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Commenting on
The Moral and Ethical Formation of JosŽ Mart’
By Pamela Barnett
Scroll down for a bibliography of works cited.
References to Mart’'s work are from Obras completas. 27 vols. La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Socials, 1975.
You can read more about Mart’ in
The Politics of Letters: JosŽ Mart’Õs
Revolutionary Discourse. Doctoral Thesis, University of Toronto, 2006.
It is an established argument that our indigenous populations
initiated the culture of resistance that continued throughout the independence
wars and other rebellions in America (Fern‡ndez
Retamar, Roberto. Calib‡n y otros ensayos.
La Habana: Editorial Arte y Literatura, 1979). JosŽ Mart’ belongs to this tradition. His
commitment to human development rested on the belief that freedom, justice, and
dignity for everyone is an achievable goal, one that must be brought into
being, and when necessary, through active resistance to oppression.
What are some of the influences on the framework
of Mart’Õs moral and ethical formation?
ThereÕs the well-rooted strain of intellectual
radicalism, his natural empathy with sufferers of injustice augmented by his
personal encounters with injustice, a lifetime of study and reflection, and his
revolutionary activism from an early age.
First let us consider the influence of a radical
strain of thought, with deep roots in the past, having to do with liberalism,
humanism, nationalism, separatism, and anti-slavery.
BartolomŽ de Las
Casas (1474/84-1566)
The Caribbean historian Gordon Lewis says that Las
Casas was a liberal humanist who saw all peoples as human beings in different
stages of development, and with the potential for cultural advance, economic
progress, and moral improvement (Main
Currents in Caribbean Thought. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1983). Las Casas advanced a surprisingly modern theory of progress and cultural
development, says Lewis, and testifies to a liberal humanist tradition in
Spanish thought that I often forgotten by historians who overlook the prolonged
Spanish debate on the implications of the discoveries for all the leading
issues of liberal humanism: the problem of authority, the limits of obedience,
religious toleration, the rights o subjects, the rival claims of papacy and nation-state,
and the rest (Lewis 55).
Miguel Hidalgo
Costilla (1753-1811)
This Creole intellectual, nonconformist priest,
and humanitarian with a strong egalitarian spirit, strove to improve the
economic well-being of his parishioners.
JosŽ Mar’a Morelos
(1765-1815)
This parish priest and revolutionary assumed
leadership of the revolt after HidalgoÕs execution and emphasized social and
racial equality and complete independence from Spain.
Sim—n Bol’ver
(1783-1830)
Pensador and man of action, Bol’varÕs revolt against
Spanish rule and his spirit of independence, vision of the unity of America,
and commitment to radical transformation continue in the anti-imperialism,
revolutionary activism, and unifying nuestroamericanismo
of JosŽ Mart’.
Bol’var and Mart’ were from different classes,
eras and historical conditions. Bol’var understood that a successful revolt
depended on broad appeal and he saw the necessity of freeing AmericaÕs Africans
and indigenous peoples from slavery and servitude. In Mart’ interpretation of
Bol’varÕs legacy, empathy with the Òpoor f the earthÓ and commitment to Òthe
good of allÓ were foundational to the vision of a just society in Cuba and a
unified America.
Nineteenth-Century Pensadores
We now turn to the nineteenth century pensadores and their preoccupaion with
the problems of ethics and slavery. Cintio Vitier affirms that problems of
ethics began to preoccupy Cuban pensadores
since the first decades of the nineteenth century; he is referring to their
preoccupation with duty, utility and justice alongside the deep and growing
moral problem of slavery that came to occupy the centre of the Cuban spirit. He
suggests that a type of autochthonous ethics emerged from among these founders
of Cuban culture, and prominent among them were the illustrious intellectuals
from the Seminario de San Carlos,
who were influenced by El Padre Felix
Varela, a vanguard educator who taught there between 1811 and 1821(ÒLo
Žtico fundador en la cultura cubana.Ó Hondo
Revista de la Sociedad Cultural JosŽ Mart’ 6 (2002): 2-6).
VarelaÕs influence on a generation of pensadores is exemplified in, among
others, JosŽ de la Luz y Caballera, outstanding pedagogue and
philosopher, and RafaŽl Mar’a de Mendive,
poet and activist, and JosŽ Mart’Õs teacher and mentor. The Seminary and Varela
were important to the formation of leading intellectuals of the independence
movement, including JosŽ Mart’. According to Vitier, in his monumental La historia de la esclavitud, JosŽ Antonio Saco, one of VarelaÕs
ormer students, draws attention to the theme that is central to our
understanding of history in Latin America, Cuba and the Caribbean, because of
the immediacy of the experience of slavery. Vitier affirms that the degree to
which the conscience of the nation was being forged, and the degree to which
the historical trauma caused by what Saco referred to as Òthe poison of
slaveryÓ was coming to light, Cuban history began to reflect a concern with
ethical problems (Vitier 4).
El Padre FŽlix Varela
(1788-1853)
A vanguard educator, nationalist and independentista, he cultivated the seed
o liberal humanism planted by Las Casas and is often described as the father of
the Cuban identify and Cuban nationalism for many reasons. Varela is considered
the first to have advocate the independence of the nation. He also advocated
the abolition of slavery as essential for the economic and moral well-being of
Cuba.
Appointed in 1811 to teach philosophy and ethics
at the Seminary where he had studied, Varela transformed the pedagogy of the
era. He replaced Latin with Spanish as the language of instruction. He
introduced the study of physics and chemistry. He established the countryÕs
first science laboratory and emphasized the study of science experimentation as
the key to economic development, social transformation and the moral well-being
of the nation. And he encouraged his students to reason and think
independently.
VarelaÕs move into politics may have begun when he
assumed the new Chair of Constitutionalism at the Seminario de San Carlos in
1820, following the re-establishment in Cuba that year of the Constitution of
1812. He defended the Constitution and fostered in his students an admiration
of liberalism in government and a dislike for absolutism.
Philip Foner suggests that Varela was impressed by
a pamphlet published in Spain advocating the independence of Cuba and Puerto
Rico, and written by a priest from Guatemala, JosŽ Mariano MŽndez (1777 El Salvador-1850 Guatemala). Varela
discussed the document with his students and encouraged them to consider the
limits of reformism (The History of Cuba
and Its Relations with the United Sates. Vol. 1. New York: International
Publishers, 1962). In 1821 Varela inaugurated the Chair of Law at the Seminario
and used it for the teaching of civic responsibility, human rights, and the
restraint of absolute power. In 1821 also, he was one of the three deputies
elected to the Cortes and expected to
represent the interests of the slave-owning hacendadosÑin
particular, that the Treaty of 1817 ending the importation of slaves be revoked
or delayed.
But El Padre Varela had ideas of his own. He urged
the Cortes not to confuse the
interests of the slave-owners with the true interestsÓ of the colony. He stated
that the general wish of the people of Cuba was to end slavery and to find
other solutions for their economy. He published a Memoria arguing that slavery was harmful to the well-being of Cuba,
and proposing a plan for its gradual abolition. He joined a petition urging the
recognition of the independence of the Spanish American republics. He joined
with others to propose political and economic autonomy for the remaining
colonies. And he was also among those diputados
who favoured replacing the monarch with a Council of Regents.
Not surprisingly, he was among those sentenced to
death with the return of Fernando VII and absolutism, but he escaped to
Gibraltar, and then to the United States, where he remained until his death in
February 1853Ñwhich is approximately one month after Mart’Õs birth.
Vitier says that even before Varela became
radicalizedÑthanks to is learning experience at the Cortes of
CadizÑhe had declared from the Chair of Constitution he occupied in
HavanaÕs Seminario de San Carlos that an Òirresistible moral forceÓ was the
foundation of a Òsociety of free menÓ; and later he summed up his ideal of
independence in the maxim that there is no nation without true virtue (Òno hay
patria sin virtudÓ) (Vitier 3).
A firm advocate for independence, VarelaÕs
influence I Cuba continued throughout his life in exile. In the United States,
while he carried out his religious work with selfless dedication, working to
improve the conditions of poor immigrants, he also published newspapers that
clandestinely entered Cuba and were distributed secretly in the island by those
of his followers who remained there. Many students and intellectuals, including
the poet JosŽ Mar’a Heredia (1803-1839), were among the independence
conspirators forced into exile to escape the death penalty for the resistance
to the colonial regime and their support for the cause of independence.
JosŽ de la Luz y
Caballero (1800-1862)
Luz y Caballero studied under Varela at the
Seminario de San Carlos. Influenced by VarelaÕs patriotic teachings,
modernizing pedagogy, and emphasis on enquiry and experiment, and in touch with
the most progressive pedagogical currents of his era, Luz y Caballero dedicated
his life to the education of Cubans. He emphasized their moral and ethical
formation, teaching them to value social justice and patriotism over individual
wealth and success.
Vitier refers to a long and intense polemic, from
July to October 1839, concerning whether or not the principle of utility was an
acceptable foundation for moral judgement and Actions. Luz y Caballero put
forward the idea that the moral of interest opens up an abyss of evil that
causes inescapable consequences: forgetfulness of our rights, emphasis on
physical pleasure, and degradation of the national character. While not in
conflict with Luz y CaballeroÕs formulation, FŽliz Varela, by then a revolucionario in exile, was somewhat
impatient with the theoretical nature of those preoccupations (Vitier 3).
Vitier affirms that the event that most influenced
and determined the history of Cuba is the systematic introduction of African
slavery to solve the problem of labour after the decimation of the indigenous
population. He suggests that when Luz y Caballero wrote that the introduction of
Africans through slavery is CubaÕs original sin, he probably intended more than
a religious analogy with Genesis. He
probably meant a political analogy to the biblical story of the beginning of
human historyÑthat African slavery marks the origin of Cuba as a nation,
for Cuba began with the social, economic, political, intellectual, and cultural
manifestations that came into being alongside and related to the horrors of
slavery.
Julio Ramos makes a good point, I believe, when he
suggests that in Luz and Caballero, Òreligious rhetoric gives legitimacy to
ideas that would have sounded transgressive had they been said in another way
during this periodÓ (Divergent
Modernities. Culture and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Latin America.
Trans. John D. Blanco. Durham:Duke U.P., 1996, p. 26).
RafaŽl Mar’a de
Mendive (1821-1886)
Mendive case illustrates RamosÕs point. In January
1869, following direct or implied expressions of support at the Teatro
Villanueva for the 1868 uprising led by Carlos Manuel de CŽspedes, Mendive was
arrested, accused of involvement in those events, and of using his house for
patriotic meetings. The colonial authorities deported him to Spain. He escaped
to New York and lived in exile until 1878, returning to Cuba after the signing
of El Pacto de Zanj—n, the peace
treaty that ended CubaÕs first independence war. Mart’ came under the direct
influence of MendiveÕs patriotic activism from 1865 when he became the latterÕs
student at the Escuela Superior Municipal de Varones, until MendiveÕs arrest and
deportation in 1869.
A few comments now on Mart’Õs personal encounters
with injustice.
Although he was not born into a slave-owning urban
family, Mart’ was familiar with slavery in Havana. His introduction to its
horror occurred while he was on a sojourn in the countryside with his father
and witnessed the unloading of a cargo of degraded human beings and a dead
Africa hanging from a seibo tree. He evokes this heartrending experience in
ÒVersos sensillosÓ XXX, revealing that the child trembled with passion as he
witnessed this horror and swore to wash away the crime with his life. Slavery,
he writes in XXXIV, ÒEs la gran pena del mundoÓ [It is the worldÕs greatest
crime]. The first action taken by Carlos Manuel de CŽspedes at the start of the
insurrection of 1868, to free the slaves in his sugar mill, symbolized for
Mart’ the moral dimension of the just and necessary war.
There is, of course, also the imprisonment he
describes in El presidio politico en Cuba.
He was seventeen years old when he was condemned to six years in prison with
hard labour for a letter he wrote chastising a fellow student who had enlisted
in the Spanish army. The suffering he endured in prison left him with lifelong
injuries, but it also increased his moral fortitude. Young though he was, Mart’
avoided centering on his own suffering, and focused instead on the suffering
experienced by his fellow political prisoners who, according to the prison
portraits he depicts in Presidio,
reflect a racial cross-section of mostly lower-class Cubans.
Mart’Õs years of residence in Latin America and
the United States gave breadth and depth to his knowledge of rcial opprssion
and to his moral and ethical understanding of social injustice. His ÒAmŽrica
mestizaÓ and ÒnuestroamericanismoÓ began to emerge in Mexico and Guatemala, his
first exposure to nations where indigenous people comprise the majority, and
where he witnessed their poverty and oppression. Later, his critical journalism
in the United States chronicles, among other things, the racial and social
inequalities in English-speaking America. In New York he was also actively
involved with Rafael Serra in La Liga de Instrucci—n, an adult
education project organized to advance the political and social development, as
well as the informed, active citizenship of humble exiled workers most of them
Cuban and Puerto Rican patriots of African ancestry.
Finally, I referred earlier to Mart’Õs lifetime of
study, reflection, and revolutionary activism. Hebert PŽrez refers to Mart’Õs
critical reception of the science of the time and to the consistency of his
ethical response to the racism and the ideological justifications of racial
oppression that were prevalent thenÑsuch as religious myths that dark
skin was the result of divine punishment, notions in social Darwinism of a
racial hierarchy, and racial supremacist beliefs of contemporaries such as
Domingo Faustino Sarmiento and others (ÒMart’, Race and Cuban Identity.Ó Monthly Review. Nov. 2003. Monthly
Review Foundations Inc. 21 Oct. 2005. <http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_mll32/is_6_55/ai_111269069).
On these issues Mart’ was certainly ahead of his
era. As PŽrez emphasizes, Mart’ has a moral and ethical yardstick by which he
measures the science and ideas of the timeÑthat is, his philosophical
point of view; his belief in the equality of human beings and the unity of man
and nature (5). There was also, of course, his independence of mind, his moral
courage, and the sincerity and consistence o his commitment to equality,
justice, and dignity for everyoneÑall to be achieved in a free society
dedicated to the good of all.
He demonstrated this commitment in practical ways.
His revolutionary speeches stressed unity and emphasized the contribution and
sacrifices made by Cubans of African ancestry and the support of humble Cubans
during the ten-year war of independence. Under his leadership, the ideology and
objectives of the Partido Revolutionario
Cubano represented the interests and involvement of all races and classes
in the independence struggle. And he incorporated black Cubans in exile and on
the island in positions of leadership in the Revolutionary Party.
We see, then, that the framework of Mart’Õs moral
and ethical formation can be traced to the humanism of Las Casas. But it I
Padre VarelaÕs emphasis on critical enquiry and thinking for oneself, his
influence on the early nineteenth-century Cuban pensadores who forged the conscience of the nation, the example of
his activism, patriotism, moral courage, and selfless dedication to duty, that
inform Mart’Õs intellectual, moral and ethical principles. This framework
encouraged Mart’Õs natural empathy with the oppressed, disposition for critical
analysis, patriotic fervour, and passionate commitment to social justice and
human progress on a national, regional and global scale.
Bibliography of Works
Cited
Foner, Philip. The
History of Cuba and Its Relations with the United Sates. Vol. 1. New York:
International Publishers, 1962.
FŽrnandez Retamar, Roberto. Calib‡n y otros ensayos.
La Habana: Editorial Arte y Literatura, 1979.
Lewis, Gordon K. Main Currents in Caribbean Thought. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1983.
PŽrez Hebert. (ÒMart’, Race and Cuban Identity.Ó Monthly Review. Nov. 2003. Monthly
Review Foundations Inc. 21 Oct. 2005. <http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_mll32/is_6_55/ai_111269069.
Ramos, Julio. Divergent
Modernities. Culture and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Latin America.
Trans. John D. Blanco. Durham:Duke U.P., 1996, p. 26.
Vitier, Cintio. ÒLo Žtico fundador en la cultura
cubana.Ó Hondo Revista de la Sociedad
Cultural JosŽ Mart’ 6 (2002): 2-6.
Copyright 2012 Pamela Barnett
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