“Para no ser una selva de cemento,” by Fernando Luis Rojas, first appeared, in Spanish, in the Cuban digital magazine La Tizza last July 16, and then republished on Communis in a version revised by Rojas and the editors of Communis with the permission of the author and La Tizza. Meanwhile, the Cuban Minister of Labor and Social Security, whose recent statements on the non-existence of beggars in Cuba were at the center of the controversy referred to in Rojas’ article, resigned from her post.
1.
In literature, there are beginnings that remain etched in readers’ memories. In the case of Latin American fiction, says Jorge Fornet, those of Pedro Páramo and One Hundred Years of Solitude are particularly noteworthy.
The same thing happens with music. Héctor Lavoe‘s voice resonates in our hearts when he sings, “La calle es una selva de cemento” (The street is a concrete jungle), early in the song Juanito Alimaña. Violence, fear, corruption, theft, and cronyism parade through it. But there is more. In reverse construction: the path to making the streets a concrete jungle, so that Juanito Alimaña can reign supreme, passes through impunity and silence, through looking away.
2.
The new trending topic in/about Cuba is associated with the intervention made by the Minister of Labor and Social Security during a joint meeting of two permanent working committees of Cuba’s National Assembly of People’s Power on Monday, July 14.
There are at least three dimensions of denialism in which the minister engages by refusing to acknowledge the presence of poverty—what is more, of begging—in today’s Cuba. These three dimensions are not unrelated to each other.
The first, and most important, is that of denying a reality that hits us in the face as never before since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in January 1959. To ignore this reality, to hide it, is to naturalize the closure of one of the foundations of the revolutionary project: that every person matters, and that this is so—or should be so—because of the collective nature of such project. This principle is not a discursive construct, nor has it ever been, but rather it has been consolidated through concrete socioeconomic and politico-cultural transformations and through the way in which it has permeated —giving thus way to the creation of a new people—the subjectivities of Cuban women and men. Silvio Rodríguez says it in one of his songs: “It has already been said that [this Revolution] is greater / Than the greatest of all of us / And it has already been said that it is done / For others.” For those unfamiliar with this in other parts of the world, Silvio is referring to Fidel’s well-known apothegm that in Cuba “a revolution greater than ourselves” had been made.
The central issue in this case is not limited to what can be interpreted as a lack of empathy on the part of a government official, although that is also important.
The question, rather, is to determine how much a personal and public stance on specific realities and policies—and their political consequences— is linked to a widespread practice of naturalizing the current situation, accepting defeat, and emptying of meaning the revolutionary project, while docilely anchoring oneself to what is possible. To return to Silvio, in his recent Más porvenir, or More future, he tells us: “And I grew up with everything / the good and the terrible, / scrutinizing ways / to expand the possible.”
A second dimension of the denialism implicit in the statements of the Cuban Minister of Labor and Social Security can be seen in her ignorance of research that documents situations of poverty and vulnerability nowadays in Cuba.
There is already a wealth of research on this subject. Sometimes you have to dig a little, but you can find it. Just a month ago (June 10), for example, sociologist Mayra Espina published the paper “Poverty and vulnerability on the rise: we need to know.” In her text, after acknowledging that there are “empirically observable obvious facts” and that updated data is needed, Espina refers to research carried out by Cuban entities such as the National Institute of Economic Research (INIE), which is under the authority of the Ministry of Economy and Planning, in the first decade of this century! Or Cuba’s Voluntary National Review on progress made in achieving the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Studies on inequality and poverty in Cuba are institutionalized in research spaces—which in many cases report directly to the corresponding ministries—such as the Center for Psychological and Sociological Research (CIPS), the Juan Marinello Cuban Institute for Cultural Research, the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO-Cuba), and the Center for the Study of the Cuban Economy, among others. They are also reflected in publications by these entities and by the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO), as well as in Cuban magazines such as Temas.
Therefore, this second dimension or aspect of the minister’s denialism symbolically sweeps away the accumulated body of work that should serve as the basis for transformative public policies, and ignores Fidel’s wager on the political centrality and the transformative potential of knowledge, not to mention the current government’s stated policy regarding the priority of innovation, science, and technology.
It is striking, as well as contradictory, that the Ministry of Labor and Social Security has been one of the agencies most committed to highlighting the existence of dialogues with social researchers.
The third dimension is closely related to the previous one. The contradiction with other government statements is evident and, in a way that is even more counterproductive and painful, with what Fidel Castro himself said and reiterated at the time on such questions and challenges.
It was Fidel who, at the closing of the 2003 International Pedagogy Congress, said:
“The Revolution, beyond the rights and guarantees achieved for all citizens of any ethnicity and origin, has not been as successful in the struggle to eradicate differences in the social and economic status of the country’s black population […]”
It was Fidel who, at the closing of the 8th Congress of the Young Communists Union on December 5, 2004, highlighted the implementation of “revolutionary concepts that sweep away formalism and conformism and accelerate the processes of transformation necessary for the future of the country,” among them:
“No young person should be abandoned and no citizen should depend on mere luck”; “The coordination work carried out must be based on constant study for decision-making, up-to-date information that takes all details into account in a precise way; on meditating and thinking through each action, acting quickly and never wasting a minute”; “It is needed to find new methods and mechanisms of coordination so that all agencies and entities participate based on the concept that the interests of the country take priority over bureaucratic contradictions, protagonism, and institutional jealousy.”
And it was Fidel who, in the Aula Magna of the University of Havana, said on November 17, 2005:
“The power of a leader is tremendous when he enjoys the trust of the masses, when they trust in his ability. The consequences of a mistake by those in positions of authority are terrible, and this has happened more than once in revolutionary processes.”
All these statements were made in the context of what became known as the “Battle of Ideas,” a period in our history to which we still owe an unavoidable analytical and political debt. For now, I would just like to point out that each of the speeches delivered during those years was distinguished by being accompanied by concrete actions and projects with an immediate impact on the population, rather than by promises.
3.
Contextual denialism, theoretical-research denialism, and historical-political denialism are three sides of the same coin: conservative denialism.
After the speech by the Minister of Labor and Social Security on July 14, reactions on social media began to pour in, along with the anger of revolutionary and decent people and the joy of those who, from a distance and in comfort, want to see Cuba torn to shreds. Just a few hours ago, conservative denialism, which, far from driving progress, immobilizes it, was clearly evident.
Perhaps a lesson will be learned, a Dostoyevskian path that recognizes crime and punishes it. Perhaps it will be thought that calming the waters will come through an individualized solution.
And yet hopefully we will realize that cutting the collective threads of a denialism that our people do not deserve is the only way to stop our streets from turning into a concrete jungle.
Image: A man pushes a cart in front of a pharmacy in Havana. Adalberto Roque/AFP/Getty Images. Photo taken on July 2, 2025. Courtesy of Bloomberg.
Translated from the Spanish original by Rolando Prats.
