In the middle of the bus, I overheard a young man recently say that on July 11th he had gone “on the street” because of embarrassment. Like him, there were people who arrived at places not knowing what was going on. Behind the smoke screen that was supposed to subvert order, there were marked interests to divide and strike at the country’s socialist project that we trace, but that day was in vain.

And of course, like all delusional people, those who make a millimeter mess from comfortable sofas, hundreds of miles away, have always thought that a fully functioning state, accompanied by popular support, can collapse like meringue from one day to the next.

We all know that on July 11, 2021, there were also disgruntled people on the streets who legally expressed their disagreement. However, the main truth lies in the footage of people throwing stones at hospitals, shops, police cars and people, which ended up being an unacceptable example of what the island needs in the midst of a brutal pandemic and an intensified blockade.

If anything remained unexplored in those days, it is, on the one hand, that violence as a method of subversion will never be accepted among decent Cubans, and on the other, the constant connection with people and the need to accompany them, even when the solution of problems is not so easy. It is about going out, talking to the residents of the neighborhoods, listening to them and, above all, trying to change as much as possible the difficult realities in which we live, as was done in these busy months of the government on the street with its people.

It also requires a complex process of sociocultural transformation that cannot be achieved with magic formulas or simple statements. These are the moments when the debate takes place in the corridors of every university, at the bus stop or while walking, in the daily “struggle”. Crises in general force us to read ourselves inside more often, to be able to listen, even without sharing the same ideas and criteria.

There are divisions in Cuba, but nothing justifies a forced exit, especially when there are clear-cut opportunist, neo-colonialist, arrogant interests lurking. We understand love, not hate. The greatest fortune that this country has retained is its sovereignty and independence, the construction of which was spent with great bloodshed.

Therefore, July 11, 2021 is the triumph of reason over induced hatred, of the people over vile lies. Regardless of what every Cuban thinks, what matters today is that we all have the opportunity to change and improve who we are, without ever losing the compass that tells us where we should be going. Let us be, as bequeathed to us, eternal and true nonconformists, but always in order to continue to improve every revolutionary space where our unity essentially resides.

Source: Juventud Rebelde