When Cubans rose up in July 2021 under the banner of SOSCuba, the world saw something it had not seen in decades: open, nationwide protests against the communist government in Havana. This video, which calls the moment a Cuban Spring, sets out to answer the explanations offered by defenders of the regime, who blamed the unrest on the American embargo, on the pandemic, or on foreign interference. It argues that those explanations miss the point, and that the protests were driven by Cubans themselves, after sixty years of shortages, censorship, and lack of freedom.
The discussion takes on several claims that circulated on the left in the days after the protests. It asks why, if the embargo were the cause, the protesters were demanding liberty rather than simply an end to sanctions, and why the government responded with arrests and internet blackouts instead of listening to its people. It also looks at the way some commentators in the West tried to explain away the demonstrations, even as Cubans were risking their safety to be heard.
For viewers trying to sort truth from spin, this is a clear and direct account. It honours the courage of the protesters, challenges the stories told about them, and makes the case that the Cuban Spring was a genuine popular movement for freedom, not a plot invented abroad.