A Mother’s Stand: Questioning the Revolution's Whereabouts

Fate had it that Mayelín Carrasco Álvarez, a 47-year-old Cuban mother of three, staged a solo protest from a podium in Río Cauto, Granma, precisely 65 years after dictator Fidel Castro declared his infamous "Patria o Muerte" to the world. Today, that phrase echoes ironically in a nation where the homeland is in pain and death looms.

“Where is the revolution?” Mayelín shouted, her voice piercing through the perplexed gaze of onlookers who watched her as if she had lost her mind. In communist Cuba, a peaceful protest, a common occurrence in any democracy, becomes a daring challenge, an act of courage often requiring a touch of irrationality—the kind only a mother at her wits' end might possess.

It mattered little that Mayelín, perhaps in ignorance or as a survival mechanism against repression, romanticized the "revolution of Fidel and Raúl." Nor did it matter that during her podium speech, she absolved Díaz-Canel of the misery plaguing her family. “Who is to blame?” she persistently questioned during her brief yet impactful protest.

Within minutes, two plainclothes soldiers forcefully removed her from the Ángel Frías plaza and detained her. Her attempt to absolve the true architects of the disaster known as the "Cuban Revolution" proved futile. The oppressive machinery of a totalitarian state, feeling threatened by even a solitary mother's protest, came down hard on Mayelín.

In mere moments, the Communist Party activated its rehearsed protocol for such incidents. How dare this woman demand anything! From the Municipal Bureau of the PCC, images of the empty plaza began to circulate, perhaps as a public shaming tactic or a strategy to curb the dangerous spread of dignity that Mayelín represents.

“The plazas in Cuba belong to the revolutionaries!” declared a post by the official in charge of the municipality's "Political-Ideological Sphere." A clumsy attempt by the regime's ideologues to celebrate their own fear as a triumph.

If human rights and fundamental freedoms were respected in Cuba, a mother protesting the nation's devastating crisis would not make headlines, but alas, it does not. Demonstrating in a communist regime is an act of extreme bravery, perhaps that's why more mothers are breaking the silence. A mother will do anything for her child.

But Mayelín's ordeal is just beginning. A statement from the Municipal Government deemed her behavior unacceptable. How dare she!—they claim—we've looked after her, provided her a house made of wood and zinc, and offered her a job as a cleaning assistant.

In Cuba, exercising human rights seems to require a clean record, a submissive attitude, and, of course, minding one's manners to avoid upsetting the communists.

Six decades later, "Patria o Muerte" has become a self-fulfilling prophecy: the homeland is a mirage, and death haunts those who dare to challenge the fear. Today, Mayelín protested out of hunger, and while the regime might erase her photos, they cannot silence the question millions whisper in the shadows: Where is the revolution?