Cuba's "Victory" Rhetoric Fails as Reality Bites

Certain slogans age poorly, and then there's this one: "For the Homeland, the Revolution, and Socialism, we will always prevail." By 2026, this phrase has lost its heroic ring, echoing instead like a Big Brother screen, a worn-out recording on loop as the nation finds itself literally and metaphorically plunged into darkness.

The latest spectacle at the air-conditioned halls of the Palace gathered veterans, generals, Party officials, and handpicked youth to recite the script. Two hours of "heartfelt" exchange where, according to state narratives, Cuba once again triumphed... although it's unclear exactly over what.

The Disconnect Between Rhetoric and Reality

This scene resembles experimental theater—a room filled with historical combatants, officials, and uniforms speaking of victories and epic missions, while outside, reality tells a less poetic tale: blackouts, shortages, and mass exodus. Within the Palace, there's no room for fresh air, criticism, or truth.

Miguel Díaz-Canel, now jaded in his role as slogan reader, proclaimed that dignity and courage ensure "we will always prevail." It's curious: after decades of supposed victories, the country greets each day more defeated. Perhaps these are conceptual victories, invisible, inedible, and inexplicable, yet celebrated all the same. From one victory to the next until the final defeat.

A Ritual of Past Glories

Of course, the event featured all the hallmarks of ritual: Playa Girón, Angola, the fight against "bandits," the defense of Venezuela, and the 32 soldiers fallen in "unequal combat," alongside imaginary mercenaries landing on the keys—a useful collection of ghosts meant to justify the present.

This script thrives on a perpetual need for enemies, real or imagined, to sustain a narrative that can no longer stand independently.

The Persistence of an Outdated Narrative

What fascinates most is not the content but the persistence. The obsession with keeping an epic alive that exists only in speeches and increasingly dreary, grotesque closed-door events. While real power maneuvers quietly—amid discreet contacts, calculations, and survival strategies—the propaganda machine cranks up the volume.

The concept of "My Neighborhood for the Homeland" was discussed this Saturday. This initiative, translated into plain language, means mobilizing the usual suspects to watch, clean, produce, and continue believing. Secure Neighborhood, Participative Neighborhood, Productive Neighborhood... they forgot "Resigned Neighborhood," which would be the most honest.

Power and Control in the Neighborhood

The idea that "the defense of the revolution begins in the neighborhood" sounds less like patriotism and more like social control, named by failed spies and parrots from Ñico López.

No one should be left without a task, without surveillance, without repeating the slogan. It's all very participative, as long as participation means obeying without question.

Meanwhile, another Cuba moves in parallel. A Cuba where the heirs of power—the "royal family"—aren't organizing cleaning brigades but exploring how to secure their place in the future. A Cuba where the key word isn't "resistance" but "negotiation." Where the loudspeaker remains socialist, but the rationale increasingly proprietary.

That’s why these acts no longer convince; they reveal. They don't speak of strength, but of fear. Not of conviction, but of necessity. The necessity to repeat a crumbling story, to invoke a "revolution" that explains nothing, to uphold a myth as reality charts a different course.

In the end, the phrase "we will always prevail" lingers in the air, much like the cardboard Fidel now featured in selfies. Smiling, unmoving, indifferent to the present.

A perfect symbol: the revolution turned decoration. And power, as always, elsewhere.