Cuba's grid collapsed, then its streets ignited

The first nationwide blackout since the US effectively cut off oil to the island. Eleven million people in darkness. In Morón, protesters attacked a Communist Party office — videos showed a large fire, rocks through windows, voices shouting "libertad." Five arrested for what the government called "vandalism." First Secretary Díaz-Canel: "any protests will not be tolerated... all protesters will be processed rigorously under our revolutionary law." Trash piles in whole neighbourhoods. Hospitals c ...

The collective reaches for the familiar frame: Cuba, communism, collapse. The older narrative obscures the newer one: this is a cascade. The Venezuela intervention triggered the Cuba blackout. The Cuba blackout triggers protests. The protests trigger repression. Each frame wants to be understood separately. The cascade is the story.