The Cuban content creator identified on Instagram as @mihumildeopinion55 issued a heated reproach to the ruling Miguel Díaz-Canel for his attitude towards an elderly hurricane Melissa victim in the town of Cauto Embarcadero, in Granma, where the leader responded with visible irritation to a woman who complained about losing her bed: “I don’t have one to give you right now either”.
In his video, published on his Instagram account, the influencer held nothing back. “San Canel, misery of the fallen lemons, this message is for you,” he began, speaking with irony.
His tone, a mix of indignation and mockery, went straight to the point: “You, who are arguing with an old woman today, who went to see the victims and shoved an old woman who told you she had no bed. Do you think that’s worthy of a president? You don't fit the profile, no.”
The Cuban criticized what millions of users perceived as a gesture of presidential arrogance and a lack of empathy in the midst of disaster. “That’s foolishness on your part, so aura, San Canel of the fallen lemons and misery,” he concluded, using the popular sarcasm that has become the most direct language of political criticism in Cuba today.
The creator went further and took his protest into the realm of the absurd that has become customary in Cuban politics. He questioned, like so many Cubans, the absence of the president's wife, Lis Cuesta: “Why didn't you take Peggy? Because they were going to dress her in olive green and confuse her with a tamale made of banana leaves, and with the hunger in Cuba, they would have wanted to eat her.”
Her words, as irreverent as they are popular, captured the frustration of a country tired of seeing how those in power respond to people's suffering with gestures of disdain. On social media, the episode of "neither do I" has become a symbol of exhausted leadership, of a system that only knows how to respond to misery with cynicism.
The influencer's video comes after the government deployed all its media machinery to try to erase the public humiliation that Díaz-Canel suffered following that exchange.
First, there was the program Chapeando Bajito, which accused independent media of "manipulating" the context of the dialogue. Then, the first secretary of the Party in Granma, Yudelkis Ortiz Barceló, reappeared with the elderly Francisca —now docile and grateful— in a video that aimed to portray her as a symbol of revolutionary loyalty.
"I thank that beautiful revolution and Commander Fidel, who is still alive," said Francisca, with an enthusiasm that seemed more scripted than spontaneous. The scene, like so many others in recent history, served to confirm what many already knew: in Cuba, pain is addressed in front of the camera.
That’s why the demand from @mihumildeopinion55 resonates beyond the joke. Behind the sarcasm and the caricature, there is a country that recognizes itself in the helplessness of an elderly woman who simply asked for a bed, and in the mockery of a president who has lost his sense of decorum.
Amid fallen lemons and imaginary tamales, this Cuban's video encapsulates what millions think but few can voice: that the issue is not Melissa, nor the bed, nor the lady, but a power that has been out of touch for 65 years.
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