Cuban priest Alberto Reyes, a strong critic of the regime, stated that what is important for a dictatorship is not to win, but "not to lose," which is different, and that is why there are no elections in Cuba, so that the people cannot remove the dictators from power.
The Father published a text on Facebook in which he claims that the government is aware that it has lost the hearts of Cubans; for this reason, it is focused on not losing power and stifles any attempt at questioning and dissent.
Reyes, from the Diocese of Camagüey, urged people not to play into the hands of the dictatorship and not to participate in what they propose, reminding them that the situation will not change with complaints at home, as freedom has a price and one must be willing to pay it in order not to be a country without a future.
Next, CiberCuba shares the full text of the publication.
"I have been thinking... (LXXXI) by Alberto Reyes Pías"
I have been thinking that the important thing for a dictatorship is not to win.
We already know what the basic mechanism of current dictatorships is: by using the opportunities that democracy offers, they manage to have the people grant them power, and once in power, they destroy democracy to perpetuate themselves in power.
That's why, once they have 'won', they no longer need to win again. They need to not lose, which is different.
Is there any doubt left about Nicolás Maduro's electoral fraud? Is there any doubt that the will of the Venezuelan people is to remove Maduro and his inner circle from power? No, no one doubts it, starting with them. But their interest is not in 'winning' an election that they knew was impossible to win. Their interest is in not losing power over the people, not losing control over the country that they have placed at their service.
Since 1959, we have not had elections in Cuba. We only have 'votations', an sporadic national theater whose result does not define even a millimeter the will of this people. The power clan in Cuba is aware that, over the years, its ideological proposal has been increasingly diluted, to the point of suffering the greatest defeat a system can endure: defeat in the heart of the people. Because the Cuban Revolution may have won the press, television, propaganda... but it has lost the hearts of the Cubans.
For that reason, the efforts of this system are never aimed at 'winning,' because they know that, no matter what the people say, they will impose whatever they want.
Their real interest is not to lose, not to lose power, to make it very clear that any attempt at questioning will be halted, that any attempt at 'dissent' will be paralyzed.
That is why they mobilize immediately at the slightest hint of protest: a poster on a wall, the simple peaceful demonstration of a civilian, or the mere announcement of that demonstration, the call for a public prayer, or the sound of a bell in the midst of darkness.
They are panicked at the thought of losing control, terrified of ceasing to be the masters, the controllers of the will of a people. Like the biblical Pharaoh, they cannot afford to be without slaves.
The rest does not matter to them. They do not care about the misery and the rising cost of basics, they are not alarmed by the bleeding caused by continued emigration, they mock the deepest aspirations of this people: their desires for freedom, for progress, for democracy… So little do they care that they are even indifferent to the collapse of the healthcare and education systems, those bastions that served them so well to sell their ideology to the world.
What can we do while we do not have elections, while it is not possible to freely engage in opposition parties, while going out to the streets to protest continues to be a precursor to prison?
We can make it very clear in our environment that we do not support them, that we are not going to applaud them, that we will not play their game, and that we will not participate in what they propose.
"Because the situation of a country cannot be changed with complaints at home, nor with curses during power outages. Freedom has a price, and if we are not capable of paying the minimum price of expressing what we think and believe, if we are not capable of paying the minimum price of the truth, then we will forever be a country without a future."
What do you think?
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