While Havana has accumulated up to 24 consecutive hours without electricity and other provinces have exceeded 30 and 40 hours, the First Secretary of the Union of Young Communists (UJC), Meyvis Estévez Echevarría, delivered a passionate speech last Thursday at the Anti-Imperialist Youth Parade "Here, with Fidel" to urge Cuban youth to resist, innovate, and create amidst adversity, with Fidel Castro as the spiritual guide for the new generations.
The event, organized by the UJC and the José Martí Pioneer Organization (OPJM), began at the Malecón and G in Havana with a caravan of bicycles, motorcycles, and electric tricycles, and was led by President Miguel Díaz-Canel.
Estévez did not hold back in his rhetoric: "In every lack, we have forged a muscle of rebellion. In every limitation, we have invented a solution. And in this trench, an eternally young rebel accompanies us, our Fidel."
Among the slogans of his intervention was the statement that "we know we are the owners of a country that we build and defend every day," a phrase that summarizes, albeit in reverse, one of the dramas of the Island: a nation that its own young people are leaving at a record pace.
The contrast between the rhetoric and reality could not be more striking. During the event —on April 1 and 2— Havana experienced power outages for up to 24 consecutive hours, with deficits of between 1,585 and 1,725 megawatts. The National Electric System had completely collapsed on March 16 for 29 hours and 29 minutes, and suffered another general blackout on March 22. The deputy minister of the sector admitted that month that the distributed generation had been paralyzed for three months due to a lack of diesel and fuel oil.
While Estévez was invoking the "inventiveness" of young Cubans, independent organizations like The Economist Intelligence Unit are projecting a contraction of the Cuban GDP by 7.2% in 2026, resulting in a total decline of over 23% since 2019.
The real response of Cuban youth to that "adversity" does not seem to be as described by the UJC secretary: more than a million Cubans have left the island since 2021, the majority being young people between the ages of twenty and forty. A 2023 report also revealed that around 800,000 young Cubans were neither studying nor working by that date.
The event commemorates the 65th anniversary of the OPJM and the 64th of the UJC, and is part of the campaign "100 years with Fidel," which prepares for the centenary celebration of Fidel Castro's birth, scheduled for August 13, 2026. The evocation of the commander as the "eternal young rebel" who accompanies the new generations serves as the central theme of an official narrative that seeks to anchor in an "epic" past what it cannot provide in the present, which is in ruins.
Estévez's style is not new. On March 30, he posted on Facebook a text using the language of "choppy voice" and "stirred soul" to refer to an exchange with Díaz-Canel, and on March 16, he praised a presidential speech as an example of "transparency" and "collective glory." Days before the parade, on March 31, Cuban children staged "trials" against the United States in events organized by the regime.
For thousands of young Cubans, the only solution to the country's growing limitations has been to pack their bags.
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