The Cuban playwright and activist Yunior García Aguilera published this Sunday in his column "Cuba y la noche" for the independent media 14ymedio, an opinion piece in which he compares the one-party regime to the Cyclops Polyphemus from Homer's Odyssey, responding to a statement by Miguel Díaz-Canel in which the leader seems to present himself as Ulysses of a collective Cuban epic.
On Saturday, following the new round of U.S. sanctions, Díaz-Canel posted on X: "We are millions - in Cuba and the world - writing the great odyssey of Cuban resistance with talent, patriotism, and solidarity." García, who has been exiled in Madrid since November 2021, deconstructs the metaphor by pointing out a detail that the leader seems to have overlooked: in Homer's story, Odysseus is the only one of his crew who returns alive to Ithaca.
"The truth is that the Cuban regime, which operates as a single-party system, resembles a cyclops too much. And the problem with Polyphemus was not only anatomical; it was also political. He viewed the world from a singular perspective and believed that this viewpoint was sufficient to understand everything," the columnist asserts.
The analogy extends to crisis management. "Our tropical cyclops possesses a similar capacity. If there's no electricity, if there's no fuel, if the youth emigrate, if food production is a disaster, just look in one direction: Washington," writes García. The article is published two days after Cuba experienced its eighth national blackout of the year, with the National Electric System completely disconnected and restored on Saturday evening.
García also mocks the statements made by Deputy Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío, who claimed in an interview with PBS NewsHour that he and other Cuban officials live with only two and a half or three hours of electricity a day. "It's a relief to know that the high-ranking officials of the Party also stand in long lines to get food, walk kilometers to their offices, and spend sleepless nights swatting mosquitoes during blackouts. Cossío's cynicism reaches Homeric proportions here," he writes.
The activist also recalls the Homeric episode in which Odysseus responds "Nobody" when Polyphemus asks for his name, and he translates it into the official discourse: "In Cuba, Nobody also has a long political history. Nobody protests on their own. Nobody disagrees without receiving foreign instructions. Nobody leaves the country out of desperation. Nobody can question the Government."
This column is part of a series of critical texts published throughout 2026. In August, García warned that the internal fragmentation of the opposition benefits the regime. In July, he dismantled the alleged achievements of the government, describing the Cuban dystopia as a mechanism to “call hope resignation”. And in April, he urged the reconstruction of the republic “on civil, pluralistic, and legal foundations.”
"Perhaps the real question is not how long the cyclops can withstand the stones coming from the outside, but how long the Cubans must remain within a history that they cannot write as they wish," García concludes.
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