“Is it that you’re not suffering? Is it that you don’t have family, friends, neighbors, acquaintances … who tell you over and over again ‘I can’t take it anymore’ or ‘How long is this going to be?’” he asked.
Reyes, who reflects on the reality in Cuba on social media, also noted that in the Caribbean country, “any area of citizens’ lives falls into the category of being ‘a problem,’” whether it’s getting food or medicine, transportation, an education, or care for the elderly.
“Is it that you don’t see how the precarious situation has been breaking up that ‘basic cell of society’ called the family, continually split up by emigration, by ‘international (medical) missions,’ by the wars we have waged and which it seems we will continue to wage in geographic locations totally unrelated?” he challenged.
Cuba intervened militarily in Algeria (1963), Syria (1973), Angola (1975), and Ethiopia (1977), and other countries.
“If you don’t see it,” Reyes asked, “it’s time for you to wake up and look at the reality in front of you. And if you see it, but you think that we are like this through no fault of our own, it’s time for you to decide to face the truth.”
“And if you see it and don’t question yourself, and don’t do anything, or don’t even begin to ask yourself what you could do to bring about real change, then you’ve not just chosen the condition of being a slave, but you’ve decided to build your life on the painful suffering of your own people,” the Cuban priest concluded.