Cuban Professor René Fidel González Calls for Political and Civic Engagement in Pursuit of Happiness

On Sunday, Cuban legal scholar and educator René Fidel González García shared a thought-provoking message on Facebook from Santiago de Cuba. He introduced the term "political indigence" to describe the state of most Cubans and urged the restoration of political equality as a crucial step in transforming the island's reality.

González García's post, which has gained traction on social media, is built around a central premise: "Political indigence inevitably leads to economic and social destitution."

The jurist, who holds a doctorate in Legal Sciences and formerly taught at the University of Oriente, contends that many Cubans are ensnared in an unproductive cycle of complaints and distractions mistakenly given political significance.

"If we appear to be trapped in a loop of grievances, trivialities, and diversions of all kinds, to which we naively and foolishly assign political roles, contents, and significance they neither have nor will ever have, it is because we are a majority of political indigents. We are the outcasts of a system of relations seemingly designed—as we can verify daily—to exclude us in Cuba in every conceivable way," he wrote.

Introspection as a First Step

In response to this diagnosis, González García advocates for a collective introspection before seeking solutions, posing two direct questions to oneself and to family, friends, and neighbors, whether in Cuba or abroad: Am I a political indigent? What makes me a political indigent?

He further distinguishes between a "political indigent," who has been excluded from the system, and a "political marginal," described as someone who won't ask these questions. "Being a political indigent is, in any case, very different from being a successful political marginal," he noted, adding that "the political marginal lacks commitment to anything beyond their own success, and these two questions […] concern us, about the commitment that constitutes 'us'.

A Call to Action

The text concludes with a call to action: "Only by doing so will it be possible for us, the excluded in Cuba, to begin reclaiming politics and full citizenship in the pursuit of happiness."

This reflection is part of a series of public statements González García has made throughout 2026. In late July, he asserted that Cubans today have fewer political rights and liberties than in 1953, under Batista's dictatorship, and in early August, he directly addressed the Communist Party of Cuba, questioning whether its members would support what he described as a process of privatization and impoverishment: "They can no longer even invoke the definition of a dictatorship of the proletariat. It's against the proletariat, at the expense of the proletariat, without the proletariat."

Current Economic and Repressive Context

González García's reflections come amid a severe structural crisis. On August 13, the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights reported that extreme poverty affects 94% of Cubans, using a threshold of $1.90 per person per day. An analysis by economist Javier Pérez Capdevila estimated that an individual needs at least 96,060 Cuban pesos monthly to meet basic needs, roughly 14 times the average salary.

On the repressive front, Prisoners Defenders documented 1,327 political prisoners as of late July 2026, and nearly two thousand repressive actions were recorded on the island in the first half of the year.

González García was dismissed from his teaching position at the University of Oriente on November 11, 2016, after publishing critical articles in independent media. The institution claimed his writings lacked scientific merit and negatively impacted professional education, although he and human rights organizations denounced it as political retaliation. Since then, he has maintained a consistent public presence through Facebook and independent media.