2024-04-15 08:35:59
Tensions between very few Cuban opponents on the island and in exile, specifically around the figure of influencer Alexander Otaola, have skyrocketed in recent days.
We could not say that “everything has begun” because it is not the first time this has happened; Nor is it the first time that attacks, criticisms and questions arise from one side or another of the panorama. In fact, Otaola himself has been critical and mocking at times with others, but this attack now has its differences with one or another of which the influencer himself has been the protagonist. As far as I know, and I know him quite well, Alexander Otaola does not use vengeances personal – even if it seems to some – for their own benefit.
I know that some will come to mention names (Chocolate Mc, Yomil, Haila, Gente de Zona, Pedrito Calvo, ad infinitum) but the case at hand here is different, although it may seem similar. We talk here about activism and dissidence.
The attacks against Otaola following a decision not to support an event at the Marlins stadium
If something characterizes these recent attacks—paid?—by some opponents in Cuba or outside it against Otaola, it is that the matter could benefit the Castro dictatorship, as much as the influencer’s criticism of the ways of opposing others could be said to be that have been welcomed with joy by the dictatorship. For the Cuban dictatorial regime, every fractionation, every breakup of the bloc called exile, benefits it. He prolongs his stay in power, oppressing millions of Cubans.
Otaola, for example, does not recognize the political effect that the humanitarian work that some exiles – yes, “worms”, “stateless people” and “mercenaries” such as those (dis)qualified by the Havana regime – have had, has and will have favor of the most disadvantaged within the island; a deeply humanist process, yes, but one that has undoubtedly been fundamental not only in destroying the image and myth of the island’s “medical power,” but also in demonstrating to the Cuban people that the island’s exile is not that Satan that he draws the dictatorship of the PCC. But from that picket and its work, where there are more than five who go beyond mere denunciation in the language and also collaborate in sending medicine and food to the more than a thousand political prisoners on the island and their families, I did not come either. I’ll talk here.
The breakup after a refusal to attend an event at the Marlins stadium
A specific incident related to the Cuban Heritage Day organized by Los Marlins, where Otaola and other “influencers” refused to participate due to the lack of support for exiles during previous events, has been the catalyst for this new season of nifili —Do you remember the fli to scare away flies and bugs, which already in is there?—where Otaola’s refusal to participate in that event was the “trigger” of what we are seeing.
Otaola’s refusal to participate in that event represents, above all, an act of patriotic dignity and a criticism of those who, in his opinion, betray his own movement by not putting Cuba’s interests first and opening their legs to the organization that, months ago, mistreated and censored the free voice of hundreds of Cubans, among whom was Otaola himself and the now leader of the new movement, Cuba Primero, in the stadium and outside the stadium.
It is not the first time that some dissidents in Miami criticize Otaola and it is good that he is criticized. That is what the democracy we aspire to and the nation and government we want are all about.
What is strange is who is the main visual protagonist of this barrage of questions and that he has once again used homophobic insults to try – without success, of course, because the low, mean and disqualifying attack is never a good strategy – to minimize the work of the influencer in the program “Hello! Ota-Ola”; and what Alexander, not without setbacks, not without errors, has achieved in favor of political activism in exile. Above all – for better or worse, and each person will decide what it was for – to republicanize an entire county and drag an entire community within a state towards the Republican vote and sentiment. If Miami-Dade County today is overwhelmingly red and the Democrats know that the vote in Florida for them is irretrievably lost, it is because of Alexander Otaola. Alexander Otaola achieved it. Nobody else. And experts and analysts of great caliber have declared and exposed it.
This internal conflict between these opponents, which is clearly detrimental to the Cuban cause, putting personal egos above the common objective, will not achieve anything concrete.
Nor will the direct actions of these “opponents” or the threats and calls that people like Kativo Dissident have been making to other YouTubers achieve anything concrete.
They have also failed to capture the attention of the major media in the North American nation; something that Otaola and the communication “device” that supports it has managed to do; not the advertisers he has had. The work of the latter has had no value from the political point of view itself.
Although it has contributed financially to sustain a project that was started and developed for many months without much money behind it, the work of the program’s advertisers has not been essential in the achievements achieved by Otaola’s activism; nor does the work of an advertiser of this stature who has now cut all types of ties with the influencer. Another one will come. If something is not missing from Hello! Ota-Ola is that: advertisers. There are even them in queue; waiting for one to come out so they can enter.
But who are they, what happened, why were they there and are they no longer there?
Well, I will leave that for a future installment, where I will try to delve into the human psyche—let’s put it that way—of people that I had never heard of in my life; of people who I don’t know how they fell here, and of others who, in a couple of months, showed me that no one lived in that brain.