Young people, a suffocated generation that seeks change in communist Cuba

(CNN Spanish) – Young Cubans want to take charge of their future and of their country. They no longer want that octogenarian power under which the island has lived since Fidel Castro’s revolution in the 1960s, but they want more freedom of expression, that their rights be respected, they want to raise their voices and be heard.

“What led that generation that is less than 35 years old to protest if they had never before had the experience of behaving as citizens, as civic entities, as protesters in the streets of their country?”, The Cuban journalist asks from Havana Yoani Sanchez, director of the independent media 14yMedio.

“They were driven by boredom, the suffocation they feel within their own island, where they cannot fulfill their professional, personal, economic dreams,” said Sánchez.

They, says Sánchez, are a generation born under communism, under dollarization and dual currency. Now they, who have seen their families stand in lines throughout their lives to obtain food in a country frozen in time, and now they are looking for that to change.

It is they who are now leading the call for civic mobilization of 15N – as it has been called on social networks – as they seek to change the history of a country in which they have lived without the right to have rights.

Sánchez told CNN that the July 11 and November 15 demonstrations are the result of a generation that has suffered repression all its lives.

“They are the young people who have fired their friends who were leaving on a raft to cross the Florida Straits, they are young people who do not vibrate and never vibrate under the music, the revolutionary epic of the 60s,” she says.

And now, that “suffocation” is leading them to ask for a change.

“Cuban youth, who have certainly been subjected throughout their lives, who have no experience of living in a democracy, if they are clear about what they do not want and do not want to continue with the dictatorship, they do not want to continue living without hope,” he told CNN Rosa María Payá, Cuban activist, founder of the platform Cuba Decides.

A generation with “nothing to lose” but with much to gain

“The Cuban has been silent for too long and it is time that he can open his mouth to freely say what he thinks,” Yunior García Aguilera, one of the organizers of the 15N march, told CNN.

The civic march will be held “to demand that all the rights of all Cubans be respected, for the release of political prisoners and for the solution of our differences through democratic and peaceful means,” according to its organizers.

Despite the fact that the government did not give permission, and after the brutal repression that took place by the police forces with those who protested on July 11, the protest will take place not only in Cuba, but in more than 90 cities around the world.

“This group of young people who took to the streets are the ones who had nothing to lose because they had lost everything,” says Sánchez.

But “there is everything to be gained,” says Payá, daughter of Cuban activist Oswaldo Payá, who led the Christian Liberation Movement, which attempted to effect political change in Cuba through non-violent means and often using the legal framework. of the Cuban socialist system. Oswaldo Payá died in a car accident in 2012 in Cuba.

“From the point of view of what life in Cuba means, the deprivations, the lack of perspective, the impossibility of being the owner of your own life and your own destiny, the impossibility of prospering with your work … From that point on point of view there is nothing to lose, “said Payá from Miami.

And he adds that since the State has faced the protesters with “violence and repression”, “from that point of view there is life to lose.”

Payá, like many young Cubans, has seen generations of dissidents who have attempted change in Cuba, and highlights the work of those who came before them.

“We are standing on the shoulders of those who were before,” Payá told CNN.

“In other words, it is thanks to my father and many others in 62 years of history that Cubans are also protesting today,” he added.

Payá says that it was very gratifying to see young people protest in front of the Ministry of Culture in November 2020, repeating phrases of their father, such as “Cubans have the right to rights.”

“That mantra continues within Cuban society,” he says.

“Historical” demonstrations in Cuba

The 15N protest is unprecedented “because of its call, because of its character and because it comes weeks after the July 11 protests in a very complicated scenario,” said Yoani Sánchez.

When on July 11, thousands of Cubans took to the streets to protest the lack of food and medicine and a serious economic crisis aggravated by the covid-19 pandemic and the United States sanctions, many chanted “freedom” and called for resignation. of President Díaz-Canel.

According to the Cubalex group, which monitors legal affairs on the island, at least 1,175 Cubans were arrested after the July 11 demonstrations.

While government officials said they detained protesters who attacked police and looted shops, dozens of people said they were violently arrested for marching peacefully or simply for filming the protests.

The Cuban government did not say how many people were detained or injured in the riots. CNN journalists witnessed the forcible arrest of several people Sunday at protests in Havana.

“It is not the same to demonstrate in a democracy than to do it in a dictatorship,” Payá told CNN, referring to the history of the protests that the country has seen in recent months.

But despite this, the new generation “is looking for a future within Cuba,” he told CNN. Daniel Padreira political analyst and Ph.D. candidate in Political Science from Florida International University.

“We are seeing a new generation born, raised in Castro’s Cuba, who is looking for a future within Cuba,” said Pradeira. “We are also seeing youth who see that they are doing everything possible to fight for a future within Cuba, not like before, when we saw many young people seeking to go to the United States or to other countries to seek a better life.”

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla criticized the United States government on Wednesday for what he said was a campaign to “provoke situations of suffering in our people, with the hope of creating the conditions for a social collapse.” .

Rodríguez Parrilla blamed the Biden government for plans by opposition groups to hold peaceful protests in Cuba, even though Cuban officials have vowed not to allow the demonstrations to take place. US officials have threatened to impose sanctions against the communist-run island if the protesters are arrested by Cuban police.

“People no longer believe the rhetoric” of the US as an enemy

The central government of Cuba denied permits for the march, claiming that those who have called the protest are financed by the United States. The Biden administration warned the Cuban government that if it prevents the march from taking place, the island could face new economic sanctions.

“But people no longer believe that rhetoric because we are seeing young people … who have no connection with the United States, who are not part of an organization, do not receive funds from the United States, that is, all of that is transparent,” said Padreira from FIU to CNN.

According to Yoani Sánchez, the government of Cuba wants to make believe that it is a fight of David against Goliath, where the defenseless is the island and the giant is the United States. But the equation is different, she says.

“Little David is the people of Cuba, unarmed, without rights, guarded, their freedom restricted from the great Goliath that is a State, the Communist Party and a group in power that has taken over the concept of nationality, of resources of the country, and also because he has the army to fight little David, “said Sánchez.

“That is to appeal to a cartoon nationalism that works less and less within Cuba, and especially that it works less and less within the young Cuban generations who feel more cosmopolitan, more universal and very, very far removed from these confrontations that are already so old. like those of the Cold War, “he added.

And that eternal conspiracy makes her “not to admit her own mistakes,” she says.

The Biden administration warned the Cuban government last month that if it stops the march from taking place, the island could face new economic sanctions.

Fear and hope with the protests

The demonstrations have been seen as a sign of hope for many calling for change.

“The challenge that young Cubans and all those who come out to protest are posing is precisely that of recovering a real life, a life in freedom. That is why the claim is so existential, not for that reason it is a claim of the protests it is’ freedom , homeland and life, ‘”said Payá.

The activist says that the country “is already different … because the people have made up their minds to say it’s over.”

“That flame has been learned and so now it is to see how that flame continues to grow until achieving that free, democratic Cuba that they seek so much,” said Pradeira.

But Elina Castillo, Amnesty International’s Caribbean campaign manager, told CNN that “there is a high risk” of a repeat crackdown on the protests in July.

“We would like to think that people will finally be able to exercise their right to freedom of expression and exercise their right to freedom, to peaceful assembly fully and without receiving attacks or beatings or arbitrary arrests or intimidation or threats, as we saw that it happened in July, “Castillo told CNN.

Amnesty International said it would monitor the 15N demonstrations.

Sánchez, who is covering the demonstrations in Cuba, says that “the Cuban regime is likely to pull out all its repressive artillery,” but says he has a lot of faith in the marches.

“If I am left with one word to define the spirit that people have, it is ‘conviction’. It is now or never,” he said.