Report From Havanna: Cuba Suffering but Unbroken | K.E. Ekman

## A country under pressure, a people still standing The recent on-the-ground report from Havana presents a clear, painful paradox: Cuba is suffering from a long-standing campaign of economic suffocation, yet its social fabric and popular resolve remain strikingly intact. What emerges from the conversation with Swedish journalist and activist K.E. Ekman is not a portrait of a collapsed state, nor the glib caricature of perpetual festivity; it is a layered story of material deprivation, improvisation, civic stubbornness, and contested narratives. The significance goes beyond Cuba itself. It forces a reconsideration of how coercive external pressure translates into domestic outcomes, how ordinary people navigate chronic scarcity, and how myths about "failing states" are deployed in global politics. ## The blockade as a strategic instrument and its human toll Ekman’s reporting foregrounds the blockade—decades of U.S. sanctions and extraterritorial measures—as the principal cause of the current humanitarian crisis. Her interviews with Cubans across Havana describe a population rendered chronically unstable: food shortages so severe that people search trash for sustenance; intermittent electricity that disrupts work, cooling, communication, and health; and water scarcity that in some cases has meant going days without drinking. These conditions are not presented as incidental or cyclical; they are the engineered effects of a policy designed to "make the people scream," as Ekman paraphrases the apparent strategic objective. This framing matters because it distinguishes between systemic failure and coercive deprivation. When shortages stem from external sanctions, the policy calculus and moral culpability shift. Ekman’s voice in the conversation repeatedly insists that the island’s economic hardship is avoidable—if the blockade were lifted, basic needs could be met and investments could flow. The human stories she relays—workers who sleep hungry, children who lack electricity to study, families who cannot refrigerate medicine—make the abstract language of sanctions concrete. They also challenge simplistic Western media narratives that reduce Cuba to a schematic of dysfunction without accounting for the external levers that have helped produce that dysfunction. ## Everyday resilience: how Cubans adapt and preserve life Despite the hardship, Ekman’s report is candid about the perseverance and vibrancy that persist in Havana. Streets hum with music and dance; beaches remain accessible locales of respite; social life continues where it can. These observations do not sugarcoat suffering; rather, they complicate a binary view that equates scarcity with social collapse. People cope through improvisation: widespread adoption of solar panels to mitigate unreliable grid power, makeshift repairs, and a revived emphasis on mutual aid and local networks. The use of electric motorbikes and cars—advantageous because when power is available it effectively becomes free—illustrates nimble adaptations to infrastructural constraints. Importantly, Ekman notes an emotional texture to this resilience: it is neither triumphant nor resigned. There is anger and blame—directed at both the government and the sanctions—and a weariness born of repeated crisis. Yet there is also a clear refusal to abandon the community. This combination of resourcefulness and civic attachment is a form of social capital that limits the immediate political leverage of external pressure. It complicates any assumption that deprivation will automatically generate large-scale defections or prove politically decisive against state authority. ## The invasion narrative: fear, pragmatism, and strategic limits A striking theme in Ekman’s report is the mismatch between external anxieties about military invasion and local perceptions in Havana. Prior to traveling she herself suffered insomnia over the prospect of U.S. intervention; once on the ground she found most people unalarmed. Several practical reasons inform this attitude: geographic proximity to Florida makes an invasion strategically and politically hazardous for the United States; Cuba lacks exploitable natural resources that would conventionally motivate conquest; and the political cost of occupation—international backlash and the potential for messy protracted conflict—is high. Ekman also highlights a deeper social factor: an absence of willing local collaborators analogous to what some observers pointed to in other contexts. Citing the difficulty of finding a local “turncoat” willing to broker a takeover, the conversation suggests that Cuban political culture has strong norms against capitulation to foreign power. Local narratives emphasize a "people's war" readiness: organized but not wholesale militarization of civilians, and a commitment to territorial defense rooted in national memory. This does not mean Cubans are unafraid, only that fear is mediated by a pragmatic assessment of costs and a moral threshold against foreign incursion. The implication for international policymakers is important: coercion from without is unlikely to produce quick regime change, but it does produce prolonged human suffering. ## Internal politics: blame, reforms, and the space for foreign capital Ekman’s interviews reveal a contested domestic politics where blame for hardship circulates between the government and the external sanctions regime. Some citizens explicitly fault state management for shortages; others view sanctions as the main driver. This ambivalence shapes both public sentiment and potential policy responses. Ecuador is not a clear-cut case of people uniformly demanding regime replacement; rather, there is a messy, conversational negotiation about responsibility and the path forward. Against this backdrop, the Cuban government has introduced significant reforms aimed at attracting foreign capital. Ekman describes recent measures that open the economy more broadly—to Cubans abroad and foreign nationals alike—allowing the operation of banks, chains of restaurants, and other enterprises in ways that were previously constrained. These steps represent a strategic pivot: an attempt to undercut the punitive logic of the blockade by inviting non-U.S. investment, thus creating new economic lifelines. The reforms also reveal a political calculation: coupling domestic liberalization in investment rules with continued resistance to foreign coercion may be intended to both alleviate shortages and blunt arguments for intervention. Ekman raises an additional geopolitical point: if other countries profit from investments in Cuba, the politically sectarian pressure on the U.S. to maintain sanctions could rise, creating a cost for continued blockade. In other words, reintegrating Cuba into global capital circuits might transform sanctions from a low-cost external policy into a higher-stakes diplomatic problem—particularly if Cuban economic recovery yields visible benefits that make the blockade politically untenable abroad. ## The role of narrative: media, myth, and international perception A persistent undercurrent in the report is the battle over stories. Western media often repeat a simple narrative: Cuba as a failing state, where dark streets and empty stores prove systemic collapse. Ekman disputes this reduction. Her footage—and the anecdotes she shares—shows functioning hotels, bars, festivals, and local commerce side-by-side with deprivation. The media’s selective focus on despair feeds political arguments for stronger coercive measures and simplifies public perception in ways that can justify interventionist policies. Counter-narratives, like the one Ekman offers, do not negate the reality of suffering but insist on context: that much of the hardship is man-made and reversible through policy change. The conversation therefore becomes an act of reframing: from a tale of inevitable failure to a story of resilience under duress, one in which internati

Report From Havanna: Cuba Suffering but Unbroken | K.E. Ekman On the ground report from Havanna, by Swedish journalist and activist, Kajsa Ekis Ekman. Support us on Substack: https://pascallottaz.substack.com Or get merch on our store: https://neutralitystudies-shop.fourthwall.com Thanks for your support! #Pascal Two weeks ago, I received a video report from Kajsa Ekis Ekman, a Swedish journalist and activist who went to Cuba and reported on life there. I'm sharing it with you now so that you get a bit of an insight into how Cuba feels to her, someone who visited from the outside, knows Cuba well, and got to talk to people there. #Kajsa Ekis Ekman Thank you, Pascal, for the question. So, it's been a week. I'm here in Havana, as you can tell. And prior to coming, I was extremely worried about a U.S. invasion. I basically couldn't sleep for thinking about it. And the strange thing is that coming here, talking to people—I've been talking to normal people from all over the place, officials, journalists—and it seems like people are not that worried about an invasion. They don't think it's going to happen for various reasons. They think Cuba's too close to the United States, and an invasion could actually be dangerous, potentially dangerous even for the U.S., because if Cuba were to respond, it would hit very close to Florida. And second of all, Cuba doesn't really have any resources such as oil, gold, diamonds, minerals, or anything else worth taking. So the return on investment of an invasion would be basically pride, and lots of investment for U.S. capitalists, which, if they wanted to, they could achieve by just, you know, taking away the blockade. Because there is nothing that stops U.S. investors from coming here and investing right now, except for U.S. laws. And the other reason why people don't think an invasion is possible is because the U.S. has this dilemma that they don't want to go in with troops, as we could see in Havana, for example. And to find somebody like Delcy Rodríguez in Venezuela is not possible here. They have been trying, but Marco Rubio himself said that they are not finding anybody here who's willing to sell out. So that option wouldn't be happening. It seems like the strategy that the U.S. has opted for is basically to strangle the country economically—not only to make the economy scream, because that's what they've been doing for the past seven decades, but to make the people scream. And the people are screaming. I met people who haven't eaten for days, people who haven't even been drinking water. -- 1 of 3 -- People who don't have electricity in their house because the electricity, for lack of oil, goes on and off. Sometimes it's off for more than 24 hours. Sometimes it just goes on for a little while, then it goes off again. It means the Wi-Fi signal doesn't work. You can't call anybody. You can't send messages. You can't put your air conditioner on at night, which, of course, is terrible because the heat is so bad that, you know, you can't sleep the whole night, and you're going to work tired, and you haven't eaten anything. So people are really tired of this. I've even seen people looking in the trash for food. It's just terrible, man. It breaks you apart because this is part of the crisis. Like, this is totally man-made. It wouldn't have to be like this if they just stopped this blockade. Like, Cuba would be great. But having said that, I don't subscribe to the narrative that they're trying to paint in the Western media—that Cuba is a failing state, nothing is working, everything is terrible, it's always dark. I mean, Cuba is still Cuba, man. It's a beautiful country. Despite the crisis, you know, there's still dancing, there's still partying, you know, there's still life. There are still the beaches. You know, I've walked by beaches, people there just, you know, relaxing, swimming, having a good time. And this is the very same strategy. So I think the strategy they're opting for is trying to make the situation so impossible and then try to provoke protests and somehow that way try to provoke a change. It doesn't seem like it's working, though. I haven't seen any protests. People are more just complaining, but, you know, in their personal way. And some people are blaming the government, other people are blaming the sanctions. Most people, I think, are blaming both. Now, as a response to that, the government yesterday announced a number of measures that are really remarkable, that are hopefully going to bring foreign capital. So these measures allow not only Cubans in the exterior but also foreign nationals to come in and invest like never before. So it allows you to open a bank here, to open a chain of restaurants, or any other type of business. Hopefully, this is going to bring in foreign capital, and when the U.S. finds out that other countries are investing in Cuba, that other countries are making money off of Cuba, and that they're lifted, maybe there is going to be a cost to take away the sanctions. So I've been asking people, officials also, like, how are they preparing for a possible invasion? And the answer I've got is that the rumor that they're just handing out rifles to everyone doesn't seem to be true. I haven't heard anybody receive a rifle. However, people that are enlisted know that when the time comes—if a conflict hopefully doesn't come—they know where the rifle is to go and get it. So they're opting for a people's war, meaning that even if the country is occupied, they're going to fight. The whole country is going to fight. And they're not going to sell out. What everybody keeps repeating to me is that Cuba is not Venezuela. #Pascal You're not going to find a traitor in Cuba. #Kajsa Ekis Ekman -- 2 of 3 -- Even people I've talked to who are blaming the government say that if the U.S. went in here and bombed a school, of course they would defend their country. So, as you can see, there are still cars. But, of course, if somebody has an electric car, you know, that's the best bet right now, because when you do have electricity, you don't really pay for it. So you can charge your electric motorbike or electric car at home. And most people now have opted for solar panels. So there are a lot of people who have solar panels at home to charge their TV or phone or anything. And, yeah, what else can I tell you? Cuba is a great country. You should all come to Cuba, come see Cuba. I know that the U.S. is pressuring the airlines to stop flying here and spreading the program that you can't come here, and a lot of countries have also not recommended it. There are citizens in Cuba, which I think is totally strange, because as you can tell, this is a very safe retreat. Nothing will happen. I mean, the hotels are functioning, restaurants are functioning, bars are open, there are still festivals even, so there is no problem coming down. No, no, no, no, no, estoy hablando. Gracias. And, yeah. So if somebody's thinking of coming to Cuba, I think now is the time. The taxi driver will pick me up at the airport. Yeah, just so you know, if anybody comes here, you just land at the airport and there will be taxis waiting for you to take you to town. The taxi driver that took me, he had been waiting about 30 hours before a customer because so few people are coming. So he said he had been drinking only water, eating at 30. Now I see the cars just waiting. So Cuba really needs you more than ever. So I would just recommend for everybody to come. -- 3 of 3 --