Lorena Cantó
07/18/2021 3:47 PM
Clarín.com
World
Updated 07/18/2021 3:58 PM
The massive protests that shook Cuba on Sunday
are very likely to be repeated
if the government does not give up its position of criminalizing the protesters and does not opt for an inclusive dialogue that addresses the root of the discontent, according to experts consulted by Efe.
"What happened has many readings but in principle it is a social protest, the largest that has occurred since 1959,
which subjects the bases of what has been understood by the 'Cuban consensus' to deep discussion
," the professor and researcher told Efe. Cuban Julio César Guanche. In his opinion, "it is foreseeable that it will happen again" and "that means reading the cause not as an explosion in itself but as a continuum that can explode with a trigger, but always responding to a process that refers to its causes and motives. ".
"There is a timeline that has been indicating that things like this would happen and
there is nothing that indicates that this is the final chapter of this process
, unless it is understood as a breaking point and many of the bases of the politics in itself, also of economic and social policy, even of the political language that the Cuban State uses ", indicates the intellectual.
Guanche maintains that this language should be "much more focused on inclusion",
on not criminalizing
"sectors that can only be doubly penalized" and with allusions "that almost always have class content, also linked to race."
Members of the Cuban community in Italy listen to Pope Francis.
AFP photo
To distinguish, in short, "any illegitimate act of violence with respect to any other peaceful Protestant and with legitimate demands." Nor does the Cuban historian Rafael Rojas, from the Colegio de México, rule out "new outbreaks of public demonstration against the Government" given that last week's repression against protesters
"will add to the accumulation of grievances
suffered by large sectors of the population of lowest income within the island. "
"It is difficult to envision
any kind of solution to this conflict in the short term
. The polarization will intensify because thousands of peaceful protesters, from humble sectors of the island, have been treated as 'counterrevolutionaries' and 'criminals'. In that dissatisfied citizenry, as it grows demographically, anger will take hold ", asserts the Colmex intellectual.
The networks, Pandora's box
Understanding that there have been many factors, not only the heavy hand of the United States, or the discontent over the prolonged crisis and lack of freedom, is essential to read and understand what happened in Cuba.
Also the crucial role of the internet,
which reached Cubans' phones less than three years ago.
"This would have been impossible without a digitally connected Cuba.
Social media played a
critical
facilitating role
by channeling widespread discontent and allowing people to see others fearlessly express shared frustrations," says Ted Henken, Professor of Sociology and Latin American Studies at Baruch College in New York.
The expert defines the internet as "a Pandora's box that
has brought constant headaches to the regime
by allowing Cubans to increasingly lose their collective fear and identify their discontent with that of many other fellow citizens."
Thousands of people attend an act of support for the revolution in Havana (Cuba).
Photo EFE
Guanche, meanwhile, believes that the reading of what happened should be multidimensional, "with a focus on
the accumulation of internal political, economic and social problems
that Cuba has. It is essential to understand that this is not a strict creation of an unconventional method of warfare. But it also has roots and sources in Cuba, which are Cuban actors and which has to be solved with political schemes that go to the roots. "
"It is a rage that has reasons,
that has rationality
, and if it is not understood, I do not think it can have a solution," he says.
Popping "from manual"
For Rojas, the protests in Cuba
have the classic ingredients of a social outbreak
: "New leaderships within the mass of protesters trying to keep the protest alive, a government that, after repressing, tries to satisfy the demands, and a opposition that seeks to capitalize on the popular demand ".
"The difference with the other Latin American outbreaks, with the exception of Venezuela and Nicaragua, where something similar happens, is that the popular demands of the island contain, in addition to effective responses to the economic and health crisis,
freedom and democracy,
" he says.
Police officers arrest protesters in front of the Cuban capitol on Saturday in Havana (Cuba).
Photo EFE
Both also agree that
the power's response, so far, has been incorrect
.
That reaction included, on the day of the massive protests, a call from President Miguel Díaz-Canel to his supporters to go out into the streets to fight the protesters.
"The first call that was made should have been a joint call to control order by the State,
with firm promises
that there would not be any type of use of firearms as Fidel Castro did in 1994, which was the experience immediately prior to this. "Guanche argues.
But, he adds, it should also be called to control "
any excess of the response that was given to the protest
both by the civilian population called by the president and by the country's police apparatus."
Answers
"The government's response
has been wrong from the beginning.
A response that, in the recent history of Latin America and the Caribbean, has immediate antecedents not only in Venezuela and Nicaragua, but also in the repression and criminalization of protests that also we have seen in Brazil, Chile and Colombia, "says Rafael Rojas.
And he concludes: "I am afraid that
extremism
will grow on all sides of the Cuban conflict."
"Has polarization in Cuba reached a point of no return?
Possibly yes," Guanche in turn argues.
"The polarization is resolved by combating inequality between the actors, also with civic positions, political participation, capacity for expression and dialogue, greater interaction between social discourse, respect for the rights of those involved," he concludes.
On the internet level, which
the government "turned off"
shortly after the outbreak of the protests, Henken believes that the lack of connection would not have stopped the demonstrations by itself.
It was only done by "the massive deployment of repressive forces," he points out.
"That strategy is unsustainable
and these protests will continue until the root causes of the political, economic and social discontent are addressed. Unless the government is willing to become more of a global pariah than it already is," Henken adds.
EFE Agency
PB
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