Summer is Approaching Cubans Discontent is Growing
As the temperature rises, many Cuban families feel they have nothing left to lose because they have hit rock bottom.
HAVANA TIMES – Summer has always been the most feared season of the year for Cuban authorities. In addition to the high temperatures that on the island begin in spring, there are the unpopular power outages and school holidays that strain domestic life. This year, the situation is especially complicated due to the fragility of the national energy system and the fuel shortage, which has extended blackouts to more than 15 hours a day in many parts of the country. July and August are approaching, and people’s anger is growing.
In recent days, street protests have been reported in Bayamo, Granma, and Santiago de Cuba. In images shared on social media, dozens of people can be heard shouting a direct demand: “We want electricity, we want food.” Engulfed in darkness, some banging pots and pans and others using only their throats, the protesters are merely the vanguard of a popular uprising that some feel is just around the corner. That perception that people are going to take to the streets appears every summer, but this one is different. Many families feel they no longer have anything to lose because they have hit rock bottom.
“They’re not asking for freedom,” criticized many internet users, mostly Cubans living abroad, upon seeing footage of the protests. While the demands for an end to the blackout and for some food to reach the rationed market seem very basic from the outside, inside the country they take on a profound political character. In a nation where all thermoelectric plants, oil imports, and the electricity service that reaches every home are in the hands of a state that monopolizes the energy sector, demanding the restoration of power seems extremely daring.
This same state structure manages the supply of food to the ration stores, handles the international market purchases of products sold in the basic family basket, and is at the forefront of most economic decisions that result in more or less foreign currency to purchase everything from rice to eggs. Any vocal public demand for improving services and the amount of food that reaches homes is taken by the regime as a challenge. A government that doesn’t tolerate the slightest criticism sees such requests as a gesture of rebellion that it cannot allow.
As temperatures rise and the darkness of power outages spreads across Cuba, the police force is preparing to confront the summer protests. The memory of the social explosion of 11 July 2021, is still very fresh in the minds of the regime, and state institutions have already warned their employees that they must take to the streets to “defend the Revolution.” This is the same repressive strategy deployed around this time every year, and it is marked this time by greater nervousness among the political police in the face of a possible popular uprising.
On one side are the military, the police, and a well-oiled propaganda machine that portrays the dissidents as enemies; on the other are the desperate and hungry people, whipped up by that “General Summer” riding on the back of heat and despair.
Translated by Translating Cuba.