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Dès le XVIII e siècle, la précarité des constructions imaginaires de la nation cubaine a induit la recherche de solutions pragmatiques, fondées sur une vision d’ordre, indispensable à la conduite du progrès. Tout au long du XIX e siècle, puis sous la période républicaine (1902-1958), ce pragmatisme s’est traduit par l’attente de conditions plus propices à l’épanouissement national. Faisant fi des doutes sur l’identité nationale, Fidel Castro a impulsé un tournant totalitaire à la révolution de 1959 pour instaurer l’ordre, le progrès et l’égalité de façon radicale. S’étant lui aussi fixé pour tâche de « forger la nation», l’attente de demain est devenue encore une fois la dimension centrale de l’imaginaire politique. Aujourd’hui, face au naufrage du projet révolutionnaire, la population cubaine attend la mort de Fidel Castro sans trop savoir ce qu’elle doit en espérer, ce qui trahit avant tout un imaginaire national en déroute. these two countries. The decision of putting two paper plants on the border river is the origin of the problem. An ecologist movement started spontaneously in the city of Gualeguaychù, situated a few kilometers from the Argentinean riverbank, to denounce pollution risks of the river Uruguay in an emerging touristic area. The plants were nevertheless authorized by the Uruguayan state. Large manifestations gathered people opposed to the project who decided to block traffic on the international bridge uniting the two countries. The matter took an unusual form, with its repercussion in the national press and revealing the acting capacity of the ecologist movement. The Argentinean government adopted then an extreme ecologist speech and started to pressure the Uruguayan government by accusing it in front of the International Court of Justice of La Haye of non-respect of international treaties.

Situations of waiting: the dead-ends of the national Cuban imagination, yesterday and today Since the 18th century, the precariousness of the imaginary construction of the Cuban nation has led to seeking pragmatic solutions, founded on an order vision, necessary to progress’advance. During the entire 19th century, and then under the republican period (1902-1958), this pragmatism translated itself into the awaiting of more propitious conditions to the national blooming. Scorning on doubts of national identity, Fidel Castro started a totalitarian turn at the 1959 revolution to impose order, progress and equality in a radical way. As he had also the urge to « forge» the nation, waiting for tomorrow became once more the central dimension of political imaginary. Today, facing the wreck of the revolutionary project, the Cuban population is waiting for Castro’s death without really knowing what to expect from it, and that really shows a disorded national imaginary.