Mike Hammer's Domino Diplomacy Challenges Cuban Regime's Propaganda

A seemingly innocuous game of dominoes in a Camagüey street has once again highlighted the Cuban regime's discomfort with any gesture of closeness that challenges its official narrative. The image of Mike Hammer, the head of the U.S. Mission in Cuba, engaging in a casual game with Cuban youth, prompted a revealing and angry response from one of the most emblematic figures of the regime's repressive structure: former spy Gerardo Hernández Nordelo. From his official social media account, the current national coordinator of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) issued a message dripping with cynicism and desperation: "Don't worry, Cuban children: Those who survive, the same ones who block us, will invite you to play dominoes... #Cuba #CDRCuba #EndTheBlockade."

Hernández's message encapsulates the regime's old propagandistic script, which blames the U.S. embargo—referred to by the regime as a "blockade"—for Cuba's social and economic failures. However, his post is not only a crude manipulation but also reveals the deep fear that any alternative, direct, and popular form of diplomacy, like Hammer's, instills in the ruling elite.

The Symbolic Gesture that Unsettles Power

For the national coordinator of the CDR—an institution widely discredited within the official apparatus—Hammer's gesture represents an audacious symbolic affront. An American diplomat directly engaging with Cuban youth in the street—a space traditionally claimed by the regime as a bastion of surveillance and control—upends the narrative that the CDR has maintained for decades.

The phrase "the street belongs to the revolutionaries," uttered by dictator Fidel Castro in August 1995 following the repression of the El Maleconazo protests, echoes uncomfortably in the face of images of Hammer conversing and playing dominoes in that same public space. For Cuba's totalitarian regime, which views urban spaces as tools for political discipline, Hammer's use of these settings is an ideological provocation: a bid for freedom of assembly over control and surveillance.

Hammer's Diplomacy: A Grassroots Approach

The domino episode was neither spontaneous nor innocent. It is part of a series of symbolic actions through which the American diplomat seeks to connect with the Cuban people on a human and horizontal level. During his visits to provinces like Villa Clara and Camagüey, Hammer has not only shared games or laughter but has also listened to the testimonies of political prisoners, met with human rights activists, and paid homage in religious spaces with deep popular roots.

These simple yet meaningful gestures stand in stark contrast to the rigid ideology of the Cuban officialdom, which cannot tolerate the possibility of direct links between the population and foreign representatives who question the regime. Hammer's diplomacy recognizes that major social transformations require popular legitimacy, which poses a threat to the Communist Party leaders.

A Grotesque Caricature of Institutional Impotence

Gerardo Hernández's reaction should not be understood merely as a propagandistic retort. It is, in essence, a grotesque caricature of a regime's institutional impotence, unable to prevent the collapse of its narrative. Using the image of a "surviving" Cuban child to criticize a diplomatic action reveals not only opportunistic exploitation of the misery they have themselves created but also a complete disconnect from the real sensitivity of the people.

Instead of taking responsibility or implementing policies to improve quality of life, Cuban elites continue to resort to victimization and the demonization of foreigners as instruments of internal cohesion. However, the Cuban populace no longer buys into this narrative. The connection Hammer has established on the ground is unsettling not because it is "interventionist," but because it exposes the regime's profound disconnection from its own citizens.

The so-called "domino diplomacy," reminiscent of the "ping-pong diplomacy" between the United States and China in the 1970s, symbolizes a way to break the ice and build bridges where official channels are blocked by distrust or authoritarianism. While the Cuban regime may mock, protest, or attempt to discredit these gestures, the fact remains that, as communist leaders entrench themselves in sterile rhetoric, a foreign diplomat sits on a curb playing with the youth of Camagüey. And in today's Cuba, that is more subversive than a thousand revolutionary proclamations.