Díaz-Canel Asks Cubans to "Think" Their Way Out of Crisis Amid Stagnation

Once again, Miguel Díaz-Canel addressed the nation with empty words. In his latest speech from Santiago de Cuba, the handpicked leader urged the Cuban people to "think" their way out of the crisis, as if after over six decades of "revolution," there is anyone left who hasn't already pondered how to survive it.

The appointed ruler acknowledged that the country is facing an "especially challenging time" following the onslaught of Hurricane Melissa. He called for “popular participation,” “natural leadership,” and “local management,” seemingly admitting that his government cannot—or does not know how to—manage even the cleanup of the mud left by the floods.

“We urge you to think about what we can create with our effort, our work, and our intelligence,” Díaz-Canel stated on X, overlooking the fact that the effort, work, and intelligence of the Cuban people have long been stifled by the bureaucracy, inefficiency, and restrictions of the regime he inherited.

While Dr. Díaz-Canel invites the nation to reflect, millions of Cubans spend each day contemplating survival: figuring out how to obtain food, electricity, water, transportation, or a flight out of the country. They are considering how to escape a crisis the regime itself caused, which now shamelessly seeks to solve with "popular participation" and "decentralized management."

The scenario would almost be comedic if it weren't so tragic. A leader without solutions asking the people to invent them, all while echoing slogans from the 1960s and paying homage in Santa Ifigenia to those who, according to him, "set the example."

Yet, the example still alive in Cuba is not that of a fossilized commander, but that of the people who, despite everything, continue to suffer—and, of course, think—how to escape this nightmare without being dragged down by the regime.

After the Hurricane: A Regime Without Answers and a Nation "Urged to Think"

In the wake of Hurricane Melissa's devastation, eastern Cuba was left not only underwater but also in despair.

Amid torn-off roofs, isolated towns, and thousands of families who lost everything, Díaz-Canel appeared on camera with his usual remedy: empty slogans, appeals to “love for the homeland,” and, this time, a new addition to the official rhetoric: “we must think.”

The Defense Council, which was supposed to assess “recovery,” ended up being more an exercise in propaganda than in real management. While the continuity theorist spoke of “popular participation” and “natural leaders of the people,” thousands of victims awaited potable water, electricity, or simply a dry mattress to sleep on.

According to statistics from the regime itself, over 95,000 homes were damaged, though international estimates put the number of affected people at more than 3.5 million.

Instead of admitting the magnitude of the disaster or acknowledging the evident institutional incapacity to address it, the government opted—once again—to disguise scarcity with heroic speeches.

State television cameras showed Díaz-Canel among the rubble, surrounded by militants and officials, promising that “no one will be left helpless.” Yet the reality in the neighborhoods contradicts every word: aid arrives late, materials are scarce, and people survive by improvising.

The regime, true to its script, tries to transform the tragedy into an act of revolutionary epic. Where the state fails, it blames nature; where the people demand, it asks them to “think”; and where everything crumbles, it clings to the discourse of resistance.

Meanwhile, in Havana, they sharpen the propaganda narrative, while in the east, Cubans continue to demonstrate—without need for convocations—that they think, work, and endure. But not to prop up the regime, rather to survive its perpetual ineptitude.