, millions of digital copies.
Benítez and Sierra belong to a generation that hasn’t fared well in terms of the housing crisis either. Most of them live under the same roof as their parents and grandparents, lack the resources to even consider renting something out of their own pockets, making one of the main reasons for emigrating is to have a roof over their heads where they don’t share a bathroom or bedroom with their siblings and nieces and nephews. They have lived a good part of their lives in a country where the buying and selling of houses was only authorized in 2011, but dreaming of buying a space sounds to them like something for the nouveau riche and micro-entrepreneurs.
They are also poorer than their parents were at that age, have eaten worse, struggled more with public transportation, seen the Cuban peso descend into the abyss, received worse dental care, and lived in dirtier, more run-down, and culturally dull cities. They know that when they reach retirement age, if the current regime continues, they will very likely live more miserably than their grandparents.
Last may, when the telecommunications monopoly Etecsa announced the tarifazo, a massive rate hike, it was Generation Z that became embroiled in a bitter dispute with the state-owned company. From university classrooms, in WhatsApp groups, and with their Instagram posts, they made an entity — that believed it had a free pass to squeeze Cubans and, in return, provide them with terrible and overpriced service — sweat. To silence them, the offices of the Ministry of Communications had to rush to create navigation packages designed for university students, which have brought more dissatisfaction than results.
It is repeated everywhere that these zoomers aren’t interested in freedom, that individual independence isn’t among their priorities, and that they pay more attention to the virtual world than to what’s happening around them. But Cubans are shattering that broadly worded portrayal. They’re the ones shouting the loudest “We’re not afraid!” when blackouts spread, the heat intensifies, and the lack of food drives residents into the streets of Havana and Contramaestre.
They’ve said goodbye to so many friends who crossed the Darién jungle as children, left through the US Humanitarian Parole Program, or made the trek south, that these Cubans have ended up living an existence divided between inside and outside. Many live with their grandparents because their parents became cubañoles, crossing the southern US border, and are now waiting to regularize their immigration status with an I-220A document. They’ve spent their adolescence seeing their mothers only through videoconferences and listening in on those conversations, from a distance, with the constantly repeated acronyms, like ICE or USCIS.
The chasm that separates their virtual, cosmopolitan, and diverse lives and the lack of freedoms they live under in Cuba has fueled their rebellion. The gap between their aspirations and what they can achieve in their own country is the main fuel for their insubordination. The clash between these Generation Z Cubans and those in power is inevitable and grows closer every day. We must all contribute to ensuring that this struggle is not won again by a stagnant and senile regime.
Translated by Translating Cuba.