Out of excess gullibility, desperation, lack of common sense, curiosity or simple morbidity, people went to look for supposed help.
HAVANA, Cuba.- A very popular saying goes that “when alms are too much, even the saint distrusts,” but if the saint is Cuban, he will surely extend his hand. This would explain why so many people, less than the influencer Ignacio Giménez would have wanted, but more than any sensible being could have expected, came. last December 6 to several hotels on the Island to claim the help of 1,100 dollars (a small figure, like every good joke) that, supposedly, they were going to distribute to each Cuban, with an identification card, to alleviate the effects of the Hurricane Melissa. Although the meteor passed through the east of the country, the call was national, a detail that went unnoticed in the face of the tempting bait launched by Giménez, a Spaniard who, in recent years, has made Cuban society (or what remains of it) his favorite toy.
The authorities did not feel the need to deny the hoax that was circulating on social networks because they did not believe that a town from which they have even taken away the rice with weevils that they were given through the ration book, would give credence to such nonsense. However, the people went. Due to excess credulity, desperation, lack of common sense, curiosity or simple morbidity, Small crowds gathered at the entrances to hotels in different provinces. The commotion was such that the Ministry of Tourism He was forced to deny the information through official media. Hours later, Ignacio Giménez himself acknowledged that he had lied and justified his actions with a phrase that seems taken from Fidel Castro’s bag of verbal tricks. “I lie because I love you,” he posted on his Facebook wall, and the interlude ended with no consequence other than a state of massive disappointment and a fit of laughter, or a capital insult, among the portion of citizens who, from the beginning, warned that it was a trick.
Frustrated some, amused others, offended the least, they returned to the new normal of the daily deficit of more than 2 thousand megawatts, which has more than 60% of Cuba in darkness. The experience, however, left its lessons and some other discovery, such as the degree of extreme alienation experienced by those who believed that a government engaged in a dishonest battle against Cubans and their emigration to appropriate all the hard currency that circulates in the country, is going to put millions of dollars in the hands of the people that it has been methodically fleecing for decades. Those who bought the story are the same ones who believe that next year will be better, that the “blockade” is to blame, that Díaz-Canel did not know anything and that with Fidel this did not happen.
Even so, naiveties aside, it is inevitable to notice how quickly people mobilized to demand the supposed help, and how lazy they are to go out into the streets in peace to demand their rights. If these same human groups had gone to the respective seats of government in each province to demand what was truly worth it, today Cuba would make important headlines instead of being the laughing stock of its citizens and, even worse, of the regime that has it on the verge of annihilation.
No one doubts that hunger, fear and uncertainty about a future doomed to failure can cause some people to become delirious; But what happened on the 6th reveals that an important part of the Cuban people is more willing to depend than to conquer, and desperately needs a Messiah to distribute bread and fish while they watch and applaud. Despite the blackouts, hundreds of thousands were aware of the Spaniard’s promise, making it fly from chat to chat, from word to mouth, while a handful of souls expressed solidarity with the political prisoner Yosvany Rosell Garcíaon hunger strike for his innocence and his right to humane treatment in prison. Cubans do know what is happening, it’s just that their interest is based on survival, a legitimate act that, however, has been acquiring the flavor of pretext, indolence and impudence.
If what Ignacio Giménez intended was to mobilize people for money to see if, already gathered in the agreed place and irritated by the disappointment, one thing led to another and what we all want to happen would happen without lifting a finger, it was a fiasco. Freedom and democracy are at the opposite extreme from begging. But if Spanish is, in reality, a showman grotesque that serves the regime to divert attention from the greater misfortune that looms over us and, in parallel, stoke distrust on social networks, the mission was more than accomplished.
