On Sunday, Cuban playwright and activist Yunior García Aguilera shared a provocative opinion piece in his column "Cuba and the Night" for the independent outlet 14ymedio. In this piece, García likens the island's one-party system to Polyphemus, the Cyclops from Homer's Odyssey, countering a statement by Miguel Díaz-Canel, who has audaciously cast himself as Ulysses in a grand Cuban epic.
Reacting to the latest wave of U.S. sanctions, Díaz-Canel tweeted on Saturday: "We are millions—in Cuba and across the globe—crafting the great odyssey of Cuban resistance with talent, patriotism, and solidarity." Since his exile to Madrid in November 2021, García has dismantled this metaphor by highlighting a critical oversight: in Homer's story, only Ulysses survives to return to Ithaca.
"In truth, Cuba's one-party regime mirrors a Cyclops far too closely. Polyphemus's flaw wasn't just anatomical; it was political, too. He viewed the world through a singular lens, believing that understanding it required no more," argues García.
The Cyclopean View of Cuba's Crisis
García extends this analogy to the regime's crisis management. "Our tropical Cyclops exhibits a similar tendency. Whether it's power outages, fuel shortages, youth migration, or disastrous food production, it fixates on one scapegoat: Washington," he writes. This article emerged just two days following Cuba's eighth nationwide blackout of the year, during which the National Electric System was completely down, only to be restored by Saturday evening.
García also satirizes remarks by Vice Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío, who told PBS NewsHour that he and other Cuban officials endure just two and a half to three hours of electricity daily. "It's a relief that the Party's elite also stand in long lines for food, walk miles to their offices, and spend sleepless nights swatting mosquitoes during blackouts. Cossío's cynicism reaches Homeric proportions," García comments.
A Legacy of Silencing Dissent
The activist revisits the Homeric episode where Ulysses tells Polyphemus his name is "Nobody," applying it to Cuba's official narrative: "In Cuba, Nobody also boasts a long political history. Nobody protests independently. Nobody disagrees without foreign influence. Nobody flees the country out of desperation. Nobody dares to challenge the Government."
This column is part of a series of critical texts published throughout 2026. In August, García warned that internal division within the opposition only aids the regime. In July, he deconstructed the government's alleged achievements, depicting Cuba's dystopia as a mechanism that rebrands resignation as hope. In April, he urged for the republic's reconstruction "on civil, pluralistic, and legal foundations."
"Perhaps the real question isn't how long the Cyclops can withstand external stones, but how long Cubans must endure a narrative they cannot shape," García concludes.
Yunior García and Cuba's Political Landscape
Why does Yunior García compare Cuba's regime to a Cyclops?
Yunior García draws parallels between Cuba's one-party regime and a Cyclops due to the regime's singular perspective and its inability to see beyond its own viewpoint, similar to the Cyclops Polyphemus who could only see through one eye.
What was Miguel Díaz-Canel's metaphor about Cuba?
Miguel Díaz-Canel likened himself to Ulysses, leading a collective Cuban epic of resistance, in response to new U.S. sanctions. García critiques this by noting that in the Odyssey, only Ulysses survives, questioning the metaphor's appropriateness.
How does García view the Cuban government's crisis management?
García criticizes the Cuban government's crisis management as being one-sided, blaming external factors like Washington, and failing to address internal issues such as electricity blackouts, fuel shortages, and food production problems.