“You fire him, or I will,” the director told the workshop manager at the Umbral furniture factory, part of the DUJO company, in Havana. Alexis, one of the best carpenters, was immediately fired after he recounted that he had been in front of the Capitol building during the demonstrations on Sunday, July 11, 2021, and shouted “Homeland and Life.”

The news shocked me. Did his work matter so little then? Alexis was one of those who always stayed late when they had to do a “special order” or deliver furniture against the clock to inaugurate one of the new hotels built in Old Havana. Why leave a man unemployed who only expressed himself? The combat order issued that day by Diaz-Canel on national television extended not only through police violence but also through the detection and purge of those who did not show their commitment or had been “soft.”

A few months later, I also learned about the expulsion of a fire truck driver in Manzanillo, who had been there for 15 years, for refusing to pick up a club to repress protestors. In state jobs, the heavy hand of the regime rewarded civic-mindedness or rebellion with crude labor punishments and stripped workers of their scant financial support — as if the need to use physical, psychological, and labor violence was an intrinsic component of the French terror that once cut off heads and that from July 11, 2021, in Cuba, transformed into a Caribbean dystopia that decapitated souls and jobs.

***

There are days that stretch like a hangover. For the Cuban regime, the source of the headache on July 11, 2021, had thousands of faces, names, surnames, and families.

My only intention that Sunday afternoon was to watch the Euro Cup final between Italy and England. I went to visit some friends with my girlfriend, and while the first half of the match was underway, it was inevitable to talk about the country’s situation and the poor management of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, in addition to laughing about the memes generated by adult film actress Mia Khalifa about Díaz-Canel. Perhaps the minutes of the last game of the tournament marked the beginning of a spark ignited in San Antonio de los Baños when the word “freedom” sounded more beautiful than ever in the voices of hundreds of masked faces.

Amid passes, defenses, and interceptions between both teams, I received an SMS on my work phone, “Our president is on television, we must listen to what he says and be aware of the situation.”

On the screen, I saw a man with trembling words, impotent in the face of a situation that overwhelmed him, almost incredulous at the unexpected emergence of hundreds of Cubans fed up with a deep crisis.

There are gestures that unmask monsters. The arrogance of the man with the title of president, instead of calling for prudence, chose the most atrocious option he could take from his position of power, repression. The nervous gestures of Díaz-Canel’s hands pointing at imaginary points and occupying part of the camera space wanted to pretend an air of non-existent control. But his authority was suffocating, and his feeble leadership attitude only appealed to a sentence, “The combat order is given, revolutionaries to the streets.” His knuckles were the gavel to start the Cuban debacle.

“That man is crazy! How can he do that!” I exclaimed, surprised and upset.

The afternoon in dozens of cities convulsed with shouts and signs of a people tired of being the target of so many crises; including the unaccounted-for deaths from the pandemic. I called my hometown, Las Tunas, to find out what was happening there, and the panorama was similar, protests in different neighborhoods.

Perhaps on July 11, 2021, a telepathic phenomenon spread throughout Cuba as thousands of people walked the streets of their towns and cities.

The consequence of the “combat order” in my close circle I learned a few days later, through the arrest and beatings my friend Leonardo Romero Negrín received; the broken forehead of Fernando Almeyda from a stone; and Miguel A. Hayes being chased with a stick to be beaten by one of Iroel Sánchez’s sons.

***

On July 13, 2021, the carpenters and painters of the factory were gathered in the courtyard of my workplace. The Party secretary asked for volunteers to go to a park on Dolores Street in Diez de Octubre because there were reports of possible demonstrations, and action was needed.

The director’s truck had the sticks ready for the volunteers to take. The situation seemed to me a vile mix of hatred and unjustified repulsion. Another way to extend repression against the protesting people falsely labeled as “counter-revolutionary elements.” No one present uttered the word “I” to get into the truck.

As if by premonition, I expected to be singled out.

“Alejandro!” one of the factory managers called me.

“What’s up?” I replied, although I knew the reason for using my name in front of the rest of the workers.

“And the maintenance people?”

“The maintenance people what?” I said.

“Aren’t they going to give support?”

Perhaps rage prevented me from expressing myself with the desired coherence.

“Support for what? Beating people? Repressing?”

I turned to the five men in my brigade and asked them:

“Are you going to lose a day’s work for that?”

The negative shake of their heads was the confirmation. The silent look of those present, surprised at my opposition to the request, was followed by my loud reaffirmation.

“What happens if I go and lose an eye? Will any of you take responsibility? Will you take care of me in the hospital? Will you tell my mother what happened? I don’t know if any of you will agree to that. I am not going anywhere!”, I said with my heart pounding and went up to my office.

Minutes later, some of those who remained silent approached me to say they would not agree to repress either.

“I am an engineer, not a police officer. Why should I repress my people?” I commented to one of the brigade leaders.

Most of those present in the factory courtyard continued their day of work without further ado, as part of the furniture had to be delivered for a new hotel.

Hours later, the management called me.

“Are you crazy! How can you do that?” the director asked me and continued with words I don’t remember. I only responded with silence and a fixed gaze on her. I had nothing to regret.

My refusal to heed the call to repress did not cause my expulsion; I didn’t suffer the same fate as Alexis. Maybe being an engineer and head of a department with several people under me gave me some protection, or my refusal to wait in a park for the possible replay of the July 11 protests didn’t go beyond the factory courtyard. My punishment would be of another nature, silent and slow. I was marked as someone who spoke his mind regardless of the consequences. Being honest always causes discomfort.

I didn’t care if I was expelled; I had a chance to save my conscience from a horrifying request, and to some extent, I wanted to leave there at any cost. The world’s frustration piled on my shoulders, and the last burden was the desire to use me as a weapon to beat my brothers and sisters, who had the courage or opportunity I didn’t have to shout “freedom!”

The saddest part of that morning, beyond my circumstance, was seeing how some workers, about five or six, did take the sticks on the truck and got on to go to the place designated for the “revolutionary vigil.” My political naivety was shattered in those days. The regime’s hangover from its repressive binge extended with the echo of three words from a cowardly and impotent voice and a knuckle hitting a table that marked the sentence of an entire country.

The testimonies and videos of that Sunday, the arbitrary arrest and internal injuries of Leonardo Romero; the stitches on Fernando Almeyda’s forehead and subsequent harassment, and my refusal to become a repressor on that Tuesday, July 13, are marginal notes in a larger history that will always exceed any personal anecdote.

In October 2021, long marginalized from any important decision in the factory and tired of everything related to the Cuban business world, plus witnessing a despicable act against the Cuban people in my workplace, I requested to leave that place and plunged into the uncertainty of writing, which is also another way of being free. I left Cuba for Spain at nine at night on September 25, 2023. I left behind a Havana waiting for another difficult dawn.

Three years after July 11, 2021, there are still thousands of innocents in Cuban prisons, condemned by the whim of a system bent on silencing dissent. Similar to the days that passed, and the memories accumulated under the afternoon heat of a defining day, innocence in Cuba is imperishable; but the impunity of totalitarian power, like the expiration dates on jar labels, also expires.

This article was translated into English from the original in Spanish.