The Argentine content creator Luli Ofman satirically dismantled the contradiction of those who defend the Cuban regime from the comfort of a capitalist democracy.
The young woman, from the segment "Argentina Polenta" on the channel TN (Todo Noticias), posted the clip titled "Cuba Libre" on her Instagram account and within a few hours garnered more than 277,000 views and 54,000 likes.
The video, which is two minutes and nine seconds long, is structured in two deliberately contrasting parts.
In the first one, Ofman plays a leftist activist who defends Cuban communism with a Starbucks coffee in hand, blames the "blockade" for all the island's ills, and even states: "Thinking about it, it's not so bad not to have 20 hours of light a day. You detach yourself from capitalism."
When the character is asked why they don't move to Cuba, they respond evasively.
In the second part, Ofman drops the parody and speaks directly to the camera to enumerate the Cuban reality: more than 20 hours without electricity, eating one loaf of bread per day, chicken costing an entire salary, lack of water, separated families, and fear of repression.
"Surviving is the greatest act of resistance and rebellion. This is the realized dream of the communist paradise of the chilindrinas troscas," says Ofman before delivering the phrase that encapsulates the central message of the piece.
"It is very easy to advocate for communism from a free country. The difficult part is being free in a communist country," he states.
Ofman points directly to what he calls "keyboard intellectuals" who pretend to explain to Cubans how they live in their own country: "The keyboard intellectuals want to teach and debate with Cubans about life in Cuba. The same goes for Venezuelans. They have a selective myopia when it comes to dictatorships. They either don't see them or, worse, they don't want to see them."
The creator also dismantles the argument that Cuba is a poor country due to external factors: "It is not a poor country, it is an impoverished country; it was plundered, the elites feast on lobster while the people can't even catch fish." She adds that "the leaders' children live like kings in Europe while the people have no electricity."
The video is produced while Cuba is experiencing one of its worst electrical crises in decades, with generation deficits exceeding 1,981 MW during peak demand hours. The regime of Miguel Díaz-Canel continues to systematically attribute these problems to the U.S. embargo, an argument that Cubans themselves have rejected on multiple occasions.
The contradiction pointed out by Ofman is not new. In April of this year, a Cuban resident in Tenerife went viral for defending the regime from Europe, in a case that was also cited as an example of the gap between the discourse and the reality experienced on the island.
Ofman, a Political Science student at the University of Buenos Aires, concludes the video with a warning that resonates in the current Latin American political context: "Communism only benefits those who control it."
And it concludes with a statement that summarizes 67 years of dictatorship on the island: "A revolution that brought chains disguised as freedom. But the time has come to free ourselves because every dictator faces their January 3rd. Homeland, life, and freedom. Cuba libre."
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