Rescuing José Martí 125 years after he was shot and killed in the second war of Cuban independence

"I think they kill my child every time they deprive a person of their right to think." - José Martí 
 

Writings of José Martí twisted and distorted by Castroism since 1953.

José Julián Martí Pérez was shot and killed 125 years ago shortly after landing in Cuba at Dos Rios in the early days of the second war of Cuban independence on May 19, 1895. Both his writings and actions taking in life point to a man who prized liberty, independence based in popular sovereignty, and freedom of speech, thought and association as fundamental to his sense of being.

Martí rejected hatred as a animating emotion in the struggle for independence writing, "There is no forgiveness for acts of hatred. Daggers thrust in the name of liberty are thrust into liberty's heart." He also criticized the writings of Karl Marx, and with reason, they were antithetical to his own values. Marx in 1849 had written, "We are ruthless and ask no quarter from you. When our turn comes we shall not disguise our terrorism."

It is not a surprise that Martí saw the dangers inherent in Socialism and its doctrine of envy observing: "Socialist ideology, like so many others, has two main dangers. One stems from confused and incomplete readings of foreign texts, and the other from the arrogance and hidden rage of those who, in order to climb up in the world, pretend to be frantic defenders of the helpless so as to have shoulders on which to stand." 

José Julián Martí Pérez: 1853-1895

Sadly, the Castro regime over the past 67 years has been slowly murdering his legacy with the assistance of international institutions such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). They have re-written the real Jose Marti in an Orwellian fashion to advance the communist narrative.

This is not unique to the Marxist-Leninist regime in Cuba but a common practice among communist regimes to legitimize their rule. Carlos Ripoll, an expert on the life and thought of Jose Marti in 1994 wrote in the journal Cuban Studies published by the University of Pittsburgh Press the article titled, "The Falsification of José Martí in Cuba" and provided an abstract of his argument:

"Marxist-Leninist governments have traditionally falsified history to justify their rise to power and the political systems they have imposed. In response to the worldwide collapse of Communism, Cuban authorities have intensified their adulteration of history so as to offer a nationalistic rationale for their continuation in power. The highest exponent of the revolutionary tradition in Cuba is José Marti and, therefore, the falsification of his thought and doctrines is the first priority of many historians and critics. They concentrate, in particular, on the Cuban Revolutionary party founded by Marti, which they misrepresent as a forerunner of the Cuban Communist party, the basic institution that holds the monopoly of power and consequently is responsible for all the misfortunes and injustices that afflict the country. This study shows some of the forms this falsification takes in Cuba, its objectives, and attempts to disprove the inconsistent and false arguments of those who purport to find similarities or coincidences between the free, democratic republic that Marti wished for his country and the totalitarian state there in existence." 

In a letter in 1988 to The New York Review of Books, Professor Ripoll revealed how José Martí in a letter to his friend, Valdes Dominguez, written just a year before Martí’s death, criticized the “arrogance and hidden rage” of “socialist ideology” whose adherents, “in order to climb up in the world, pretend to be frantic defenders of the helpless.”

Seven months after the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Cuban independence leader, in 1953, a failed armed attack on the Moncada barracks by Fidel Castro and a group of revolutionaries, led the future Cuban dictator,  during his trial to declare José Martí the "intellectual author" of the attack.

In 1972, the Castro regime created the "Order of Jose Marti" and over the next  48 years awarded it to dictators and war criminals such as: Alexander Lukashenko, Jiang Zemin, Xi Jinping, Kim Il-sung, Nicolae Ceaușescu, Hugo Chávez, Mengistu Haile Mariam, Robert Mugabe, Erich Honecker, Vladimir Putin, and Saddam Hussein.

The International UNESCO/José Martí Prize was instituted in November 1994 under the claim that it sought "to promote and reward an activity of outstanding merit in accordance with the ideals and spirit of José Martí." This was done with the active support of the Castro regime, and turned upside down the values of Martí.

Roberto Fernández Retamar, signed death warrant for 3 young black men in 2003.

Consider that the 2019 winner of the José Martí Prize was Roberto Fernández Retamar, Cuban poet, essayist, literary critic and President of the Castro regime's Casa de las Américas.  Mr. Fernández Retamar was also a member of the Council of State, and in 2003 he signed the death sentence that led to the execution by firing squad of three men, who had hijacked a ferry to flee Cuba.

Lorenzo Enrique Copello, Bárbaro Leodán Sevilla and Jorge Luis Martínez

The three men, Lorenzo Enrique Copello Castillo, Bárbaro Leodán Sevilla García and Jorge Luis Martínez Isaac, were part of a group that hijacked a Cuban ferry with passengers on board on April 2, 2003 and tried to force it to the United States. The incident ended without bloodshed, after a standoff with Cuban security forces. They were executed nine days later, following a summary trial, by firing squad.

They did not have a political agenda. Their only goal was fleeing Cuba to the United States.  Questions were raised at the time that if they had been white and not black they would not have been executed.

Retamar also served the agenda of the regime to distort the views of the Cuban independence leader who advocated freedom of speech and conscience, trying to turn him into a censor to fit Castroism's repressive communist ideology. An ideology that is incompatible with Martí.

Standing, left to right: Manuel de la Cruz, Jose Maceo, Guillermo Moncada.

Seated: Juan Gualberto Gomez, Jose Marti, Jose D. Poyo. Key West, Florida.

José Martí not only proclaimed racial equality but practiced it, and would have been horrified to see three young black men executed, who had not physically harmed anyone, through a summary trial and rushed execution.

Ironically, Fidel Castro, although claiming José Martí as an intellectual author of his communist revolution, is not a descendant of those who fought for Cuban independence. Castro's father, Ángel María Bautista Castro Argiz, fought for the Spanish crown and against José Martí in Cuba to preserve the empire. This reality is reflected in how he acted in Cuba once achieving power, along with his strange friendship with Francisco Franco. Both Franco, and Castro's father had fought in Cuba for Spain, and Angel, according to a 2016 Spanish documentary, had a photo of Francisco Franco on his nightstand.

Ángel Castro Argiz

Raymond Carr, one of Britain's greatest historians, found that Castroism had more in common with Francisco Franco and Primo de Rivera than with José Martí, in a 1988 letter to The New York Review of Books exposed the source of Castro's approach to the "public square."

"Having witnessed Castro’s performance at the Second Declaration of Havana I compared Castro’s use of mass meetings as a source of democratic legitimacy with the manipulation of “the constant plebiscite of public opinion” by the Spanish dictator Primo de Rivera. In the 1970s I argued that Castro, like Franco, believed in “the democracy of the public square—the endorsement of mass audiences felt directly by the dictator.” In both these cases the “democracy of the public square” was a bogus democracy since it was a rejection of any form of representative government, of the freedoms of which Martí was a passionate advocate."

 On Franco's death in 1975, Fidel Castro decreed three days of mourning in Cuba, although he made sure that it went unnoticed by the press, it was an official decree signed by Cuban president Oswaldo Dorticós. This ideological flexibility with non-communist dictatorships and their agents should not have been a surprise, Castro in the 1960s had contracted former high ranking Nazis to train his repressive forces.

Fidel Castro and Francisco Franco were close allies.

Many claims can be made about the Castro regime, but one that does not past muster is that it, in any way, embodies the values and spirit of José Julián Martí Pérez. The man who died at Dos Rios on May 19, 1895 was guided by a profound love of freedom that included the right to think, speak and associate freely.

Things that have been denied Cubans for 68 years.

These ideas expressed below by José Martí are in conflict with Castroism and cannot be reconciled. However they are in accord with the democratic Cuba that helped draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, and struggled for a more just and democratic order, but was overthrown by Fulgencio Batista on March 10, 1952 then destroyed systematically by Fidel and Raul Castro beginning on January 1, 1959. 

"Man loves liberty, even if he does not know that he loves it. He is driven by it and flees from where it does not exist."

"Freedoms, like privileges, prevail or are imperiled together You cannot harm or strive to achieve one without harming or furthering all."

"Liberty is the right of every man to be honest, to think and to speak without hypocrisy."

"It is the duty of man to raise up man. One is guilty of all abjection that one does not help to relieve. Only those who spread treachery, fire, and death out of hatred for the prosperity of others are undeserving of pity."  

These views exist today in Cuba, but not in the regime oppressing Cubans, but among the dissidents and the resistance defying the communist regime and embracing freedom of speech, thought and association, while rejecting hatred.

Oswaldo Paya on December 17, 2002, addressing the European Parliament in Strasbourg, declared:

"The first victory we can claim is that our hearts are free of hatred. Hence we say to those who persecute us and who try to dominate us: ‘You are my brother. I do not hate you, but you are not going to dominate me by fear. I do not wish to impose my truth, nor do I wish you to impose yours on me. We are going to seek the truth together.’" 

Less than ten years later, Oswaldo was extrajudicially executed by the Castro regime. Nevertheless this sentiment embodies the living legacy of José Martí that endures in Cuba today in the actions of the non-violent Cuban civic movement.