167th
Anniversary of the Birth of José Martí
José Martí, Essential to Our America
- Yolanda Machado -
Torch-light march at the University of Havana,
Cuba, honours the 167th anniversary of José
Martí's birth, January 28, 2020.
Whoever speaks
of economic union speaks of political union. The
nation that buys, commands; the nation that
sells, serves. Commerce must be balanced to
assure freedom. A nation that wants to die sells
to one nation only, and a nation that would be
saved sells to more than one. The excessive
influence of one country over another's commerce
becomes political influence.
- José Martí, 1891
 January 28 marks
the 167th anniversary of the birth of José Martí,
Cuba's national hero, architect of the 1895 war
and critical thinker of the "new republic" that
would be established in Cuba after its
independence, a republic "with all and for the
good of all," which would be essential to curb the
expansionism of its northern neighbour.
It can be said that, more than a century and a
half after his birth, it is essential to study
José Martí if you want to know about the process
and the importance of the unity of Latin America,
its origins, its history, its actors, its
background and more specific forms and ways in
which said union is sought.
José Julián Martí Pérez, was born in Havana
on January 28, 1853 and had a childhood marked not
only by the needs of his family but by the reality
of Cuba as a Spanish colony. Early on he was
politically active and engaged with his friends
and his teacher Rafael María de Mendive, in plots
for liberating Cuba.
At 15 years of age, he was sentenced to prison
in the quarries of San Lazaro in Havana for his
political activism, following which he was
banished and then deported to Spain in 1871. His
first major writing, "Political Imprisonment in
Cuba," emerged from this experience. In subsequent
years he travelled through several countries of
America, including a return to Cuba at the end of
the Ten Years' War, from where he was again
deported. In 1881 he settled more stably in New
York, where he stepped up the intensity of his
work for independence.
José Martí and Latin American Unity
Why study Martí today? He certainly was
not the only one in his time, or even of those
preceding him (Bolívar being the most
significant), to see the necessity for Latin
American unity, but it can be said that he is
one of its most influential thinkers, whose
dedicated political efforts and our America
worldview acted as a vehicle linked to the
independence of Cuba -- as well as of
literary-journalists -- and whose thinking now
in that respect can be found in his articles in
several of the Spanish-language newspapers of
South America, especially in La Nación of
Buenos Aires.
Several aspects undoubtedly influenced
José Martí's Latin Americanist conception, but
it was most certainly strongly influenced by his
stay in several of the continent's countries,
specifically Mexico and Guatemala, as noted by
Cuban teacher and historian Pedro Pablo
Rodríguez, and the study of their cultures and
histories, as well as his approximately 15 years
in the United States between 1881 and 1895. The
latter is central to understanding Marti's work,
for the events he would go through and review,
make his work an unquestioned pause for
reflection on the history and challenges of
unity in Latin America.
The United States' "Gilded Age"
(approx. 1865-1901) was a period of many
changes, in which the U.S. emerged as a huge
industrial power; new parties were born; with
industrialization, the organization of the
workers and peasants movement emerged; the
railway was completed as was the country's
expansion inwards, adding new states to the
Union and eliminating, through what are called
the Indian Wars, Indigenous peoples living in
the west of the country.
A thriving modern society was formed
but it also contained upheaval. It did not take
long for Martí to see that there would be an
increasingly pressing need for this country to
expand its markets, and that expansion would
almost naturally be towards its neighbours in
South America. Clearer background can be found
in the ideas of Henry Clay, speaker of the
United States House of Representatives, who in
1820 had expressed enthusiasm for a
"human-freedom league" of American states for
the purpose of uniting "all nations from Hudson
Bay to Cape Horn;" and, a few years later, in
1823, in the famous Monroe Doctrine, "America
for Americans," through which the U.S. sought to
assert its dominance over this part of the world
against Europe.
It is necessary to note that this idea
of "Pan-Americanism" was not a unanimously
supported vision in American politics. While
some advocated a union based on trade, similar
to a customs union, others, staunch
protectionist industries, sought to maintain
high rates for imports. However, the United
States needed to ensure trade and did not look
very favourably on commercial incursions by
European powers such as Britain, which had
maintained a friendly relationship with several
former Spanish colonies in America, with which
it had close ties.
Efforts to hold what would be the first
International Conference of American States in
Washington had already been brewing since 1881
by then Secretary of State James G. Blaine, who
would occupy the same position and drive those
efforts at the end of that decade.
It is through a law in 1888 that the
United States Congress authorized the president
of that nation to call for holding "a conference
between the United States and the Republics of
Mexico, Central and South America, Haiti, Santo
Domingo, and the Empire of Brazil" whose
objectives were, among others, "measures aimed
at the formation of an American customs union,
to promote as much as possible profitable and
reciprocal trade between American nations" and
"the adoption by each of the governments of a
common silver coin, used in reciprocal
commercial transactions of the citizens of all
States of America," according to the
announcement.
However, the young journalist and Cuban
revolutionary, who also served occasionally as
Consul of Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, wrote
in his chronicles that the need to stop this
expansionism was urgent -- since as nascent
Latin American republics they had not yet been
given time to stand on their own feet -- if the
relationship was to be among equals.
In 1884, "The American" monthly
newspaper wrote: "There is both danger and
advantage in the inevitable intimacy of the two
sections of the Americas. This intimacy is so
close at hand, and perhaps for some points so
overwhelming that there is little time to stand,
see and speak."
The conference lasted from October 1889
to April 1890, with successive meetings and
breaks. In an issue of the Argentine newspaper La
Nación on November 2, Martí wrote:
Never in America, from its
independence to the present, has there been a
matter requiring more good judgment or more
vigilance, or demanding a clearer and more
thorough examination, than the invitation
which the powerful United States (glutted with
unsaleable merchandise and determined to
extend its dominions in America) is sending to
the less powerful American nations (bound by
free and useful commerce to the European
nations) for purposes of arranging an alliance
against Europe and cutting off transactions
with the rest of the world. Spanish America
learned how to save itself from the tyranny of
Spain; and now, after viewing with judicial
eyes the antecedents, motives, and ingredients
of the invitation, it is essential to say, for
it is true, that the time has come for Spanish
America to declare its second independence.
That conference did not achieve its
primary purpose, a customs union, but served as
terrain for the manifestation of the worldviews
of the southern countries, especially from
Argentina, and the response given to several of
the proposals made there and to "America for the
Americans" was in the end through the chant
"America for humanity."
When the Argentinean delegate Sáenz
Pena, in challenging the commercial union,
concluded his speech with the phrase that is a
banner, and was a barrier there: Let America
be for humanity, they all stood up in
appreciation and extended their hands to him.
(José Martí
in La Nación, (March 31, 1890)).
In his book To the Sun I Go, Glimpses of
Martí's Politics, Pedro Pablo Rodríguez said
that "Latin American unity is therefore a logical
consequence of Marti's anti-imperialism, or
better, is the other side of that coin, because of
the close interdependence of both aspects of his
thought."
In 1891, Martí repeated his position in
the Monetary Conference of the American Republics
and that same year published his transcendental
essay on Latin American unity, "Our America," a
product of a profound maturity of his thought,
which placed not only the Indigenous figure at the
centre of the formation of the American republics,
but also the need for their own approach and to
take part in international trade, "Let the world
be grafted onto our republics, but we must be the
trunk."
Reissuing the Monroe Doctrine
In September
2019, in his speech to the General Assembly of
the United Nations, U.S. President Donald Trump
alluded directly to the Monroe Doctrine and
said, "Here in the Western hemisphere we are
committed to maintaining our independence from
the encroachment of expansionist foreign powers.
It has been the formal policy of our country
since President Monroe that we reject the
interference of foreign nations in this
hemisphere and in our own affairs."
Without mentioning what foreign nations
he was referring to, one can sense that the
reference was directed specifically at China and
Russia. Perhaps more at China, which has
significant business and trade relations in the
region with strong economies such as Brazil
(which is part of the BRICS group) and major
stakes in technology.
According to an article in mid-2019 by
German broadcaster Deutsche Welle, "Chinese
investments in the region have increased
considerably, from $17 billion in 2002 to almost
$306 billion in 2018. At the same time, that
country has become the largest trading partner
for Brazil, Chile, Peru and Uruguay." The
article itself notes that China's strategy has
changed, from pursuing diplomatic recognition
(in the face of the recognition of Taiwan) to
concentrating on its commercial relations
although according to the Chinese official
consulted, the region is not a priority for
China.
However, it is a priority for the U.S., which
does not look favourably on this approach, as made
clear a few days ago by Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo on his way through Costa Rica, who
criticized China's "flashy promises" highlighting
on the other hand U.S. investment in the Central
American country, sparking a diplomatic row with
the Chinese embassy in San Jose.
All this creates a scenario that places Latin
America at the centre of global geopolitical
disputes and there exists in the work of Martí
relevant elements to illuminate the understanding
of the events that are taking place. Some 167
years after his birth, we can say not only that
Martí was an outstanding thinker, but also was
accurate at the key moment of the emergence of the
styles and organizations that would largely shape
modern life throughout the 20th century (mass
society, parties, mass movements) and are now
facing the systemic crises of late capitalism and
the scientific-technological revolution
challenging humanity in multiple ways.
Martí's legacy may contribute to understanding
the complexity of the history of Latin American
unity, in a situation that has seen in recent
times the collapse of the Union of South American
Nations (UNASUR) and the resurgence of the
Community of Latin American and Caribbean States
(CELAC) and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) as
key areas of cooperation between the countries in
the south of America, permitting those who study
it to have a better perspective and understanding,
and to size up events more appropriately. José
Martí is in this sense an indispensable voice and,
without doubt, one of the essential voices of our
America.
The diplomatic corps at Cuba's Embassy and their
families pay tribute to José Martí,
Ottawa, January 28, 2020.
 
Cuban Consul in Montreal, Mara Bilbao Diaz,
delivers flowers to the bust of José Martí at
Latin America Park, Quebec City, January 28, 2020.
 
The Canadian Cuban Friendship
Association-Vancouver commemorates the birth of
José Martí, January 26, 2020.
Yolanda Machado is a journalist,
communicator and student of Marti's thought. She
is the author of several papers on José Martí
for international meetings, and teaches courses
in Argentina on the political thought of José
Martí.
This article was published in
Volume 50 Number 2 - February 1, 2020
Article Link:
: José Martí, Essential to Our America - Yolanda Machado
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
|
