The conceited
villager believes the entire world to be his village. Provided
that be can be mayor, humiliate the rival who stole his
sweetheart, or add to the savings in his strongbox , he
considers the universal order good, unaware of those giants
with seven-league boots who can crush him underfoot, or
of the strife in the heavens between comets that go through
the air asleep, gulping down worlds. What remains of the
village in America must rouse itself. These are not the
times for sleeping in a nightcap, but with weapons for a
pillow, like the warriors of Juan de Castellanos: weapons
of the mind, which conquer all others. Barricades of ideas
are worth more than barricades of stones.
There is no prow
that can cut through a cloudbank of ideas. A powerful idea,
waved before the world at the proper time, can stop a squadron
of iron-clad ships, like the mystical flag of the Last judgement.
Nations that do not know one another should quickly become
acquainted, as men who are to fight a common enemy. Those
who shake their fists, like jealous brothers coveting the
same tract of land, or like the modest cottager who envies
the esquire his mansion, should clasp hands and become one.
Those who use the authority of a criminal tradition to lop
off the hands of their defeated brother with a sword stained
with his own blood, ought to return the lands to the brother
already punished sufficiently, if do not want the people
to call them robbers. The honest man does not absolve himself
of debts of honor with money, at so much a slap. We can
no longer be a people of leaves, living in the air, our
foliage heavy with blooms and crackling or humming at the
whim of the sun's caress, or buffeted and tossed by the
storms. The trees must form ranks to keep the giant with
seven-league boots from passing! It is the time of mobilization,
of marching together, and we must go forward in close ranks,
like silver in the veins of the Andes.
Only those born
prematurely are lacking in courage. Those without faith
in their country are seven-month weaklings. Because they
have not courage, they deny it to the others. Their puny
arms-arms with bracelets and hands with painted nails, arms
of Paris or Madrid-can hardly reach the bottom limb, and
they claim the tall tree to be unclimbable. The ships should
be loaded with those harmful insects that gnaw at the bone
of the country that nourishes them. If they Parisians or
from Madrid, let them go to the Prado, to boast around,
or to Tortoni´s , in high hats. Those carpenter's
sons who ashamed that their fathers are carpenters! Those
born in America who are ashamed of the mother that reared
them, because she wears an Indian apron, and, who disown
their sick mothers, the scoundrels, abandoning her on her
sickbed! Then who is a real man? He who stays with his mother
and nurses her in her illness, or he who puts her to work
out of sight, and lives at her expense on decadent lands,
sporting fancy neckties, cursing the womb that carried him,
displaying the sign of the traitor on the back of his paper
frockcoat? These sons of our America, which will be saved
by its Indians in blood and is growing better; these deserters
who take up arms in the army of a North America that drowns
its Indians in blood and is growing worse! These delicate
creatures who are men but are unwilling to do men's work!
The Washington who made this land for them, did he not go
to live with the English, at a time when he saw them fighting
against his own country. These unbelievable of honor who
drag the honor over foreign soil like their counterparts
in the French Revolution with their dancing, their affections,
their drawling speech!
For in what lands
can men take more pride that in our long-suffering American
republics, raised up among the silent Indian masses by the
bleeding arms of a hundred apostles, to the sound of battle
between the book and processional candle? Never in history
have such advanced and united nations been forged in so
short a time from such disorganized elements. The presumptuous
man feels that the earth was made to serve as his pedestal,
because he happens to have a facile pen or colourful speech,
and he accuses his native land of being worthless and beyond
redemption because its virgin jungles fail to provide him
with a constant means of travelling over the world, driving
Persian ponies and lavishing champagne like a tycoon. The
incapacity does not lie with the emerging country in quest
of suitable forms and utilitarian greatness; it lies rather
with those who attempt to rule nations of a unique and violent
character by means of laws inherited from four centuries
of freedom in the United States and nineteen centuries of
monarchy in France. A decree by Hamilton does not halt the
charge of the plainsman's horse. A phrase by Sieyes does
nothing to quicken the stagnant blood of the Indian race.
To govern well, one must see things as they are. And the
able governor in America is not the one who knows how to
govern the Germans or the French; he must know the elements
that make up his own country, and how to bring them together,
using methods and institutions originating within the country,
to reach that desirable state where each man can attain
self-realization and all may enjoy the abundance that Nature
has bestowed in everyone in the nation to enrich with their
toil and defend with their lives. Government must originate
in the country. The spirit of government must be that of
the country Its structure must conform to rules appropriate
to the country. Good government is nothing more than the
balance of the country's natural elements.
That is why in
America the imported book has been conquered by the natural
man. Natural men have conquered learned and artificial men.
The native half-breed has conquered the exotic Creole. The
struggle is not between civilization and barbarity, but
between false erudition and Nature. The natural man is good,
and he respects and rewards superior intelligence as long
as his humility is not turned against him, or he is not
offended by being disregarded-something the natural man
never forgives, prepared as he is to forcibly regain the
respect of whoever has wounded his pride or threatened his
interests. It is by conforming with this disdained native
elements that the tyrants of America have climbed to power,
and have fallen as soon as they betrayed them. Republics
have paid with oppression for their inability to recognize
the true elements of their countries, to derive from them
the right kind of government, and to govern accordingly.
In a new nation a government means a creator.
In nations composed
of both cultured and uncultured elements, the uncultured
will govern because it is their habit to attack and resolve
doubts with their fists in cases where the cultured have
failed in the art of governing. The uncultured masses are
lazy and timid in the realm of intelligence, and they want
to be governed well. But if the government hurts them, they
shake it off and govern themselves. How can the universities
produce governors if not a single university in America
teaches the rudiments of the art of government, the analysis
of elements peculiar to the peoples of America? The young
go out into the world wearing Yankee or French spectacles,
hoping to govern a people they do not know. In the political
race entrance should not go for the best ode, but for the
best study of the political factors of one's country. Newspapers,
universities and schools should encourage the study of the
country's pertinent components. To know them is sufficient,
without mincing words; for whoever brushes aside even a
part of the truth, whether through intention or oversight,
is doomed to fall. The truth is built without it. It is
easy to resolve our problem knowing its components than
resolve them without knowing them. Along comes the natural
man, strong and indignant, and he topples all the justice
accumulated from books because he has not been governed
in accordance with the obvious needs of the country. Knowing
is what counts. To know one's country and govern it with
that knowledge is the only way to free it from tyranny.
The European university must bow to the American university.
The history of America, from the Incas to the present, must
be taught in clear detail and to the letter, even if the
archons of Greece are overlooked. Our Greece must take priority
over the Greece which is not ours. We need it more. Nationalist
statement must replace foreign statement. Let the world
be grafted onto our republics, but the trunk must be our
own. And let the vanquished pedant hold his tongue, for
there are no lands in which a man may take greater pride
than in our long-suffering American republics.
With the rosary
as our guide, our heads white and our bodies mottled, both
Indians and Creoles, we fearlessly entered the world of
nations. We set out to conquer freedom under the banner
of the virgin. A priest, a few lieutenants, and a woman
raised the Republic of Mexico onto the shoulders of the
Indians. A few heroic students, instructed in French liberty
by a Spanish cleric, made Central America rise in revolt
against Spain under a Spanish general. In monarchic garb
emblazoned with the sun, the Venezuelans to the north and
the Argentineans to the south began building nations. When
the heroes clashed and the continent was about to rock,
one of them, and not the lesser, handed the reins to the
other. And since heroism in times of peace is rare because
it is not a glorious as in times of war, it is easier to
govern when feelings are exalted and united than after a
battle, when divisive, arrogant, exotic, or ambitious thinking
emerges. The forces routed in the epic struggle-with the
feline cunning of the species, and using the weight of realities-were
undermining the new structure which comprised both the rough-and-ready,
unique regions of our half-breed America and the silk-stockinged
and frockcoated people of Paris beneath the flag of freedom
and reason borrowed from nations skilled in the arts of
government. The hierarchical constitution of the colonies
resisted the democratic organization of the republics. The
cravatted capitals left their country boots in the vestibule.
The bookworm redeemers failed to realize that the revolution
succeeded because it came from the soul of the nation; they
had to govern with that soul and not without or against
it. America began to suffer, and still suffers, from the
tiresome task of reconciling the hostile and discordant
elements it inherited from the despotic and perverse colonizer,
and the imported methods and ideas which have been retarding
logical government because they are lacking in local realities.
Thrown out of gear for three centuries by a power which
denied men the right to use their reason, the continent
disregarded or closed its ears to the unlettered throngs
that helped bring it to redemption, and embarked on a government
based on reason-a reason belonging to all for the common
good, not the university brand of reason over the peasant
brand. The problem if independence did not lie in a change
of forms but in change of spirit.
It was imperative
to make common cause with the oppressed , in order to secure
a new system opposed to the ambitions and governing habits
of the oppressors. The tiger, frightened by gunfire, returns
at night to his prey. He dies with his ayes shooting flames
and his claws unsheathed. He cannot be heard coming because
he approaches with velvet tread. When the prey awakens,
the tiger is already upon it. The colony lives on the republic,
and our America is saving itself from its enormous mistakes-the
pride of its capital cities, the blind triumph of a scorned
peasantry, the excessive influx of foreign ideas and formulas,
the wicked and unpolitical disdain for the aboriginal race-because
of the higher virtue, enriched with necessary blood, or
a republic struggling against a colony. The tiger lurks
again every tree, lying in wait at every turn. He will die
with his claws unsheathed and his eyes shooting flames.
But "these
countries will be saved", as was announced by the Argentinean
Rivadavia, whose only sin was being a gentleman in these
rough-and-ready times. A man does not sheathe a machete
in a silken scabbard, nor can he lay aside the short lance
merely because he is angered and stands at the door of Iturbide´s
Congress, "demanding that the fair-haired one be named
emperor". These countries will be saved because a genius
for moderation, found in the serene harmony of Nature, seems
to prevail in the continent of light, where there emerges
a new real man schooled for these real times in the critical
philosophy of guesswork and phalanstery that saturated the
previous generation.
We were a phenomenon wit ha chest of an athlete, the hands
of a dandy, and the brain of a child. We were a masquerader
in English breeches, Parisian vest, North America jacket,
and Spanish cap. The Indian hovered near us in silence,
and went off to hills to baptize his children. The Negro
was seeing pouring out the songs of his heart at night,
alone and unrecognised among the rivers and wild animals.
The peasant, the creator, turned in blind indignation against
the disdainful city, against his own child. As for us, we
were nothing but epaulets and professors´ gown in
countries that came into the world wearing hemp sandals
and headbands. It would have been the mark of genius to
couple the headband and the professors´ gown with
the founding fathers´ generosity and courage, to rescue
the Indian, to make a place for the competent Negro, to
fit liberty to the body of those who rebelled and conquered
for it. We were left wit the hearer, the general, the scholar,
and the sinecured. The angelic young, as if caught in the
tentacles of an octopus, lunged heavenward, only to fall
back, crowned with clouds in sterile glory. The native,
driven by instinct, swept away the golden staffs of office
in blind triumph. Neither the Europeans nor the Yankee could
provide the key to the Spanish American riddle. Hate was
attempted, and every year the countries amounted to less.
Exhausted by the senseless struggle between the book and
the lance, between reason and the processional candle, between
the city and the country, weary of the impossible rule by
rival urban cliques over the natural nation tempestuous
or inert by turns, we being almost unconsciously to try
love. Nations stand up and greet one another. "What
are we?" is the mutual question, and little by little
they furnish answers. When a problem arises in Cojímar,
they do not seek its solution in Danzig. The frockcoat are
still French , but thought begins to be American. The youth
of America are rolling up their sleeves, digging their hands
in the dough, and making it rise with the sweat of their
brows. They realize that there is too much imitation, and
that creation holds the key to salvation. "Create"
is the password of this generation. The wine is made from
plantain, but even if it turns sour, it is our own wine!
That a country's form of government must be in keeping with
its natural elements is a foregone conclusion. Absolute
ideas must take relative forms if they are not to fail because
of an error in form. Freedom, to be viable, has to be sincere
and complete. If a republic refuses to open its arms to
all, and move ahead wit hall, it dies. The tiger within
sneaks in through the crack; so does the tiger from without.
The general holds back his cavalry to a pace that suits
his infantry, for if its infantry is left behind, the cavalry
will be surrounded by the enemy. Politics and strategy are
one. Nations should live in an atmosphere of self-criticism
because it is healthy, but always with one heart and one
mind. Stoop to the unhappy, and lift them up in your arms!
Thaw out frozen America with the fire of your hearts! Make
the natural blood of the nations´ course vigorously
through their veins! The new American are on their feet,
saluting each other from nation to nation, the eyes of the
laborers shining with joy. The natural statesman arises,
schooled in the direct study of Nature. He reads to apply
his knowledge, not to imitate. Economists study the problems
at their point of origin. Speakers begin a policy of moderation.
Playwrights bring native characters to the stage. Academies
discuss practical subjects. Poetry shears off its Zorrilla-like
locks and hangs its red vest on the glorious tree. Selective
and sparkling prose is filled with ideas. In the Indian
republics, the governors are learning Indian.
American is escaping
all its dangers. Some of the republics are still beneath
the sleeping octopus, but others, under the law of averages,
are draining their land with sublime and furious haste,
as if to make up for centuries lost. Still others, forgetting
that Juarez went about in a carriage drawn by mules, hitch
their carriages to the wind, their coachmen soap bubbles.
Poisonous luxury, the enemy of freedom, corrupts the frivolous
and opens the door to the foreigner. In others, where independence
is threatened, an epic spirit heightens their manhood. Still
others spawn an army capable of devouring them in voracious
wars. But perhaps our America is running another risk that
does not come from itself but from the difference in origins,
methods, and interests between the two halves of the continent,
and the time is near at hand when an enterprising and vigorous
people who scorn and ignore our America will even so approach
it and demand a close relationship. And since strong nations,
self- made by law and shotgun, love strong nations and them
along; since the time since the time of madness and ambition-from
which North America may be freed by the predominance of
the purest elements in its blood, or on which it may be
launched by its vindictive and sordid masses, its tradition
of expansion, or the ambition of some powerful leader-is
not so near at hand, even to the most timorous eye, that
there is no time for the test of discreet and unwavering
pride that could confront and dissuade it; since its good
name as a republic in the eyes of the world's perceptive
nations puts upon North America a restrain that can not
be taken away by childish provocations or pompous arrogance
or parricidal discords among our American nations-the pressing
need of our America is to show itself as it is, one in spirit
and intent, swift conquerors of a suffocating past, stained
only by the enriching blood drawn from the scarfs left upon
us by our masters. The scorn of our formidable neighbor
who does not know us is our America's greatest danger. And
since the day of the visit is near, it is imperative that
our neighbor know us, and soon, so that it will not scorn
us. Through ignorance it might even come the lay hands on
us. Once it does know us, it will remove its hands out of
respect. One must have faith in the best in men and distrust
the worst. One must allow the best to be shown so that it
reveals and prevails over the worst. Nations should have
a pillory for whoever stirs up useless hate, and another
for whoever fails to tell them the truth in time.
There can be
no racial animosity, because there are no races. The theorist
and feeble thinkers string together and warm over the bookshelf
races which the well-disposed observer and the fair-minded
traveller vainly seek in the justice of Nature where man's
universal identity springs forth from triumphant love and
the turbulent huger for life. The soul, equal and eternal,
emanates from bodies of different shapes and colors. Whoever
foments and spreads antagonism and hate between the races,
sins against humanity. But as nations take shape among other
different nations, there is condensation of vital and individual
characteristics of thought habit, expansion and conquest,
vanity and greed which could-from the latent state of national
concern, and in the period of internal disorder, or the
rapidity with which the country's character has been accumulating-be
turned into a serious threat for the weak and isolated neighbouring
countries, declared by the strong country to be inferior
and perishable. The thought is father to the deed. And one
must not attribute, through a provincial antipathy, a fatal
and inborn wickedness to the continents´ fair skinned
nation simply because it does not speak our language, nor
see the world as we see it, nor resemble us in its political
defects, so different from ours, nor favourably regard the
excitable, darkskinned people, or look charitably, from
its still uncertain eminence, upon those less favored by
history, who climb the road of republicanism by heroic stages.
The self-evidence facts of the problem should not be obscured,
because the problem can be resolved, for peace of centuries
to come, by appropriate study, and by tacit and immediate
union in the continental spirit. With a single voice the
hymn is already being sung; the present generation is carrying
industrious America along the road enriched by their sublime
fathers; from Rio Grande to the strains of Magellan, the
Great Semi, astride its condor, spread the seed of the new
America over the romantic nations of the continent and the
sorrowful islands of the sea!
La Revista Ilustrada.
Nueva York, January 1, 1891
José
Martí, (January 28, 1853-May 12, 1895), Cuba's
National Hero and great figure of History, the Hispanic-American
Letters and Culture. He studied Law and Philosophy and
Letters in Spain. The people of Cuba names him as the
Apostle.
A thinker of
universal stature, , Martí contributed with his
texts to the sprouting of a new Literature language. With
his genius and political action, he continued the ideas
of Bolivar, Juárez and other Latin American outstanding
figures.
Founder of
the Cuban Revolutionary Party (1892), he organized "La
Guerra Necesaria" to free his motherland from the
Spanish colonialism and facing the imminent expansion
of the emerging United States´ imperialism, he summoned
the peoples of "Our America" to conquer their
"second - independence".
Little is known
about José Martis´ diplomatic activity, and
his participation as delegate in the Monetary Conference
of 1891. However, in Marti's political project for independence,
his diplomatic legacy remains alive.
As delegate
of the Cuban Revolutionary Party he put into practice
a foreign policy conception which, based on the Latin-American
and antimperialist ideas, did not limit its performance
to the establishment of nexuses among governments and
extended it to the peoples
On December,
1889, Martí gave a speech known as "Mother
America", which constitutes a foreign policy project,
where the principles that should guide the relations among
Latin American countries and the as the essential force
to be used to restrain and oppose the conquest of Latin
America by the United States were established.
A day before
Marti was deadly wounded in combat, he wrote, a letter
to his close Mexican friend Manuel Mercado, in which he
made enlightening and impressive revelations that are
considered his political testament.