When Silence Is No Longer an Option

By Fabiana del Valle

HAVANA TIMES – For decades, resignation has been a way to survive in Cuba. Like it or not, we get used to the lack of food, electricity, basic services, freedoms and most importantly, dignity. Over time, this has become our norm – somewhere between stoicism and dark humor. But even stones erode under constant water drips, and this appears to be the latest drop – or at least one more – in opening that fissure.

With the new ETECSA prices for internet access, the government has touched a sensitive nerve. We’re speaking of something beyond just a price hike – it’s a massive aggression, an act of control, forced disconnection, a punishment disguised as business policy, another constant reminder that there are no rights here, only temporary concessions.

For the first time in decades, the average Cuban found in internet access a crack in the wall, a breath of freedom and a voice of their own. We began to spin illusions about having some small quota of autonomy. Having access to the internet is useful, and hopeful. It allowed us to study, work, find out what was happening both within and outside the island; express opinions, denounce abuses, reconnect with relatives and friends far away. But above all, it allowed us not to feel so alone.

Now the government is using its telecommunications monopoly to seal up that crack with cement composed of cynicism and institutional abuse. It has decided to cut off that breath of air by charging in US dollars [for internet access], in a country where the population earns worthless Cuban pesos. They are targeting families outside the country as a source of income. It’s blackmail in every sense of the word: if you want to see your mother; if you want your daughter to study; if you want to remain half-sane amid this chaos – pay up!

There’s no sweetening this abuse. This time, the blow has hit everyone the same; this time, there’s no trick or escape hatch – no matter what your ideology, your band, your survival strategies, it’s touched you. And when the injustice is general, the awareness can be general as well.

Many are asking themselves why the cry is being raised now – for the internet, rather than for the missing bread, the blackouts, the miserable salaries, the dismantled hospitals. The answer is simple – it’s the drop that overflowed the cup. Digital access isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity in the modern world. They’ve taken so much away, and now they want rob us of our words. In the face of this, the body reacts, even if it be from the depths of fear.

Cuba has reached a silent breaking point. And I say silent because there aren’t yet crowds in the street. But in the chats, on the Facebook walls, in the whisperings across the neighborhoods, the tiredness can no longer be covered up. It’s not a question of ideologies and glorious pasts, it’s about a present so unendurable that fear no longer reaches far enough to silence everyone.

The jails are full of young people who asked for a better nation. Despite that, the desire to connect, to think for oneself, to look outside and know that there’s something more, continues to palpate.

An influencer from the diaspora has said in a video that the Cuban university students are “crying like children” for the wrong reasons. Except there are no wrong reasons. To raise a cry – be it for the high prices in ETECSA, the lack of medicine, the blackouts or the food for children – is to cry out, period. It’s a way of moving the wall that separates us from freedom, from the decent life we deserve.

All those who are criticizing haven’t seen the magnitude of the problem. They don’t understand that if Cuba is screaming now, it’s because they’ve taken nearly everything away, but they haven’t managed to stamp out the need for a future. There’s no more time left for a disguise or for justifications.

No government can stay afloat on the wreckage of its own people, no matter how much it tries. When an entire country lifts its voice in unison, maybe, just maybe, it’s beginning to say something that no one will be able to silence later.

Read more from the diary of Fabiana del Valle here on Havana Times.