The ways in which Cuba is thought about and understood outside its territorial waters are nuanced, influenced by the current political contexts in each place, as well as by the historical experiences and collective memory of its people.
Suddenly, Cuba becomes many things from the intricacies of a distant country. Cuba can be a unifying element among sectors and individuals who otherwise couldn't bear to share the same air in a room. Cuba can be a source of discord and a measure of political authenticity.
That's how certain leftist leaders go about, as if apologizing for their cowardice. The smaller their spirits, the easier it is for them to deny Cuba, and behind the scenes they apologize to its people, arguing that supporting it means they won't win. And they don't win in any way, because people are easily sniffed out when they are sold smoke disguised as perfume.
Cuba is often also a source of nostalgia, myth, prejudice, inspiration, contradiction, and uncertainty… The annual vote in the United Nations General Assembly against the U.S. blockade of the archipelago is undoubtedly the most important event in terms of international resonance.
The figures on the harassment are updated, and attempts are made to quantify the damage. This is highly valuable because it graphically illustrates, and makes concrete, what is often dismissed as mere propaganda.
The numbers and the categories that record the impacts are, at the very least, impressive each year.
And it must be said that numbers have their limits. Because the increase in preventable deaths and the deterioration of living conditions for millions of people have an unquantifiable and silently violent side that we all know very well.
In the main hall, all nation-states recognized by the multilateral organization also make their official pronouncements, sometimes with very explicit speeches in addition to their votes.
During 2025, the resolution presented by Cuba passed by a wide margin, although, contrary to recent years, instead of two countries opposing it (the United States and Israel), seven voted in favor and 12 abstained, after our "good" neighbor exerted "respectful" pressure on them, as denounced by the Cuban Foreign Minister himself before any vote took place.
Little has been said about the fact that 156 states supported Cuba. In reality, little is said, even within the country, about those who support Cuba from so many places, perhaps because discussing this support is as complex as the many understandings of our country held abroad.
Among those 156 official votes are those from right-wing, progressive, and socialist-oriented governments; European, African, and Southeast Asian kingdoms; countries "lost" among deserts, jungles, oceans, and plateaus; in short, countries with as many internal complexities as Cuba, although many are not exactly the same.
We must, of course, mention the efforts of those who do not want us to place us, through contingencies here and there, in a position of enmity with former socialist republics of Eastern Europe and with countries of Latin America.
Look at the list of abstentions and those declared against, locate them on a map, and you will perceive, in the other hemisphere, the turbulence of a region still reconfiguring itself after the collapse of the USSR. In our case, meanwhile, we understand the desperate race of the United States to regain its hegemony, in addition to the crises inherent in neoliberal democracies, daughters of dictatorships that were never defeated and whose arms and nerves are still there, neither asleep nor silent.
We must talk about that, of course, but much more so about the Caribbean bloc's relationship with Cuba in international forums. Let them also ask about Mexico and Venezuela, our lands tormented by fires and hurricanes. And let's talk about the African bloc—excluding Morocco—highlighting names like Namibia, Mozambique, Algeria, the Sahel countries…
And we must go beyond state policy and talk about the people, even though their voices are often hijacked in the international arena and silenced by corporate media.
Let it be said, because people know how to organize themselves, as our hospitals and clinics can attest, when in these difficult times they see aid of all kinds arriving in boxes, suitcases, or containers; aid that is gathered in countless ways, from people with a lot of money to others who forgo a week of good food, just because it's for Cuba.
These are not chance encounters, but rather the world of affection that Cuba has cultivated, a world that, under the strain of the rope, amidst storms, almost always with the water up to their necks, pulls on one side to save the other and vice versa, because there is a certainty that destiny, one way or another, is shared.
