Marti in Cuba Now

Marcha de las Antorchas por los 169 años del natalicio de José Martí. Portada: Santiago Romero Chang
Marcha de las Antorchas por los 169 años del natalicio de José Martí. Portada: Santiago Romero Chang
Marti in Cuba Now. Image: Santiago Romero Chang

Translator: MSc. Guillermo Rodriguez Cortes
And today, in an extremely defiantly and challenging context, in which the country is fighting a battle for life, resolutely facing the terrible pandemic, while implementing its strategy of economic and social development, which strengthens the Socialist Revolution; all this in the midst of a growing hostility of the U.S. Government whose policy is none other than to overthrow our revolutionary process undermining the most genuine ideological and cultural foundations of the Cuban nation.

At this time we live in, we still need Marti. To hold on to his thought is an essential pillar, not only to resist the imperialist and neoliberal attacks, to resist the attempts of capitalist reinstatement in Cuba, to defend our culture and identity; but also to continue forming patriots, citizens with critical capacity, true revolutionaries.

Last operations of the Rebel Army

Translator: MSc. Guillermo Rodriguez Cortes. Marti in Cuba Now. Image: Santiago Romero Chang
Marti in Cuba Now. Image: Santiago Romero Chang

Marti is very necessary for us in the defense of the Homeland; hence, as he always did, who was always at the helm under the storm; today it is necessary that we also sail at the helm. Marti is a reference for our revolutionary praxis; he is an expression of our entire character, of our condition as Cubans.

Marti continues to be the spiritual guide of the nation, the compass of the heroic creation that has meant the Revolution and Socialism in Cuba. We turn to him, as Mella and Fidel did, looking for political, ethical and cultural support. How can we explain that he was the intellectual author of the Moncada attack? The best definition of the Apostle of Independence was given by Fidel himself:

«(…) For us Cubans, Marti is the idea of the good that he described. Those of us who, on July 26, 1953, resumed the struggle for independence, begun on October 10, 1868, precisely on the one hundredth anniversary of Marti’s birth, had received from him, above all, the ethical principles without which a revolution cannot even be conceived. From him we also received his inspiring patriotism and such a high concept of honor and human dignity as no one in the world could have taught us».

Marti- Baire People’s Council, a Landmark in History

When we commemorate the 126th anniversary of JoseMarti’s heroic fall in combat, it is necessary to revisit his founding anti-imperialism, Marti’s warning against the danger that the greed of the United States represented for our America, whose true purposes had an expansionist and colonizing character. The Apostle understood the essence of that policy and alerted the peoples of the South from his revealing stay in New York. Here are his American Scenes, which become essential reading to understand why, at the height of the 21st century, the empire continues to be a real threat to the security, harmony and balance of our peoples.

And this idea of the danger that imperialism represented (and represents today) is cardinal in one of his key texts. From the beginning of Marti’s essay Our America,Marti warns, indirectly, of the expansionist danger that the empire of the North devised. This warning carries an implicit criticism to the villagers who, to feed their vain and egocentric appetite, neglect the guard and custody of their village and do not know of the announced danger. Marti already places, at the beginning of the essay, the call to combat in defense of our America; this with the weapons of judgment, with ideas, since in metaphorical language he qualifies the weapons of the giant of the seven leagues as stones: «trenches of ideas are worth more than trenches of stones».

Later, in the last part of Our America, Marti returns to the external and greater danger of the region: the United States and their tradition of conquest: «but another danger faces, perhaps, our America, which does not come from itself, but from the difference of origins, methods and interests between the two continental factors, and it is the next hour in which it is approached, demanding intimate relations, by an enterprising and powerful people that ignores and disdains it»; which is none other than the one personified by Yankee imperialism.

The Cry of Baire for the Freedom of Cuba (Part III)

Marti’s anti-imperialist vision led him to reject any vestige of an unworthy proposal for Cuba, any trace of policy of annexation, for example. Marti warns us that: «(…) And once in Cuba, who will get the United States out of it? And why should Cuba remain in America, as according to this precedent it would remain, not as the people it is, proper and capable, but as an artificial nationality, created for strategic reasons? I want a more secure base for my people. This plan, in the end, would be a direct way of annexation. And its simple presentation shows it (…)».

Let us make Marti more valid every day; it is our generational duty to bring him to the present, to carry the bow oar in this defining battle; and there are many obstacles, we know that; but in the face of the storm or tempest, the sincere friend rises (we with him), and gives us the theoretical and practical tools to make Revolution, to sow ideas and sow consciousness, to feel and think the Homeland as that sweetest and consoling fusion of loves and hopes.

At the present time, to speak of Marti becomes a commitment to our times, and to assume his ideological strength, a necessity. Marti is the moral soul of the nation and a permanent motivation to fight for social justice.

The strength of Marti’s ideas constitutes an essential foundation for the safeguarding of the nation; therefore, we need that his ideology to transform reality, to continue the invariable search for the idea of good and the usefulness of virtue, for the construction of socialism in Cuba.

It was a Resounding Victory of our Guerrilla Forces

Marti in Cuba Now. Portada: Santiago Romero Chang. Portada: Santiago Romero Chang
Marti in Cuba Now. Portada: Santiago Romero Chang

José Martí to Manuel Mercado

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