14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, 24 March 2024 — It might not happen tomorrow but it is quite clear that the giant vase now in the care of Cuba’s dictator designate, Miguel Diaz Canel, is already cracked and could shatter at any moment. People, who are fed up with sixty-five years of oppression, are starting to realize they have the right to a better life.
The oppressed are fed up. Like genies in a bottle, they will eventually break out of the narrow confines of totalitarianism in a fury. And who knows what may happen to those who have supported it for decades? Incidentally, the last two major protests in Cuba occurred on a Sunday, as my wife pointed out to me, so totalitarianism may yet give us a Sunday that turns out to be bleak for them, its supporters, and bright for us, all those who love freedom.
The oppressed are fed up. Like genies in a bottle, they will break out of their narrow totalitarian confines in a fury
Remember that this is someone who inherited power because he didn’t have a backbone. In a government of indignities, he proved to be even more of a lackey than Roberto Robaina or Felipe Pérez Roque, whom Fidel Castro once described as the person who best interpreted his thoughts. Roque still got sacked. That is why it is worth asking how much Díaz-Canel had to humble himself before being left in charge of the country that the Castro brothers turned into a barracks.
Don Miguel is not holding onto power because he has courage or talent, which is presumably why the old guard — the Moncada Barracks generation — get nervous anytime the situation “turns red,” a popular expression in Cuba for circumstances that are getting complicated.
There is one precedent we should keep in mind. On September 4, 1933, soldiers, students and teachers joined forces to prompt th
