A worker from the Palace of the Revolution, identified as Ernesto Pérez, recounted that he was "shocked" every time the late dictator Fidel Castro touched his shoulder in the hallways of the facility.
The testimony, shared by the official Government of Cuba account on X as a "human and relatable" experience, is used as state propaganda to try to keep the cult of Castro alive, despite the profound deterioration the country is experiencing.
Pérez stated that he began working at the Palace of the Revolution after several years in the workforce and that he was later assigned to the areas of the "Commander."
From that closeness, he assured that Castro was "very humble, very simple" and able to relate to "any person from any category," from someone with a ninth-grade education to a university professional.
His example, as he recounted, was so striking that merely feeling his hand on your shoulder was enough to recognize him.
"If you were, for example, in a hallway and he placed his hand on your shoulder... you knew it was the hand of the commander," he explained, before asserting that this simple action left a deep impact on him.
"He did it to me several times, and it always impacted me," he said.
While the testimony tries to convey a sense of closeness and reverence, the current context of the country starkly contrasts with that idealized portrait of the Cuban leader who passed away nine years ago.
Today, the population is facing the worst economic, health, and social collapse in decades, with severe shortages of food and medicine, deteriorating hospitals, prolonged blackouts, worthless salaries, and a growing epidemic of viral diseases that is advancing uncontrollably.
The government insists on invoking Fidel Castro
The video featuring Pérez's testimony coincides with another tweet shared by the ruler Miguel Díaz-Canel, who stated that Fidel Castro continues to "communicate with the country" through his supposed "legacy" and "immortality."
"Whoever doubts it should read, watch, or listen to how much the Commander in Chief continues to speak to us," he wrote on X.
But the message, as critical voices inside and outside the Island point out, arrives at an extremely urgent moment for Cubans, who are forced to survive a reality marked by scarcity, epidemics, poverty, and despair.
The official insistence on symbolically reviving Castro has been interpreted by analysts as a desperate attempt to sustain a system that is unable to provide concrete answers.
A stagnant country that looks to the past
Instead of providing solutions, the government multiplies tributes, phrases, and videos centered around the image of a man who died almost a decade ago, while the country sinks into a structural crisis that stems precisely from the model imposed by Fidel Castro during his rule.
The massive protests of July 11, 2021, the historic exodus that has emptied entire homes, the thousands of political prisoners, and the decline of basic services are part of the real legacy that Cubans face today, far from the epic narrative that the regime tries to revive with anecdotes like the one told by the worker from the Palace.
Thus, while the State spreads stories of "the commander's hand," millions of Cubans bear the weight of a country with hospitals lacking supplies, sick children without medicine, entire sectors without electricity, and an exhausted population that only sees those in power looking back instead of facing the present.
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