The Cuban actor and activist Roberto San Martín published yesterday on X a video addressed to the Cuban people in which he makes a crucial distinction between optimism and hope, and calls for active resistance in one of the toughest moments the island has faced in decades.
The message, published under the hashtag #downwiththecastrodictatorship, accumulated more than 7,300 views, 523 likes, and 18 comments in less than 24 hours. San Martín, who has been in exile for over 21 years and is known for his involvement in productions such as Habana Blues and the Spanish series Montecristo, speaks from personal experience, not from theory.
"I'm not asking you to be optimistic. Optimism says everything will be fine. I don't know if everything will be fine. I've experienced things that taught me that it's not always okay. Sometimes you lose, sometimes there's no justice. Sometimes the ending you deserve doesn't come. So I'm not here to ask you for optimism," San Martín states in the video.
Instead, he proposes something more concrete and demanding: "I ask you to keep acting even when you don't believe it makes a difference. To keep writing even if no one reads. To keep speaking even if no one listens. To keep showing up even if you don't see results. To keep being who you are. Even though the world still doesn't know what to do with you."
For San Martín, hope is neither an emotion nor a comforting certainty. "Hope is not an emotion. It is a practice." He summarizes, adding: "That is all hope needs. No blind faith. No certainty that everything will improve. Just the act. The next step. The next word. The next time you decide not to disappear."
The actor points out that he did not learn this lesson from any book or lecture: "I learned it on the days when there seemed to be no reason to continue. Yet I kept going anyway. Not because I knew it would be worth it, but because it was the only thing I knew how to do. And it turned out that was enough."
The video arrives at a moment of profound exhaustion for the Cuban community. Cuba is experiencing in March 2026 blackouts exceeding 20 hours daily, inflation that private estimates place at 70%, and the collapse of fuel supplies following the loss of Venezuelan oil. Between 2021 and 2025, approximately two million Cubans left the island.
The day before the video was published, President Miguel Díaz-Canel publicly acknowledged for the first time that to address the energy crisis, indicating the level of pressure faced by the regime. In this same context, the Cuban exile signed the "Liberation Agreement" in Miami, which includes phases to dismantle the Communist Party and call for free elections.
San Martín has been living outside Cuba for over two decades without returning. Upon arriving in Miami, he had to drive for Uber to make ends meet, and he has combined his artistic career with sustained activism: he demonstrated in front of the Cuban embassy in Washington following the July 11 protests in 2021 and denounced attempts by State Security to link him to dissident networks.
Rosa María Payá encapsulated the sentiments of a significant part of the exile community last Friday: "The only solution to the crisis is the end of the dictatorship."
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