We wanted to share this thoughtful opinion piece about the complexity of the situation in Cuba, by two Canadian academics: Counterpunch: Protest in Cuba: Why it Failed – by Stephen Kimber and John Kirk (Nov. 22, 2021)
Excerpt: The news was…. There was no news.
On November 15, the US media primed us for a repeat of the events of July 11 in Cuba — only more massive and more dramatic.
In July, tens of thousands of Cubans took to the streets to express their frustrations with their government and, more generally, the state of their country and its economy.
In the lead-up to this month’s announced protests, Archipiélago — a broad umbrella of dissident groups led by well-known dramatist Yunior García — boasted a Facebook group of 37,000 members. It publicly identified rallying points around the island where demonstrations would begin that day at 3 pm.
But nothing much happened. Organizers asked Cubans to take to the streets to demand radical changes in the government, but only a handful responded. They invited Cubans to bang pots later that night to show the world their frustration. Even fewer did. Despite predictions of violence and vandalism in the streets, CBS Miami reported only 11 people arrested, with another 50 barricaded in their homes by government agents and supporters. By the next day, García himself, without telling any of his fellow dissidents, decamped to Spain.
What went wrong? . . . (continued)
