CUBAN SOVEREIGNTY & LATIN AMERICAN UNITY
3.1 RATIONALE FOR CUBAN SOVEREIGNTY
Besides pursuing Cuba's autonomy through military means, Marti sought to shift Spanish republican rule through rational and moral reasoning.
During his expulsion to Spain, with the proclamation of the first Spanish republic in February 1873, Marti wrote 'The Spanish Republic and the Cuban Revolution' (JM 187311999a), published in Madrid as a pamphlet and addressed to Don Estanislao Figueras, head of the new Spanish government.
The passages below explore his ideas as espoused in the pamphlet and elsewhere on Cuba's right to freedom and sovereignty. As will be observed, Marti portrays an increasing level of intolerance of foreign rule, and in arguably all of his writings, Marti adopts a concentrated moral stance, which he expresses in a highly ornate, eloquent style of prose. Of note too is the manner in which Marti's advocacy of human and moral values continuously interweaves his more overtly political discourse.
Significant then is the purpose behind Marti's moral posturing, which appears to shield, advance, and defend his rational-critical reasoning, as is revealed also in his plea to the Spanish monarchy below:
I neither prejudge acts of the Spanish Republic nor think that the Republic should be timid or cowardly. But I do warn it that actions are always prone to injustice. I remind it that injustice is a death knell to the respect of others; I warn it that being unjust means being wicked (JM 187311999a, 33).
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Marti's petition in essence advances that the desires of one nation amount to the desires of all other nations. He argues that while the Spanish Republic has been 'raised on the shoulder of universal suffrage', Cuba wants to raise itself 'that same way'. Marti thus rationalizes his homeland's entitlement to independence, situating it alongside the right by which the Republic was proclaimed. 'How then can the Republic deny Cuba its right to be free?' he asks. Raising this argument to a higher level, Marti poses the question that arguably the whole of the Spanish colonial establishment could or would not answer: if the right to freedom is sacrosanct to the Republic, 'how can the Republic deny itself?' (ibid, 35).
For Marti then, a denial of people's right to sovereignty means also a denial of one's own rights. Equally, the right to fight for one's own freedom denotes also the entitlement of others to fight for their own.
In the pamphlet Marti draws attention to the suffering and death suffered by Cubans and colonists alike as a result of Spanish domination. For him, those who have died cannot be 'ignored' or 'forgotten' as they symbolize the futility of Spain's occupying power. He anguishes that the voices of the dead are not silenced, 'The Republic knows that it is separated from the island by a broad space filled with the dead. The Republic hears, as I do, their terrifying voices'. Invoking the righteous dimension to strengthen his challenge, he writes 'Spain knows that to subjugate, subdue and do violence' to the will of Cubans inevitably means that 'her own sons must die' (ibid, 37). Marti underscores both the futility of death under these circumstances and the fate of those who bring about unnecessary bloodshed:
Will it consent to have them die for what, if it were not the death of legality, would be the self-destruction of its honor? How ghastly if it consents! Wretched are those who dare to spill the blood of others who seek the same freedom they themselves have sought.
Wretched are those who thus abjure their right to happiness, honor and the esteem of humanity (ibid).
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The values and customs of Spain's colonists, for Marti are subordinate to the 'just life' ordinary Cubans wish upon themselves. Accordingly the imposition of Spanish rule entails the burden of adopting the colonists' way of life, something he finds 'disgraceful', 'shameful', 'dishonorable'.
He charges that the colonist and colonized have 'no shared aspirations or identical goals, nor do they have cherished memories to unite them'.
Cubans think only with 'bitterness' of the misery Spain has brought it.
Since a real and sovereign Cuban identity, an authentic Cuban community·
is wanting, Spain seeks to evoke 'an illusion', 'a deceitful lie' when it advocates the 'integrity' of a colonized Cuba. Marti believes people can be united only through relations of 'fraternity and love' (ibid., 37), citing the two countries' multitude of opposing needs, characters, and geographical circumstances, as well as past cruelties and 'lack of love', as sufficient reason for them not to be joined (ibid.).
Cuba's fight for independence cannot be fruitless for Marti since this is part of what he calls, 'the historic law of necessity'. Just as 'Spain gained its independence from the French, Italy from Austria, Mexico from Napoleon rule, the United States from England, so too Cuba wants to be free' he argues (ibid., 41). As is also customary in his writings, he sounds awarnmg:
let the Spanish Republic not be dishonored, let it not murder its brothers or have its sons shed the blood of its other sons. Let it not oppose Cuba's independence. Otherwise, the Republic of Spain will be a Republic of injustice and ignominy, and the government of freedom will, in this case, be liberticidal (ibid., 41-42).
The above passages aptly demonstrate what many consider the 'continuity' and 'pertinence' of Marti's thought today. In the context of heightened global US militarism for example, Marti's ideas could effortlessly resonate in the minds of those experiencing today the excesses of foreign occupation (see Chomsky and Clark 2005). This is plainly revealed in his plea to the Spanish despot:
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F or four years - without respite, without any sign of ceding in their effort - the insurgents have been requesting their independence from oppression, their honorable freedom, and requesting it dying, just as the Spanish republicans have for their freedom so many times. How can any honorable republican dare to deny a people a right which he has claimed for himself? (JM 187311999a, 34, emphasis added).