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A strong controversy shook the social network X (formerly Twitter) this Friday, after the former Vice President of the Spanish Government and founder of Podemos, Pablo Iglesias, stated that if communism falls in Cuba, the Caribbean nation would end up becoming "a democracy like Haiti," with "hunger, violence, illiteracy, and a complete lack of services."
The statement emerged amid a bitter exchange between Iglesias and the Cuban activist Magdiel Jorge Castro, an exiled communicator and member of the editorial team at CiberCuba, who harshly criticized the Spanish politician for his remarks about the Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, recently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
“By awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Corina Machado, who has been trying for years to stage a coup in her country, they could have given it directly to Trump or even to Adolf Hitler posthumously,” Iglesias wrote on his account.
The phrase—mocking, hyperbolic, and offensive—sparked outrage on social media. Magdiel responded harshly, calling Iglesias "authoritarian trash" and denouncing his disregard for freedoms in Cuba and Venezuela.
Iglesias, far from moderating his tone, accused him of being a “traitor,” “a lapdog of the right,” and of wanting to turn Cuba into “a democracy like Haiti.”
It was at this point that the discussion ceased to be a mere skirmish on social media and revealed a way of thinking deeply rooted in certain sectors of the European radical left: the idea that any democratic alternative to socialism in Cuba would inevitably lead to chaos, extreme poverty, and state collapse.
An insulting and false comparison
Iglesias' claim that a post-communist Cuba would be like Haiti is not only incorrect but also ideologically perverse. This is a fallacy of the "false dilemma" type: presenting only two possible options when, in fact, there are many more.
According to this framework, either Cuba maintains the communist regime (the so-called "revolution") with all its shortcomings —repression, poverty, censorship, scarcity—, or it becomes a collapsed state, lacking education, healthcare, and social cohesion, like Haiti. The implicit message is clear: “better dictatorship than disorder,” identical in logic to that of supporters of the dictatorship of Francisco Franco in Spain.
It is a deeply offensive argument for both peoples. For Cubans, because it denies their capacity to build a democratic and prosperous future. And for Haitians, because it reduces their historical tragedy—resulting from centuries of colonialism, foreign intervention, natural disasters, and corruption—to a functional caricature: the perfect example of the "failed capitalism" that the Cuban revolution is said to have managed to avoid.
Why do they use Haiti as an example?
The use of Haiti as a "scarecrow" is not new. For years, pro-regime figures on the left—both inside and outside of Cuba—have employed the Haitian case as a mechanism of emotional and political blackmail: if the Cuban system collapses, chaos will be inevitable.
This argument serves several functions:
- To delegitimize any democratic alternative
- Se instala la idea de que Those who advocate for a transition in Cuba do not seek freedom or justice, but rather hunger, violence, and destruction. Como si el pluralismo, la economía abierta y los derechos humanos fueran amenazas, y no metas legítimas.
- To instill fear in the Cuban population
- For decades, official propaganda has repeated that without the Communist Party, Cuba would become Haiti or a "failed state" controlled by imperialist interests. Iglesias simply reproduces —with a different accent— the regime's narrative.
- Ideologically shield the regime
- If every attempt at change leads to disaster, then any criticism is rendered invalid. Even if there are political prisoners, even if salaries are insufficient for food, even if there are blackouts lasting 20 hours and doctors lack medicine, the Cuban system remains “preferable.”
Cuba is not Haiti: Potential vs Collapse
The comparison also fails from a historical and structural perspective. Cuba and Haiti do not have comparable trajectories:
- Before 1959, Cuba was one of the most prosperous economies in Latin America: high per capita GDP, a strong middle class, literacy exceeding 70%, and a significant cultural and commercial presence in the region.
- Cuba has a highly qualified human capital, a recoverable institutional infrastructure, and a strong and organized diaspora capable of contributing investment, knowledge, and leadership.
- Haiti, on the other hand, has experienced repeated institutional collapses, a structurally informal economy, a lack of territorial control in key areas, widespread violence, and a chronic humanitarian crisis.
To suggest that Cuba would follow the path of Haiti if it abandons communism is to deny history, the potential, and the ability of the Cuban people to organize an orderly democratic transition, with modern institutions, civil liberties, and a productive economy.
Revolutionary Romanticism and European Cynicism
The most alarming aspect of the Iglesias case is not his ignorance, but rather his conscious cynicism. The Madrid politician lives in a democracy, receives payment from private media, publishes freely, founded a political party, and enjoys the privileges of the system he himself criticizes. Yet from this comfort, he and his partner - Spanish congresswoman Irene Montero - justify the repression in Cuba.
"The revolution, with all its errors and all its injustices, remains a more decent model than what is being offered, under the tutelage of the U.S., to the rest of the Caribbean peoples," he wrote in the final part of his discussion.
A more decent model? A country with 72% of its population living below the poverty line, where a doctor barely earns 30 dollars a month, where there are over a thousand political prisoners, where inflation exceeds 1,200%, where protests are criminalized and free association is punished?
The speech by Iglesias reveals an inverted colonial logic: the peoples of the South must sacrifice themselves in the name of a symbolic revolution, while the intellectuals of the North celebrate it from their comfortable democracies. It is what Magdiel accurately defined as “ideological tourism”:
And democracy?
Iglesias caricatures the Cuban opposition and the exile as “mercenaries of Trump and Marco Rubio,” as if the only possibility for democracy in Cuba were overseen by the CIA.
But it overlooks the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of Cubans —young people, artists, journalists, workers— who want what he already has: the right to vote, to express themselves, to found a party, to criticize those in power without going to prison.
"The revolution is not a model for anything... there are young people of 20 years old in prison for doing what your party and yourself do in Spain every day," Magdiel reminded him.
What does this controversy reveal?
This encounter between Iglesias and Magdiel is more than just an anecdote. It represents the clash between two worldviews:
- The one of the exile who defends the rights of their people from the experience of pain.
- And that of the European bourgeois who pretends to be a revolutionary, pero no está dispuesto a vivir bajo las condiciones del sistema que justifica.
The controversy also reveals that the Spanish left continues to carry myths and dogmas about Cuba, unable to update its perspective beyond the romanticism of the 60s.
They continue to see Cuba as a symbolic stronghold in their cultural battle against liberalism and the United States, even if it means endorsing prisons, hunger, and censorship.
Cuba can be Cuba
Cuba will not be Haiti. It will be Cuba, free, if it is allowed to decide.
The Cuban people do not need ideological tutors or imposed revolutions. They need institutions, justice, a market, education, democracy, and freedom. What countries like the Czech Republic, Estonia, Chile, or Spain have built after their respective dictatorships is also possible for Cuba.
Reducing your fate to a choice between dictatorship or collapse is not only a lie: it is a form of complicity.
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