From blackout to collective television: the new idea of ​​the Cuban government

Cuban Deputy Prime Minister Inés María Chapman's recent proposal to "take a television out onto the street" and connect it to a generator so the population can watch official programming during blackouts starkly reflects the government's disconnect from the reality of its citizens. La idea, presented as a gesture of community initiative, not only demonstrates the absence of structural solutions to the energy crisis, but is also perceived as an attempt to cover up the collapse of the national electricity system with improvisations.

More than a viable alternative, the measure seems a metaphor for the country's current direction: a government that, instead of addressing the root causes of energy shortages—lack of investment, inefficient management, and dependence on external fuels—opts for symbolic measures that border on the absurd.

Television, understood as the regime's main propaganda tool, becomes the focus of the effort here, while access to vital necessities such as water, food, and electricity is relegated to a secondary role.

Chapman's approach doesn't hold up either technically or socially. In a context of power outages lasting up to 20 hours a day, long lines for basic goods, and a water system in crisis, asking the population to gather around a community television seems almost a caricature.

It's no coincidence that social media reacted with sarcasm and rejection: people feel they are being offered a spectacle instead of solutions.

This episode also highlights the repeated use of “social communication” as a political palliative. Calling together the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) and other mass organizations to explain the situation does not resolve the energy deficit nor does it restore power to homes.

What the suggestion makes clear is the government's priority: maintaining narrative control even in the dark, rather than restoring power to Cubans.

The proposal for collective television, rather than illuminating, further obscures the gap between official discourse and everyday life. A crisis of this magnitude cannot be addressed with symbolic palliatives, but rather with substantive strategies.

Until that happens, each new "clever" idea will only increase social unrest and disbelief in a power that is increasingly disconnected from reality.