Cuban President Diaz-Canel Knows No Shame
HAVANA TIMES – It really isn’t all that surprising at this point, but Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel’s recent interview with the Brazilian newspaper Folha de São Paulo demonstrated once again that he has no shame.
It is always worth remembering that the interviewer is never someone chosen on the spur of the moment, but rather someone thoroughly vetted by State Security, with a left-wing profile. The problem is that “the left” increasingly finds itself without arguments to defend this dictatorship.
As usual, much of the conversation was devoted to blaming the US government for all the problems afflicting Cuba, and there was no shortage of bravado when the president declared that he was not afraid of being captured by US forces—just as Venezuela’s strongman Nicolas Maduro had done months before being dragged from his hideout in his pajamas, at a significant cost in Cuban lives.
This kind of cheap bravado suggests that the prospects for negotiations between the two countries have faded and that Cuba’s leaders believe they can dig in and survive US pressure without making political changes—or that Mr. President is no longer at the negotiating table, as has long been suspected.
One detail about the interview seems to have gone unnoticed, judging by the reactions I have seen in the media and on social networks: he does not even know for certain when his term ends. In other words, it makes no difference to him, because he knows it does not depend on him, but on whoever put him in that position. If he has to leave tomorrow, he will do so with the same ease with which he would remain in power for another 30 years.
But what I really want to address are just a few points from his answers that I believe are key to understanding the Cuban reality.
The first is that when he was asked whether Cuba could hold out without an agreement with the United States, he replied: “We have no alternative but to resist. We must resist.”
No, my dear president, there are other alternatives. You have no choice but to resist and cling to power because it is the only thing you have left, and you know there is a price on your head. But the Cuban people are under no obligation to resist in order to defend you.
The Cuban people have grown tired of being called upon to resist in the name of a utopia that, as you yourself put it—in words worthy of Cantinflas at his most eloquent, while distorting Eduardo Galeano—moves farther away every time we get closer to it.
He insists that sovereignty and self-determination are not on the negotiating table, but those are not his personal possessions. It should be decided collectively what kind of sovereignty and self-determination we are talking about, because it is all very well to take the microphone on international stages and say whatever you please—including nonsense and lies—while an ordinary citizen here cannot shout their discontent from the rooftops.
And that brings us to the second point I wanted to address. With a face harder than concrete, Diaz-Canel had the nerve to say that all the political prisoners on the island are behind bars for having committed ordinary crimes, such as robbing a store or something similar.
The Brazilian journalist, Monica Bergamo, told him that she had walked the streets of Havana and spoken with residents, and that the prevailing view was that there was an “internal blockade”—in other words, that people blamed the Cuban government, rather than the US embargo, for the difficult situation facing the country.
At that point, the handpicked president visibly lost his composure and said that this was not the majority view. Of course not, if all he listens to is what is said in the National Assembly or by the handpicked flatterers he meets when visiting a province. He also said that anyone wishing to protest should go through state institutions—which, according to him, deserve the public’s trust even though they solve nothing—and that the US government pays Cuban citizens to commit crimes disguised as protests.
I don’t know how many dollars they supposedly pay people who take to the streets banging pots and pans after going more than a day without electricity, but I think any country would go bankrupt in less than a year if it devoted itself to that.
Another “brilliant” moment from the head of state came when the interviewer asked whether he endured the same hardships as his people.
He could have said that he didn’t have any hair gel, as he demonstrated before the interview began, but even that tragicomic escape route did not occur to him.
All he could manage to say was that he lives modestly and that the impact of the situation on his daily life is that he cannot travel around the country because there is not enough fuel to transport the entire entourage that accompany him. It is truly laughable.
The only thing he acknowledged were the economic concessions made in recent years, which, according to him, are not part of the socialist ideal. That shows they were adopted grudgingly, leaving open the possibility that everything could be rolled back once it no longer suits them. It would not be the first time.
Unhinged for much of the interview, the president even brought up the ration book, saying that his administration “guarantees a basic basket of food.” For anyone who wasn’t laughing before, now is your chance.
But it doesn’t end there, because he also came out with this gem: “I imagine everything we could do if they weren’t perversely blockading us.” Please. We have spent more than 60 years under a make-believe blockade. Only now are they really cutting off the water and electricity, because in previous decades they always found lifelines, and practically none of it did any good.
When someone repeatedly lies to your face, you have to admire their persistence. Not everyone has the talent to maintain a lie while staring you straight in the eye, as though the truth had the bad manners to interrupt the conversation.
What is fascinating is the complete absence of shame. You can present evidence, dates, screenshots, even witnesses; this person simply switches into documentary mode: “That never happened.”
Whatever trust the Cuban people may once have had in him did not disappear overnight. He dismissed it little by little, with one small lie after another, until he left it out on the street with a suitcase.
And when he is finally confronted, he does not apologize he takes offense. Because apparently the problem is not that he lied, but that we developed a memory. He may even accuse you of exaggerating, as though reality needed filters to bring it down to his level.
In such cases, arguing is pointless. Sometimes the smartest thing to do is nod, smile, and keep your distance. Not because you believe him, but because you have already understood that arguing with someone who has no shame means voluntarily taking part in a play in which he also writes the script, changes the facts, and, on top of everything else, demands applause.