Repression, Fear and Silence in Cuba
HAVANA TIMES – I don’t usually get involved in political debates if I feel I don’t have the preparation or knowledge to offer valuable insights. I try to stay away from these controversies while Cubans on both shores hurl insults at each other through social media.
But everything has a limit, and I surpassed mine a long time ago. Cubans who are in the comfortable position of exile believe that those of us inside should take to the streets. For them, demanding only “electricity and food” is a mockery of freedom.
After more than six decades of control, scarcity, repression, and broken promises, the Cuban people have not brought about a definitive change. I agree that it’s time we rise up and face power once and for all—but the phenomenon is more complex.
I believe it’s not about a lack of courage, ignorance, or passivity as our brothers across the sea claim. Cubans have shown an admirable everyday resilience, but confronting a system that has spent decades perfecting the art of repression and social control is no easy task.
Since 1959, Cuba has implemented a model where fear is an institutional tool. There is fear of being imprisoned for dissenting, of losing one’s job, of being socially excluded, of having your children targeted, of being labeled a “counterrevolutionary.” Surveillance or chivatos (informers) are found in neighborhoods, schools, and state-run workplaces. Fear has embedded itself into the skin of every Cuban like an inherited tattoo.
For decades, access to diverse readings was restricted. The internet opened a crack, but the State regulates, censors, and shuts it down whenever it sees fit. Independent media are persecuted, and their journalists are harassed or exiled. Unfortunately, for some, the official version remains the only one they know or can safely repeat aloud.
Activism has become an act of resistance. In many countries, the right to protest, to free expression, and to political dissent is part of the democratic environment. Here, these actions are paid for with prison, constant surveillance, or forced exile. Despite everything, some persist.
Another important factor is exhaustion. Hunger, long lines, blackouts, lack of medicine, high prices with insufficient wages, repression, and more—the list is immense. Surviving in this prison requires so much energy that it leaves little room for political organization. When every day becomes a battle just to secure the basics, thinking about rebellion seems like an unreachable luxury.
Moreover, every time social pressure grows, the system opens its escape valve. We’ve already experienced several mass exoduses: Mariel in 1980, the balseros (rafters) in 1994, and the stampede to Nicaragua starting in 2021. This eases internal tension and reduces the critical mass of the discontented. The vast majority prefer to leave rather than risk everything in an unequal struggle.
However, something changed on July 11, 2021. That day, thousands of Cubans took to the streets across the country. There was no prior organization or visible leaders. As expected, the subsequent repression was brutal, but it showed that fear can crack. I feel that since that day, the spark has remained lit. Discontent continues to grow beneath the surface, even if it’s less visible.
The system still has the tools to paralyze, punish, and divide. The cost for those of us who remain is high, something those who had the opportunity to escape should understand. Those who, when they lived here, endured in silence, and now that they’ve jumped the wall and tasted “the Coca-Cola of forgetfulness,” feel emboldened.
I tend to side with those Cubans who are critical of the Cubans who remain on the island and offer no resistance to the Castro regime. At the same time, I also understand why Cubans on the island respond saying “…easy for you to say”. Sixty years ago Black folks in the US had no safety valves. We had to fight back. My 90 lb. mother chose to join Martin Luther King on the Freedom Rider buses in the US south because she did not want her two black boys growing up in the suffocating racism of the 1960s. However, something has got to give soon in Cuba. No food, no water and no electricity? Cubans can only take so much. Postscript: I almost want to vomit when I read comments here at HT who call the Cuban people resilient. Really? What does a non-resilient Cuban look like?
Poor people trapped in their own homes without food or money.
Survival or the madness of collective ignorance.
No one can live in 2025 with 3-4 hours of electricity and failing water systems.
I want to tell you, people of Cuba, Ciego di Avilla Pina Morron, that I admire your courage to survive in such conditions close to slavery, where women must sell themselves to feed their children.
I would like to save you all, but I was scammed by a Cuban woman who did everything to survive.
For me, it was only a little money, but for her, survival.
Good luck to everyone in getting out of Cuba for a better life…keep hope alive.
Jacques, Canadian Tourist in Cayo Coco, Cuba
Jan-Feb-Mar-Apr-May
May 29, 2025
I very much agree with the observations made by Fabiola. Just look at what is currently happening in the United States. Those Cubans whose parents left everything and heard first hand about the atrocities of the Castro regime are silent at what Donald Trump is doing to undermine the Constitution of the United States. He ridicules judges who oppose his whims and by scribbling his name on a paper feels that should be the final word. You commit a criminal act but give his crypto business or any other of his businesses a “donation” and you have earned a pardon. It seems inconceivable to me, that Marco Rubio, the child of Cubans, a well known face in the exile community can turn an eye to the obvious corruption and dismantling of democracy.
Greed, fear of reprisal and a lack of ethics are slowly eroding what was once a country where the persecuted looked at as a beacon of hope. I am Cuban born, and remember well the “gusanos” y “esbirros” terminology used to belittle our dislike for the Castro revolution. Funny thing, those same people are now “gusanos” themselves and members of the Republican party. They never learned their lesson. Anyone who attacks the media is actually afraid of having their deeds exposed. Fake news, he says, and they believe it. The only fake is he, who does not believe in anything but self agrandizement. Uses religion as a tool to get votes, and they believe him. Tapes that reveal the disparaging way he thinks of women, and they still voted for him.
I am just hoping that Cuba and its people can free themselves of the tyranny that has endured for 66 years. I look forward to the day that I can feel peace, knowing I live freely and proudly in the land of my birth. We can rebuild. Our ingenuity and creativity can make the island shine, not only by its innate beauty but by the beauty of its people. Let’s make it happen.