The Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel urged the youth and adolescents of the Island to defend the regime on social media as an "obligation."
"Every day we must advocate for Cuba, each one of us and all of us together," urged the leader of the "continuity," who described critical information about the government as a strategy to "colonize our minds and dominate us."
The message, shared in a video by Cubadebate, was part of the series of events and statements made by the leader this week in relation to the 64th anniversary of the Young Communists Union (UJC).
In the video, Díaz-Canel also urged to entrench in defense of the regime, but "in the most cultured, most sentimental, most emotional way, without vulgarities, without trivialities".
The ruler described the information that contradicts the official version as "vulgar and trivial media intoxication" and framed it within what he called "cultural colonization."
We must break away from all that vulgar, superficial media intoxication that they impose on us, which is part of cultural colonization and is an element of colonization, he stated.
The call is not new. In March 2025, the leader distributed a special tabloid urging members and activists of the PCC and the UJC to make "a vindication of Cuba, of the current Cuba that resists and creates under threats and storms."
In July of the same year, at the X Plenary of the Central Committee of the PCC, he reiterated the call to defend Cuba from every digital space.
The term "media intoxication" is also a recurring catchphrase: it was used in March 2024 to downplay protests in Santiago de Cuba and Bayamo, and in June 2025 to defend the increase in rates by the state telecommunications company ETECSA.
The propaganda discourse contrasts with the reality faced by young Cubans. More than a million Cubans have left the island since 2021, most of them young people between the ages of twenty and forty.
The 78% of Cubans express a desire to emigrate and 89% live in extreme poverty, according to a 2025 study by the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights.
The UJC itself reflects this disillusionment: it dropped from 609,000 members in 2007 to 415,000 in 2024, a loss of more than 200,000 members in 17 years.
On the other hand, the young people who stay and protest face direct repression. On March 13, dozens took to the streets of Morón, Ciego de Ávila, shouting "Freedom!" and "Homeland and Life" in response to the power outages and shortages, resulting in five arrests and one injury.
Two 16-year-old teenagers, Jonathan David Muir Burgos and Christian de Jesús Crespo Álvarez, were arrested following those protests and are facing serious charges, including sabotage.
On Saturday, in an interview with the official newspaper Juventud Rebelde, Díaz-Canel offered young people a recipe for happiness by quoting Carlos Marx: "Happiness lies in the struggle."
His final advice was to repeat a verb three times: Study, study, study, while Cuba has experienced six nationwide blackouts since December 2024 and thousands of young professionals can barely afford a week's worth of food with their salary.
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