The media and social media lynching of Cuban filmmaker Jorge Perugorría is the most recent, but neither the first nor the only one — and unfortunately, it will not be the last blow manufactured in Miami against freedom of expression.

One could begin analyzing what specifically bothers his detractors and find several possible answers: the fact that "Pichi" starred in the only Cuban film ever nominated for an Academy Award, that he holds the National Film Prize, that he has grown as a director and is currently presenting his film Neurótica Anónima in major international circuits.

It may well be that behind some of the opinions voiced by colleagues and supposed friends lies a certain dose of unhealthy envy — also because the model of success achieved from within Cuba is deeply unsettling to them.

The fact that Perugorría's now-famous remarks come from an artist with a solid and fruitful career naturally raises the stakes for his self-appointed detractors, the hired critics, and the usual tabloid voices. Yet in some cases, that very fact forces them to simulate a degree of respect for the messenger while they riddle the message with attacks — his message, the one he freely and sovereignly chose to share.

A message that, incidentally, does less to offer opinion than to describe a concrete, incontestable reality: "Trump's policy toward Cuba of strangling the country, of producing this energy crisis, is really on the verge of pushing the country into a humanitarian crisis. Right now it is very difficult to think about making films — we are thinking about surviving and moving forward day by day."

A self-evident truth — the very truth that the psychopathic Trump engineered and has proclaimed time and again. Was it not the fascist emperor himself who assured the world that "Cuba is at the end of the line. They have no money. They have no oil" — thanks to his "intervention"?

Could it be that the final part of Perugorría's words is what has truly rattled them? That image of a people focused on "surviving and moving forward day by day" rather than surrendering and switching off the Morro lighthouse once and for all — that terrifies them. Of that I have no doubt whatsoever.

But let us be frank: the lynching of Jorge Perugorría is, above all, about following the rules, about shining in the show where the pay is best, about not deviating from the script. They hunger even with their refrigerators full, so they swallow the celebrated freedom of expression whole and spit it back out thin and shredded, reduced to whatever lie is sufficient for the tamer to toss them their reward — like wild animals in a circus. And like those animals, they fear the tamer's wrath.

As things stand, it is no longer about what you say, but about the fact that you are not saying exactly what the master wants to hear. The celebrated "freedom of expression" grows more tightly leashed with each passing day, and its pretend defenders grow ever more shameless.

Translated by Sergio A. Paneque Díaz / CubaSí Translation Staff