Cubans have the right to dream

There are phrases that one hears and needs a moment to process. Not because they are complicated, but because we need to hear them from someone with real power; the heart takes a little time to recognize them as true.

Marco Rubio, Secretary of State of the United States, stated this morning without mincing words: "Your system of government has to change."

It is not a tweet. It is not a campaign speech. It is the official position of the most powerful government in the world, expressed by its chief diplomat.

For weeks, dozens of reports —many of them built on anonymous sources and convenient leaks— had prepared us for disappointment. The narrative was almost always the same: Washington would be willing to accept economic adjustments in exchange for gestures from the regime. Cuba could survive as a dictatorship if it slightly loosened its grip on business. Regime change was considered too ambitious, too complicated, and too costly.

And then Rubio came to deny it all.

Who is going to invest billions of dollars in a communist country governed by incompetent communists? he asked. And the answer, of course, we all know: nobody. Because economic freedom and political freedom are not two separate paths that can be taken independently. They go hand in hand. They have always gone hand in hand.

What Rubio said today is what many Cubans have been repeating for decades from exile, from the island, from every corner where the diaspora has planted its roots: it is not enough for the dictatorship to change its economic model. It is not enough for it to allow a bit of private enterprise while the same generals as always control the ports, hotels, and foreign trade. It is not enough for a market to open if the one who opens and closes the door remains the same regime that has been crushing any hint of freedom for over 65 years.

The change must be real, irreversible. It has to be a different system of government.

Will that day come? We do not know. The history of Cuba is filled with hopes that turned into betrayals, moments that seemed to be the threshold of freedom but turned out to be just another twist of the same deception. Cubans have learned to be distrustful; this lesson has come at a great cost.

But today, with the words of Marco Rubio, I allow myself something that no cynical argument can take away from me: the right to dream.

Cuban people have the right to dream of a free Cuba. A Cuba where choosing your leaders is not an act of rebellion, but a right exercised normally. A Cuba where a young person can build their life without having to choose between submitting or leaving. With a Cuba that I, and so many others, can return to one day without fear.

That dream is not naive. It is just.

And today, at least, he/she has the voice of someone who can do something about it.