Osmel Ramirez Alvarez

This is what a young Cuban said inside a hard currency store, after his failed search for a TV. The words came from his heart; you could hear in the moving tone of his voice and see it in the sparkle in his eyes. It was worth investigating.

The Cuban socialist model, in Marxist-Leninist style, is USELESS, and there are more than enough signs of this. However, for whatever reason, our people, Cubans in and outside of Cuba, don’t mainly despise the socialist ideal.

Every act in Cuba in favor of change, outside of the official framework, is considered an act of dissidence. It doesn’t matter whether you sympathize with Posada Carriles’ violent methods, with the Chicago school of economics or whether you are a democratic socialist like yours truly.

Events in Venezuela are truly a cause for concern. A political party, with a socialist name, is clinging onto power with ruses, rather than mass popular support. The desire to implement socialist policies should never undermine the principle of strict compliance to the people’s will which is expressed via democratic channels.

We Cubans will go through the electoral process now in October with the election of neighborhood representatives, which will end in February next year with the selection of the new national Government. A lot of government propaganda has been created about the subject, highlighting the alleged democratic nature and the “virtues” of Cuban socialism and its political model.

It’s a praiseworthy initiative, as all of us Cubans have the right to hold public office, even under this Constitution, whose basic principles violate the most basic constitutional rights of the Cuban people.

We commonly hear the term “neoplatista” to label different attitudes and stances between Cubans. It already appears frequently in our vocabulary, especially among the diaspora community and those of us here in Cuba who take part in political debate on alternative digital media platforms.

“Trump is a son of a bitch”: this is how Alberto, a street seller, defines him. “Now we really aren’t going to do better off; this crazy old man doesn’t have God’s forgiveness,” said Susana, while she served a soft drink in a cafe. When asked the same question (What do you think about Trump’s recent actions towards Cuba?), another twenty-three people responded in the same vein.