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The Cuban musicologist and researcher Rosa Marquetti published a reflection in which she draws a parallel between the historical sound of drums as a language of resistance for enslaved people and the sound of empty pots that echoes every night in the streets of Cuba, concluding that the transitional phase on the island has already begun.
The text, shared this Wednesday on their Facebook profile, arises amid a sustained wave of protests that is shaking the country due to an unprecedented energy crisis that has left millions of Cubans without power for over 24 consecutive hours.
"The sound of empty cauldrons is becoming the soundtrack of our times, the identity of a moment that will transcend not only for being a kind of committed musical cadence in itself, a touch of protest with a unique message: it is the cry from the abyss that must be escaped," wrote Marquetti.
The researcher recalled the Stono Rebellion, which took place in South Carolina in 1739, the largest uprising of enslaved people in the 13 British colonies of North America, where drums served as a deliberate communication strategy for the insurgents.
He pointed out that, after that rebellion, the slave masters established laws prohibiting drums in areas of the United States and Peru, terrified by a language that escaped their control.
The parallel with Cuba is direct. "Today in our country, the deafening cry of struck metal also carries a disturbing message to the ears of the masters: the sound of desperation in the face of the shortages that assault dignity and the deep anger directed at those in power and their corruption," he argued.
For Marquetti, however, repression does not stop the inevitable. "That transitional phase has already begun. Hitting rock bottom is the first step to starting anew".
Protests multiplied this week in various parts of the country. In the early hours of this Friday, residents of the Zamora neighborhood in Marianao staged a pot-banging protest after six days with power outages for 21 hours and no running water.
In Santiago de Cuba, residents of the Micro 2 neighborhood took to the streets after more than 10 days without electricity due to a broken transformer that the regime has not repaired.
On Wednesday, Vedado was the scene of a daytime pot-banging protest at the intersection of 13 and M, with a massive police presence afterward to intimidate the neighborhood residents.
The figures for social conflict are historic. Cuba recorded over 1,300 protests in May, according to data from the Cuban Conflict Observatory, which also counted 1,245 protests in March and 1,133 in April, a 29.5% increase compared to the same month last year.
The regime's response has followed a systematic pattern, which includes police deployments, repression with violence against protesters—documented in the Playa municipality on May 14—and at least 14 arrests reported by Cubalex since March 6.
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