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A Cuban citizen publicly responded to the intellectual and cultural leader Abel Prieto Jiménez, questioning his recent statements about the future of the nation and his defense of socialism as an essential condition for the very existence of Cuba.
In a message on Facebook, Julia Elena Jareno Varcarcel rejected Prieto's repeated assertion that the nation would disappear without the current political model. "What is lost is the power of those who have thrived under the system while the people sink," she clarified.
The Cuban also questioned the leader speaking on behalf of the country.
"Do not speak on behalf of Cuba. Cuba is not the PCC. Cuba is not the 'Revolution'. Cuba is not a slogan. Cuba is the elderly man searching for food in the trash of Havana. It is the mother cooking with firewood because there is no gas. It is the young person fleeing through the Darién jungle because they see no future," he detailed.
In his post, he stated that that "real Cuba" has stopped believing in official narratives for years.
Jareno Varcarcel also questioned the frequent accusations from the government against the United States and President Donald Trump as being responsible for the crisis on the Island.
"The suffocation began long before. It was caused by a failed model imposed by Fidel Castro and supported by an elite that never waits in line, never goes hungry, and never lives on the salary it imposes on the rest," he emphasized.
In one of the most striking excerpts, he stated: "The truth is uncomfortable: the people did not abandon the nation; they abandoned the revolution. The revolution that promised equality and created classes. The one that promised dignity and normalized misery. The one that promised sovereignty and ended up depending on foreign subsidies for decades."
The author also questioned the concept of "colony" used in the official discourse: "Is a colony about trading freely, or is it about being eternally dependent on a state that decides what is produced, what is sold, and what is thought? Is a colony about opening up to the world, or is it about prohibiting a citizen from prospering without permission from those in power?"
In his most direct criticism of the cultural leader, he wrote: "Cuba today works for those, like you, who enjoy privileges: travel, positions, access, protection. For the rest, there are blackouts, collapsing hospitals, and symbolic salaries. That is the real inequality that your discourse never mentions."
Ultimately, he rejected the identification between homeland and political system.
"To say that without socialism there is no nation is a threat disguised as patriotism. It is an attempt to hijack the identity of the country to protect a worn-out system. The Cuban nation existed before 1959 and will continue to exist once fear is no longer a state policy."
And he summarized his text by reaffirming that the homeland is not lost when a model changes, but when entire generations are condemned to survive in ruins while a minority clings to power.
"Cuba does not belong to you. Cuba belongs to its people. And that people has long decided, even if you refuse to admit it, that the revolution does not represent them," he concluded.
Jareno Varcarcel's statements come after Abel Prieto published an article in the official media Cubadebate, attributed to REDH Cuba, titled "Do We Have Our Days Counted?".
In that text, the president of Casa de las Américas insisted on holding the "Empire" and a supposed international media offensive responsible for the crisis facing the Island.
Prieto linked that scenario to the capture of Nicolás Maduro on January 3, which, according to him, would have unleashed a "wave of anti-Cuban euphoria" on social media.
It also denounced an alleged "coordinated avalanche" of memes circulated from Florida that portray Cuba as "the 51st State" and Marco Rubio as a key player in an alleged transition.
In his article, the cultural leader linked these events to an executive order signed on January 29 by Donald Trump, which he described as part of a strategy of "total economic suffocation" against Cuba, citing activists who characterize the U.S. policy as a "collective punishment."
However, while the official rhetoric emphasizes the external siege, the internal crisis continues to deepen, characterized by constant blackouts, shortages of food and medicines, high inflation, and a massive wave of migration that has impacted Cuban society in recent years.
In this context, Julia Elena Jareno Varcarcel's response presents a direct critique of the governmental narrative, focusing responsibility on the political model and the inequality that benefits a minority connected to power, while the majority endures daily precariousness.
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