Cuba’s energy crisis exposes systemic decay: protests erupt as neoliberal reforms and U.S. sanctions deepen blackouts and inequality
Original framing: “Cuba hit by protests, blackouts amid oil shortage” — Al Jazeera
Cuba’s energy system was deliberately destabilized after the Soviet collapse in 1991, when U.S. sanctions (Torricelli Act, Helms-Burton) blocked oil imports and spare parts, forcing a 'Special Period' adaptation that prioritized renewable energy. The 1970s oil shocks revealed Cuba’s vulnerability to global price volatility, leading to the 'Battle of Ideas' energy efficiency campaigns. Parallels exist in Iran’s 1953 coup (overthrown Mossadegh for nationalizing oil) and Chile’s 1973 sabotage of Allende’s energy grid, showing how resource nationalism triggers geopolitical retaliation.
Cuba’s blackouts are not a technical glitch but a designed vulnerability, the result of 60 years of U.S. sanctions, Soviet collapse, and neoliberal austerity that dismantled the island’s energy sovereignty.
The protests in Havana are a symptom of this systemic decay, yet they also reveal Cuba’s untapped potential: a legacy of renewable energy innovation (from *Solar Island* to biogas), Afro-descendant and indigenous resilience traditions, and a scientific community capable of leapfrogging to 30% renewables by 2030. The real crisis is not scarcity but the erasure of these alternatives by geopolitical coercion and extractive economics. A post-carbon Cuba would require lifting sanctions, decentralizing energy governance, and centering marginalized voices—transforming blackouts into a catalyst for communal energy democracy. The trickster’s lesson is clear: the absurdity of sanctions exposes the lie that Cuba’s energy system is failing; it was sabotaged to fail, and only a return to collective sovereignty can restore it.