In a thought-provoking social media post, Sandy Hechavarría Gutiérrez, a Cuban citizen, articulates that the deepest tragedy facing Cuba today is not rooted in economic hardship or mass migration. Instead, it is the routine acceptance of humiliation, deceit, and blind obedience as societal norms.
This reflection, drawn from Hechavarría's personal experiences on the island, is not a political slogan or an academic analysis. It is an introspective commentary on the current state of the nation and the accumulated impact of decades under totalitarian rule on daily life, public morality, and individual conscience.
Hechavarría argues that Cuba's plight cannot merely be seen as a temporary crisis. He describes it as a fundamental moral decay, where not only an economic model has failed, but the ethical framework sustaining a civilized society has also crumbled.
Rejecting the notion of a "system failure," Hechavarría asserts that the regime has achieved its primary goal: subjugating the individual rather than liberating them. The regime's aim was not to uplift the individual but to tame them. Conscience was replaced with slogans, ethics with political loyalty, and dignity with functional obedience.
The nation emerging from this process is not a deviation from the original project but its logical conclusion. Hechavarría contends that Cuban totalitarianism persisted not only through visible repression but through a silent engineering of subjectivity.
This colonization extended to thought and behavior, transforming society into a laboratory where individual consciousness was progressively reconfigured. In this view, the education system stopped cultivating critical thinking and instead trained reflexes, shifting from teaching to think to demanding rote repetition. Classrooms became spaces of control where fear of dissent replaced moral development.
Corruption, Hechavarría states, is not an anomaly but the circulatory system of the model. Scarcity was not accidental but designed as a tool of domination, and misery, far from being an unwanted consequence, served as a political technology.
The citizen stealing to survive is not an isolated criminal but a product of a structure that drives them to degradation. In his reflection, history also emerges as a victim of power: kidnapped, rewritten, and used as an instrument of submission. Impoverishment was not only material but also historical, crippling the nation's ability to understand itself.
The result, Hechavarría describes, is a fragmented individual, forced to live in a perpetual facade, where they must say what they do not believe, applaud what they despise, and remain silent about what consumes them internally. This duplicity is not individual cowardice but a survival strategy imposed by structural violence.
Applause for incompetent leaders, he notes, does not signify political faith but fear and calculation. These are acts of self-preservation in an environment where truth comes at a cost.
Therefore, he concludes, the greatest tragedy in Cuba is not poverty or mass exodus, but the normalization of human degradation. A people accustomed to living without truth, trust, and dignity exist in a state of spiritual mutilation.
In his view, there is no technical solution to a moral crisis. No economic reform can heal a nation ethically devastated. The only realistic path lies in an internal rupture: naming the harm, dismantling the lie, and reclaiming the right to think freely.
In a regime built on falsehood, he asserts, every truth is inherently an act of moral rebellion.
Cuba's Moral Crisis and Its Implications
What is Sandy Hechavarría Gutiérrez's main argument about Cuba's tragedy?
Hechavarría argues that the core tragedy of Cuba is not economic or migratory, but the normalization of dehumanization, where humiliation and obedience have become everyday norms.
How does Hechavarría describe the impact of the Cuban regime on individual conscience?
He describes that the regime has altered individual consciousness through silent engineering, turning society into a space where thought and behavior are reconfigured to align with the regime's goals.
Why does Hechavarría believe there is no technical solution to Cuba's crisis?
He believes the crisis is fundamentally moral and ethical, and thus cannot be resolved through economic reforms. Instead, it requires a profound internal change and reclaiming of individual thought.