Nine years after the arrival of Fidel Castro's ashes in Santiago de Cuba, the regime once again turned to students, including children and adolescents, to fill the streets in a procession toward the Santa Ifigenia cemetery. Authorities present this event as a “vibrant and massive tribute,” but in practice, it reproduces the old strategy of mobilizing minors in political cult ceremonies.
Since early morning, the official pages of Santiago and the state broadcaster CMKW Radio Mambí began to share images showing dozens of children in uniforms, some wearing red scarves, holding large portraits of Fidel Castro while lining up in the Antonio Maceo Revolution Square.
The photos, taken before dawn, show minors organized by schools, carrying institutional banners and Cuban flags to kick off the march called by the provincial authorities and the Union of Young Communists.
In another sequence of images, adolescents can be seen wearing white blouses and gray skirts, holding a school banner; alongside them, other students hold printed signs featuring the face of the deceased leader.
Behind them, large groups of children march in compact columns toward Santa Ifigenia, followed by teachers, officials, and members of the Communist Party. The crowd, largely made up of students, fills the avenues in an atmosphere that official commentators describe as "revolutionary fervor," even though many of the youngsters are carrying portraits that they can barely hold.
Among the attendees, there are also workers from state-owned companies marching with union banners, but the most visible presence, and the one most exploited by propaganda, remains that of the minors. They march under the gray dawn sky, some looking at the cameras, others trying to keep pace amidst the crowd.
The use of children in acts of political worship is not new in Cuba. Since the 1960s, the educational system has been a central space for the reproduction of ideological loyalties, involving mandatory activities, patriotic morning assemblies, and massive mobilizations on symbolic dates.
However, in recent years, with the lack of spontaneous participation from the adult population, the regime has intensified the presence of schoolchildren as a "guaranteed mass" for its events.
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