Like every January 1 since Fidel Castro came down from the Sierra Maestra in 1959, the new year comes to Cuba loaded with challenges and uncertainties.
Three decades have passed since the start of the Special Period, the serious crisis caused by the disappearance of the Soviet Union - GDP fell by 35% in three years in the early nineties - and 2021 lands again in the middle of an extraordinary situation. delicate, the island suffocated by an acute lack of liquidity and a galloping shortage, with a fall in GDP of 11% last year and tourism almost to zero due to the pandemic.
On the horizon, a complex economic reform to be done and a monetary unification underway that will mean the end of decades of egalitarian policies and subsidies, which in the short term represents a severe blow to the pocket of Cubans.
Along with gigantic economic and social challenges, an unprecedented scenario opens up in politics due to the massive irruption of social networks and the spread of the internet, which has made possible new spaces for expression, ideological confrontation and citizen participation.
There are many factors that make 2021 a key year for Cuba.
In April, the VIII Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) will be held, in which Raúl Castro, 89, will leave the post of First Secretary.
It was Raúl who encouraged his replacement in the country's presidency by the 60-year-old engineer Miguel Díaz-Canel, and proposed a maximum of two terms for senior positions, both in the State and in the Party, so with him they should other
historical ones
, usually identified with the most orthodox positions,
leave
.
The VIII Congress - which if it does not provide surprises will elect Díaz-Canel as the first secretary of the PCC - is not only important because it is the replacement, but because it has to draw the strategic lines that will mark the destiny of the country and of Cubans in the next years.
Lines that necessarily go through ending decades of egalitarianism and articulating a process of open-ended reforms that should promote the private and cooperative sector, SMEs and foreign investment, in addition to decentralizing economic decision-making, giving autonomy to state companies and strengthening to local administrations.
Already the VII Congress, in 2016, gave free rein to most of these transformations, but they were postponed time and again, including the monetary reform that began on January 1, which implies a forced landing of Cuba in the real economy.
The devaluation of the currency and monetary unification (the convertible peso is eliminated and only the Cuban peso will circulate) was known to be problematic due to its social impact, price increases, inflation and the considerable reduction in people's purchasing power.
But apparently no one calculated the magnitude of the discomfort.
The increase in the electricity bill - which in some cases reached 500% -, the price of bread, gas, public transport and even ice cream from the famous Coppelia ice cream parlor, these days caused a
tsunami
of criticism - expressed about all through social networks–, before which the Government stopped and announced that it will revise down many of the decreed rates.
The economists baptized January 1 as
Zero Day
, as it was the beginning of a long-awaited reform that all economic actors consider essential if Cuba wants to avoid bankruptcy and increase its productivity.
But also, in a way, 2021 can be considered
Year Zero
for other reasons.
As good news, on January 20, Joe Biden will assume the presidency of the United States, who has already announced that he will resume the policy of rapprochement with the island of the Obama administration and will lift the sanctions imposed by Trump, which in the last four years has intensified notably the embargo and aggravated the hardships of the Cubans.
The COVID-19 epidemic will mitigate the positive effect on the Cuban economy of the return of North American tourism and the end of restrictions on direct flights, cruises and remittances, the first measures that Biden could adopt.
"In any case, even if Trump leaves, for Cuba any US administration is a challenge, as demonstrated with the Obama thaw, which generated new challenges and resistance in the most orthodox sectors," observes a prominent academic.
The peaceful demonstration that occurred on November 27 at the gates of the Ministry of Culture (MINCULT), called and disseminated through the internet and social networks, is another factor to consider that worries the authorities, and is a reflection of the new moment that lives Cuba.
The spark of the call was the forcible eviction of a group of dissident artists and activists from the so-called San Isidro Movement (MSI), who were protesting in a house in Old Havana over the conviction of a rapper.
In rejection of what happened the night before, the mobilization, mobile phone in hand, of hundreds of young people linked to the world of culture, each with their own agenda or without an agenda, but united in the demand for greater freedom of expression, tolerance policy and cessation of harassment against those who dissent, put the authorities before an unprecedented reality.
MINCULT officials agreed to receive a group representing the protesters, listened to their demands, and committed themselves to a dialogue that was ultimately frustrated, but that shook the foundations of the political debate in Cuba.
Tens, hundreds of people, artists, academics, activists and ordinary people threw themselves into the networks to defend dialogue, while the authority and those who identified with it denied any possibility of debate with "counterrevolutionaries" and "mercenaries paid by the Empire".
Television and the official media harshly attacked members of the MSI and independent journalists - not against the protesters of 27N -, but an unprecedented confrontation on the Internet was established for weeks that showed that the State, today, no longer has a monopoly on the message and of the established truth.
“The networks are the expression of an authentic democratization of communication that the Internet revolution has allowed.
Today, any individual in any country, for minimal cost, with a smartphone has the same communicational firepower as, for example,
CNN
.
It is a considerable revolution ”, reflected in those days the former director of
Le Monde Diplomatique
, Ignacio Ramonet, author of the book
One Hundred Hours with Fidel
, in an interview with EL PAÍS.
What happened in these first days of monetary reform confirms that, together with the economic, political and social challenges, 2021 also brings new rules of the game to Cuba.
The thousands of messages and criticisms on Facebook, Instagram and other social networks against the price increases and the announced measures, made the authorities think better of it and in some cases back down.
62 years after Castro came down from the Sierra Maestra, another very loaded January 1 arrives: the Party Congress, the definitive replacement of the
historical ones
, the landing of Biden, the economic reforms, social networks, the shortage and its aftermath of citizen unrest, make 2021 a key year in the outcome of the Revolution vs. Evolution dilemma.