The singer-songwriter Raúl Torres, a member of the National Assembly of People’s Power and one of the most recognizable faces of Cuban cultural officialdom, published a lengthy text on Facebook this Sunday in which he admits, seemingly unaware of the weight of his own words, that the Cuban population has reached a state of extreme exhaustion: «the people are there gasping their last breath and losing confidence in the leaders of the revolution».
The post is an exercise in ideological balancing that Torres has made his specialty: he denounces bureaucratic paralysis and the corruption of officials, demands urgent changes, yet carefully avoids even brushing against the system that supports him and grants him a seat in parliament.
Torres, who turned 60 in June, opens the text with a statement that inadvertently serves as a confession: "I am already 60 years old, and I have lived well and poorly; we have had times of splendor and times of scarcity, but we have never experienced the truth like this." He then, without letting go of the ideological lifeline, adds that he is a deputy "with great pride" and that he will always defend "Fidel's revolutionary project; it is part of my life, a member of my body and spirit."
After making the necessary bow, Torres moves on to what he refers to as the diagnosis: "It's time to take action, to slam our fists on the table, to get rid of those who haven't delivered and bring in those who can, because they exist." He then delivers his verdict on inefficient officials: "Anyone who is hesitating, stalling, becoming corrupt, slacking off, and complicating matters must leave through the nearest exit."
The solutions proposed by the troubadour are, at the very least, picturesque: "country folks focused on the production of all kinds of food to enrich themselves"; "boats for cooperatives to import oil"; and "streets for those who can fix them and charge tolls." He even states that he doesn't care "what animal helps us out of this predicament, as long as it has the revolution, Fidel, and Raúl in its heart." A hutia, a crab, a python: anything will do, as long as it is revolutionary.
The text would not be complete without its share of external blame. Torres writes that one must hold "the Yankees accountable for our misfortunes," although immediately afterward he acknowledges that "what absolutely no one, neither Russia nor China, nor Congo nor Singapore, is going to do is what the Cubans themselves have to do." A half-hearted clarity, too wrapped up in slogans to be truly helpful.
The context surrounding the post makes its words even more revealing than intended. Cuba has accumulated an economic contraction of over 20% since 2020, with a projected GDP decline of between -6.5% and -7.2% for this year. Power outages exceed 20 hours daily in many areas. And hundreds of thousands of Cubans have emigrated in the last five years.
This is the town that Torres describes as "taking its last breath": the same one that votes with its feet while he writes from Facebook. This is not the first time the troubadour resorts to this pattern. In July, he urged the leaders to "get out of the air conditioning and hit the streets", moved because the bank was delivering only 500 pesos per customer. In June, he romanticized the crisis with pseudo-poetic language, speaking of the "courage to remain standing when the ground shakes." And also in June, he lashed out at the priest Alberto Reyes Pías, one of the few priests who names the regime as responsible for Cuban suffering.
The post concludes, as could be expected, with "Long live Cuba" and "Long live Fidel." The revolution, according to Torres, "either saves itself now or it gets saved." What is not mentioned is who needs to save it, nor who will save the people that the very same "revolution" has crushed.
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