Re-imagining the Nation:
JosŽ Mart’ and Franz Fanon
By Pamela Barnett
References to Mart’Õs work are from Obras completas. 27 vols. La Habana: Editorial
de Ciencias Sociales, 1975.
Scroll down for a
bibliography of works cited.
You can read more about Mart’ in The Politics of Letters: JosŽ Mart’Õs
Revolutionary Discourse. Doctoral Thesis, University of Toronto, 2006.
In
JosŽ Mart’Õs internationalist worldview, every
nation can and should contribute to human progress. His revolutionary
discourse conveys a radical optimism in both the creative power of
individuals and nations to change and develop, and in resistance and
unified struggle as means to achieve historical transformation and
genuine human progress. (In the writings of both JosŽ
Mart’ and Franz Fanon, the nature of resistance is consistent
with Edward SaidÕs suggestion, in Culture and Imperialism, that
ÒThree great topics emerge in decolonizing cultural resistance
...Ó One is Òthe insistence on the right to see the
communityÕs history whole, coherently, integrally ... Second is
the idea that resistance, far from being merely a reaction to
imperialism, is an alternative way of conceiving human history ...
Third is a noticeable pull away from separatist nationalism toward a
more integrative view of human community and human liberationÓ
(215-6).)
Mart’Õs ideas transcend his era and his region. His
writings occupy a central place in the anti-imperialist literature in
the new political and economic era emerging in the final decades of the
nineteenth century. Mart’Õs Ôradical democratic
nationalismÕ and critical response to the Ôglobal
transformations of modern imperialismÕ as they were emerging
represent the first serious challenge to Eurocentrism, register a
prescient voice against United States hegemony, and mark the beginning
of radical nationalist revolutions in Latin America (Larsen 184-5). The
military intervention of the United States in the Cuban independence
war in 1898 confirmed his prescient analysis of the United
StatesÕ imperialist policy toward its neighbours.
His struggle against imperialism and colonialism and his criticism of
the national bourgeoisie of neo-colonial Spanish America anticipate
radical intellectuals such as Franz Fanon, a revolutionary leader in
the war that won AlgeriaÕs independence from France. Both
Antillean-born, their vision and revolutionary activism reached beyond
national and regional frontiers. For Mart’ (1853-1895), as for
Fanon (1925-1961), humanism is the necessary foundation and defining
characteristic of the political and social consciousness required to
transform nations into independent and just societies. For both, human
development and moral progress are as important indicators of national
development as material accumulation and technological growth. Their
ideas about the nature of progress, human development, and culture are
relevant to contemporary discourses. The priorities, interests, and
ideologies of dominant economies, powerful nations, and elite sectors
still create political, social, and economic problems in their own
societies and around the globe, and are now widely acknowledged even to
have placed the sustainability of our planet in jeopardy.
Imagining the Nation: the Latin American Writer in the 1800s
Mart’Õs discourse of identity, inclusion, and resistance
is a critical voice positioned outside the elitist discursive realm
that Angel Rama calls la ciudad letrada, which throughout the colonial
period and most of the nineteenth century was the urban-centred domain
of writing closely linked to and dependent on the state (Rama 88).
Writing was the enterprise of elite intellectuals whose task it was to
articulate the ideology and edicts of the institutions of state that
authorized them. Julio Ramos states that letters Ôoccupied a
central place in the organization of the new Latin American
societiesÕ (Ramos xxxvi), and the lettered city guaranteed
Ôthe close relationship between letters and politics that
remained dominant until the 1870sÕ (Ramos 44). The letrados
artificiales of Mart’Õs ÔNuestra
AmŽricaÕ are the nineteenth-century intellectual
successors of the letrados that documented and served the interests of
empire in the colonial period. (ÔNuestra AmŽricaÕ
appeared in La Revista Ilustrada de Nueva York on 1 January 1891, and
later that month, on 30 January 1891, in MexicoÕs El Partido
Liberal. It is included in volume 6 Mart’Õs Obras
completas (OC 6: 15-23).
Roberto Fern‡ndez Retamar has long contended, in Calib‡n
y otros ensayos, that a defining characteristic of Mart’Õs
nuestra AmŽrica mestiza is the history and culture of resistance
initiated by its indigenous populations and continued throughout the
independence wars and other rebellions in the region, and furthermore
that the importance of Mart’Õs concept is in uniting
indigenous, African and European populations in nuestra AmŽrica
within a common identity and a common cause.) They had the
Ôremarkable capacity,Õ says Rama, not only to
Ôweather the revolutionary storm and reconstitute their power in
the independent republicsÕ (Rama 45), but even Ôto graft
themselves comfortably on to the trunk of caudillo powerÕ (51),
broadening and strengthening their foundations when urban-centred
reforms in education expanded their ranks in the areas of education,
diplomacy, and journalism (57). Their institutionalized patterns of
thinking maintained the exclusion of the marginalized sectors, and
ensured that a new colonialism prevailed within the newly independent
republics.
The leaders of the anti-colonial revolts had consciously adopted
European models of bourgeois revolutions, and the hegemony of European
knowledge and culture remained unbroken in the new republics (Larsen
184-5). When the leaders and intellectuals of the new nations surveyed
the cultural, political, and geographical landscape after the
devastating independence wars, like the colonizers before them, they
recognized and understood only through comparison with European forms
of knowledge and realities, which they valued and privileged. They saw
a vast empty landscape of nothingness. Their understanding of the
ÔnationalÕ and their capacity to apprehend was restricted
and informed by elitist values and sectarian interests. These values
and interests did not include local knowledge, culture, and human
potential, or the indigenous myths and realities that reinforced and
sustained the values and cultures of autochthonous America. Disposed to
measure progress in terms of technology, material accumulation, and
paradigms of bourgeois rationality and refinement, they sought wisdom
in the familiarity of imported discursive traditions, and fixed their
servile gaze on Europe and North America. They overlooked the original
character of the new nations, the value of the knowledge and cultures
of the people, and the peopleÕs potential for social
transformation, as well as economic and human development, based on
creative local solutions for local conditions.
In the writings of the letrados, the marginalized rural people of the
neglected countryside Ð autochthonous America Ð supply a
barbaric opposing force. ÔBeginning with the 1820s,Õ says
Ramos, Ôthe activity of writing became a response to the
necessity of overcoming the catastrophe of war, the absence of
discourse, and the annihilation of established structures in the
warÕs aftermath. To write, in such a world, was to forge the
modernizing project; it was to civilize, to order the randomness of
American ÒbarbarismÓÕ (Ramos 3). Barbarism became
institutionalized in the rhetoric of the era as the primitive force
opposing civilization. It was the unformed and undisciplined reality
ultimately inaccessible to progress and modernity.
Such is the view represented in Domingo F. SarmientoÕs
influential Facundo, first published in 1845. Ramos argues that
Sarmiento positions himself as the polemical adversary of AndrŽs
BelloÕs disciplined and university-authorized discourses, and
furthermore assumes a subaltern position in relation to the disciplined
discourse characteristic of the letrados and European scholarship
(Ramos 3-20). Sarmiento manipulates this position, says Ramos, to
establish and benefit from the authority of an alternative discourse,
representing himself as the intellectual best placed to mediate between
civilizationÕs written discourse and the orality of barbarism. He
claims an attempt to establish order and achieve modernity by listening
to and transcribing the alternative knowledge of the other to
incorporate it into the nationÕs modernizing project, thereby
closing the Ôinterstitial gapÕ between civilization and
barbarism through which caudillos rose to power. ÔTo hear, then,
is the technique of a historiographical practice. And it was literature
... that would be the discourse most suited to that project of
listening to the voice of traditionÕ (Ramos 12).
In the Ôhierarchized space of discourse,Õ continues Rama,
Sarmiento assumes for himself the role of transcriber between
civilization and barbarism to re-present the other, Ôthe feared
outside of discourseÕ; but the confused and irregular voice of
barbarism renders it resistant to representation and it must ultimately
be subdued and subordinated to the rational laws governing
civilization, productive labour, and the emerging market (Ramos 18).
Ramos maintains that Ôthe formal procedure of including the
spoken word of the other, only to subordinate it to a higher authority,
indicates an attempt to resolve a contradiction on which Facundo
continually reflects: the lack of law in a society based on the
irregularity and arbitrary nature of the caudilloÕ (Ramos 18).
Notwithstanding SarmientoÕs self-representation as
civilizationÕs subaltern voice, and regardless of the locus of
the writer within institutionalized discourse, the rhetoric of
barbarism presupposes a civilized we that is morally, culturally, and
biologically superior to a primitive, undisciplined other. Writing was
a civilizing project through which the letrado could claim an attempt
to replace chaos and backwardness with order and modernity, for it was
assumed that the unwritten word, unauthorized by institutionalized
discourse, lacked the power to order chaos and the capacity to
modernize.
Mart’ criticizes the Ôfalse eruditionÕ of the
letrados and faults the incapacity of the ruling elites, who owe their
privileges to those who labour without benefit, to govern for the good
of all sectors and for the welfare of the nation. He condemns their
sectarian agenda and their consequent failure to integrate and
transform their nations into just societies for the good of all their
people. Their disdained America is his Ôhombre naturalÕ (OC
6: 18). He urges the creation of Ônew menÕ in America and
calls for the political and economic independence, cultural
emancipation, and social transformation of these nations into just and
integrated societies developed in harmony with local, natural elements
(OC 6: 20). For Mart’, the creation of truly decolonized people
and just societies requires radical changes in institutionalized
patterns of thinking, as well as in social and economic relations. It
must also include the integration of the lower classes and marginalized
sectors through meaningful and productive work, the enjoyment of rights
and benefits, and the celebration of culture.
Fanon, like Mart’, challenges the governing ideologies that
assume, not only that local elites are the effective, rational agents
of progress and development, but also that marginalized populations are
primitive forces whose confused voices and backward traditions must be
subordinated. It is the condition of colonialism, writes Fanon, that
Ôevery effort is made to bring the colonized person to admit the
inferiority of his culture, ... to recognize the unreality of his
Ònation,Ó and, in the last extreme, the confused and
imperfect character of his own biological structureÕ (The
Wretched 236). Furthermore, the Ôscapegoat for white
society - which is based on myths of progress, civilization,
liberalism, education, enlightenment, refinement - will be precisely
the force that opposes the expansion and the triumph of these
mythsÕ (Black Skin 194). For Fanon, the neo-colonial elites are
the obstructive forces that must be opposed if social transformation
and progress are to be achieved (The Wretched 176); they must be
opposed if Ôthe process of retrogressionÕ - in which
Ôthe nation is passed over for the race, and the tribe is
preferred to the stateÕ - is to be avoided (The Wretched 148-9).
Their unwillingness to mobilize the masses and their incapacity to
harmoniously unite and develop the nation render them useless when
national consciousness must rapidly transform into Ôconsciousness
of social and political needs, in other words into humanism,Õ
(The Wretched 204). Particularly useless is the Ônational
bourgeoisieÕ; not being Ôauthentic bourgeoisie,Õ says
Fanon, it lacks both the capital and imagination to contribute to the
material and cultural development of the nation (The Wretched 176-9);
and ultimately, Ôthe poverty of the people, national oppression,
and the inhibition of culture are one and the same thingÕ (238).
For Fanon, as for Mart’, a decolonized political and social
consciousness requires Ôthe disappearance of the colonized
manÕ (The Wretched 246) and Ôthe veritable creation of new
menÕ (36). Only then will forms of national culture emerge that
can contribute to human progress.
In the neo-colonial Spanish American republics, the realities and
aspirations of the majority were systematically excluded from the road
to progress charted by the ruling elites and from the exclusive we that
defined for the privileged the identity of the nation. The authority of
representation rested with the letrados, for whom the interests and
desires of the elite urban sectors represented the welfare and good of
the nation. The modernizing spirit that emerged around 1870 created
professions and institutions less dependent on the state, but did
little to include the margins within the representation of the nation.
Nor did it reduce the authority and prestige of the letrados. It did,
however, allow educators and journalists a degree of autonomy from the
state and opened a space for writing outside the lettered city, mostly
through journalism, to intellectuals who could not or would not include
themselves within that privileged space.
The spirit of modernity thus gave rise to the literato, made possible
an autonomous literary voice, and enlarged the space for creative
writing. In so doing, it also initiated a struggle for legitimacy
attended by the need to situate the locus of authority for letters in
the literary sphere, for autonomy from the state also removed the
writerÕs claim to that authority. It was not until 1896,
following a break between letters and law, that letters was
institutionalized as a separate authority in the academic domain (Ramos
49-53). Nevertheless, larger urban populations, gradually expanding
literacy, and expanded markets for newspapers and magazines in cities
and towns made the literato accessible to unprecedented numbers of new
readers (Rama 50-7). The neglected countryside, however, was largely
excluded from the institutionalized ideologies and educational reforms.
Even when elements of rural customs and oral traditions became
incorporated into the canonized literatures of the new nation states,
the subaltern remained beyond hearing distance of the critical voice,
and outside the dialogue of discourse and the written word.
Re-imagining the Nation: the Inversion of Values
Mart’Õs nuestroamericanismo discourse subverts the
civilization-barbarism dichotomy by re-ordering the hierarchy of
knowledge, culture, and values to claim the autochthonous and original
as the spiritual foundation of national identity. This discourse of
identity, affiliation, and resistance challenges the authority and
relevance of European rationality for the task of creating a new people
and original republics; it also redefines national identity to
meaningfully integrate all social and economic sectors. To the extent
that the non-literate subaltern remains beyond hearing distance of
Mart’Õs discourse, and thereby excluded from the
ÔyouÕ and ÔIÕ of dialogue and the written word,
it is subordinated in a hierarchical relationship with the intellectual
and the reading public. However, Mart’ reverses this hierarchy
by privileging the indigenous and original over the European and
imported.
Unlike Sarmiento, who claims an unsuccessful attempt to mediate between
ÔcivilizationÕ and Ôbarbarism,Õ Mart’
makes no claim to mediate between the margins and the governing
ideologies; nevertheless, his discourse effects such mediation. Neither
does Mart’ claim to represent the subaltern voice, but the
marginalized sectors are included in his collective we as the
foundational elements of the re-imagined national identity. They are no
longer the other - the undisciplined, irredeemable force of barbarism.
The other is represented in Mart’Õs discourse by the
forces of ÔretrogressionÕ and imperialism: the
outside-looking ÔartificialÕ intellectuals (the
metaphorical crouching tiger within the republic), and the aggressive
industrialized United States (the tiger that threatens from outside)
(OC 6: 19). However, all sectors are redeemable in his discourse of
unity.
Humanism propels both Mart’ and Fanon to challenge to the
intellectual status quo and elitist ideologies. Mart’Õs
idea of progress is informed by social and historical consciousness and
founded on the principle that self-development, freedom, justice, and
dignity for everyone are necessary and achievable through social and
political transformation. While technology and material accumulation
are important elements, a just society is the critical measure of human
progress. He anticipates FanonÕs idea that the nature of social
relations and the placement of the people in the vision of the nation
are factors that will either open the future or lead to
Ôretrogression.Õ To transform society and open the future,
leadership and national institutions must take account of the realities
and aspirations of all the people and govern for the good of all.
For Fanon, like the elitist sectors that promote them, ideas of
progress that do not involve Ôthe combined effort of the
massesÕ (The Wretched 175) and lead to the Ôharmonious
development of the nationÕ are Ôgood for nothingÕ and
must be opposed (176). The leaders of the nation must be Ôhighly
conscious and armed with revolutionary principlesÕ (The Wretched
175), says Fanon, for Ôno leader, however valuable he may be, can
substitute himself for the popular will; and the national government,
before concerning itself about international prestige, ought first to
give back their dignity to all citizens, fill their minds and feast
their eyes with human things, and create a prospect that is human
because conscious and sovereign men dwell thereinÕ (205). For
Fanon, Ôeverything else is mystification, signifying nothing
Ô (The Wretched 235).
In both Mart’ and Fanon, economic growth and material
accumulation without social consciousness and development in social
welfare is not genuine human progress. Leadership, therefore, must
extend beyond the interests of elites and intellectuals to recognize
the reality of the people and incorporate it into a national agenda
that is for the good of all. Otherwise it is an obstacle to social
transformation and betrays the peopleÕs aspirations for personal
and social development. In Black Skin, White Masks, recalling Hegel,
Fanon writes: ÔMan is human only to the extent to which he tries
to impose his existence on another man in order to be recognized by him
É It is on that other being, on recognition by that other being,
that his own human worth and reality dependÕ (216-7). Social
transformation requires the marginalized sectors to impose their
existence and to participate in the national consciousness through
Ôfree conscious activity,Õ which for Marx, as
Petrović reminds us, Ôis the species-character of the
human beingÕ (386). Meaningful social relations require
reciprocal recognition and affirm the humanity of individuals.
Representation and inclusion are steps toward the future, but alone
cannot effect the necessary political and social changes.
The revolutionary intellectual, the empathetic activist, must recognize
the other but must also be recognized. In Mart’, this
reciprocity is enabled through a discourse that remembers the past in
order to situate autochthonous values, original tradition, and local
conditions at the centre of nuestra AmŽrica. The intention is
not to attempt a return to the values, traditions, and cultural forms
of the past, but to separate the autochthonous from the denigrating
myth of barbarism, acknowledge the roots and the original character of
America, and bring the marginalized sectors into the centre of national
life and culture. ÔThe colonized man who writes for his
people,Õ says Fanon, Ôought to use the past with the
intention of opening the future, as an invitation to action and a basis
for hopeÕ (The Wretched 232). Enabling reciprocity is a concrete
step toward the future.
A rhetoric of the nation
Mart’Õs discourse of resistance can claim its authority
from the culture of resistance that characterizes the history of the
region. Roberto Fern‡ndez Retamar has long contended, in
Calib‡n y otros ensayos, that a defining characteristic of
Mart’Õs nuestra AmŽrica mestiza is the history and
culture of resistance initiated by its indigenous populations and
continued throughout the independence wars and other rebellions in the
region, and furthermore that the importance of Mart’Õs
concept is in uniting indigenous, African and European populations in
nuestra AmŽrica within a common identity and a common cause.
In a critique of the culturalismo ideas of the Cuban JosŽ
Antonio Saco and the Chilean Francisco Bilbao, Ramos suggests that
representations of the United States in Latin America were
significantly altered after the NorthÕs expansion into Mexican
territory beginning in 1840 (Ramos 154-7). He suggests further that the
development of a literary and cultural authority is integral to the
formation of modern latinoamericanismo. He adds, referring specifically
to BilbaoÕs writing, that in the historical origins of modern
latinoamericanismo are represented Ôon the one hand the exclusion
and reification of the North (rationalization, reason, industry,
interest), and on the other, the inclusion of the distinct others in
modernization (the beautiful, disinterest, spirit, tradition, the
subaltern) by means of the aesthetic subjectÕs integrating
gazeÕ (Ramos 157).
Mart’Õs discourse of resistance condemns SpainÕs
colonial hold on Cuba and warns against the United StatesÕ
hegemonic intentions in the region. It also condemns the internal
obstacles to cultural authenticity, particularly the tendency in the
independent republics for the ruling elites to disdain the
autochthonous, maintain colonial traditions, and import habits and
traditions from Europe and the United States.
His resistance extends to the domain of aesthetic values and national
literature. In his Cuaderno No. 5, Mart’ suggests there will be
no Spanish American literature until there is a Spanish America.
Without the essence there can be no literary expression, and the
immortalized writer in America will have conveyed the essence of his
complex epoch with consummate artistry (OC 21: 163-4). For
Mart’, the aesthetic and political dimensions of AmericaÕs
transformation are linked, giving the writer, artist or intellectual a
central role in the political and cultural emancipation of the nation.
It was precisely the transformative purpose of La Revista Venezolana
(OC 7: 195-212) to encourage the creation of original and uniquely
Spanish American literary works. These would reflect the essence and
spirit of Spanish America and participate in the development of
national consciousness and the creation of emancipated nations.
Mart’Õs evaluative criteria consider artistic expression
as well as social awareness, reject the colonized mentality, and
emphasize originality, authenticity, and relevance. He exemplifies the
revolutionary role he assigns to writers and intellectuals in colonized
and developing nations, one that requires empathetic, non-alienated
individuals who are fully aware of the true nature of social relations.
Whereas for the letrados writing was a process for articulating
institutionalized ideologies and definitions of the national identity,
for Mart’, to write is to challenge the governing ideologies, to
subvert the sectarian assumptions of the national good that jeopardize
the future of the nation, and to convey his revolutionized vision of
progress and hemispheric relations. He urges pride in the history of
Spanish America, a celebration of the autochthonous as the spiritual
foundation of the nation, the integration of all sectors in the
national agenda, and unity among the nations of nuestra AmŽrica
to protect their political and economic independence.
Mart’Õs writing brings together the activist and the poet
to unite the aesthetic and political. His essay, ÔNuestra
AmŽrica,Õ seamlessly combines reason and poetics to warn
against the expansionist politics of the industrialized, modernized
United States, and to urge the Spanish-speaking nations to unite in
defence of their sovereignty. It relies on history as well as
figurative language inspired by the forests and mountains of the
hemisphere to convey a forceful and timely warning: now is the
time to stand guard, like the trees in close formation, and to march
united and strong, like the silver in the base of the Andes (OC 6: 15).
The revolutionary nature of his aesthetic creativity gives form to
original and distinctive texts that challenge literary boundaries and
represent the struggle to create, legitimize, and establish relevant
critical standards for modern literature in Spanish America. His
revolutionary spirit and the transformative nature of his aesthetic are
evident in the poeticized prose, figurative language, and the
proliferation of images that overturn traditional constraints and
characterize his literary style. His persuasive strategies channel the
power of mythology and sacred oratory and the familiarity of religious
symbolism toward his revolutionary purpose Ð ÔPor
s’mbolos, a la Mitolog’a: por aspiraciones, a la
Religi—n,Õ he records in his Cuadernos de apuntes (OC 21:
161).
National consciousness, social awareness, and the will to resist
colonialism, the new imperialism, and cultural domination are conveyed
through figures and tropes drawn from the natural world, the ideology
of work, indigenous mythology, and the world of religion. His tropology
and figurative allusions represent a harmony between nature and
humanity, include the autochthonous in the representation of national
identity, and value the everyday lives and work of the labouring
classes. Nature, for instance, though devastated by war, regenerates
and provides the promise of food and materials required by
revolutionary soldiers. Figurative language also recovers the past,
concisely rendering history and the passing of time through a rapid
accumulation of images and the encapsulating power of symbols.
Metaphors and allusions represent knowledge that is confirmed by the
reality of everyday experience. Mart’Õs tropology speaks
to peopleÕs souls and intellects and moves their passions,
transforming literature into the vehicle of truth, communicating not
only through rational understanding, but also through direct appeal to
their intuitive soul.
For Mart’, the purpose of writing, the process of national
consciousness, and the authenticity of all forms of national culture
are linked. Fanon observes, generations later, that the strengthening
of national unity propels the intellectual beyond the indictment and
appeal of his initial protest toward a literature of combat (The
Wretched 239-40). For Fanon, national literature begins as a literature
of combat and emerges in the process of national consciousness at
precisely the moment that the writer abandons writing as a project
directed toward the colonizer as the intended reader and begins to
address his or her own people (The Wretched 240). ÔThe conscious
and organized undertaking by a colonized people to re-establish the
sovereignty of that nation constitutes the most complete and obvious
cultural manifestation that exists,Õ and it is the struggle for
national liberation that provides the impetus for cultural authenticity
and creativity (The Wretched 244-5).
Like Mart’, Fanon makes it clear that the objective is not to
return to former values, cultural forms, and social relations, for the
end of the struggle, which is fundamentally transformative, will mark
the appearance of a new humanity that will Ôdefine a new humanism
both for itself and for othersÕ (The Wretched 246). For
Mart’ and Fanon Ð active revolutionaries in anti-colonial
wars of liberation Ð the intellectualÕs role is not limited
to writing and speaking. They emphasize the duty of insurrection when
it is required to achieve a just society, with all and for the good of
all. The struggle that will give rise to a new humanity and transform
society, to paraphrase Fanon, involves the brain and the heart (The
Wretched 192); but it also usually requires a war of liberation and the
arduous physical work of reconstruction and nation-building.
Mart’Õs intellectual must participate physically in
liberating and building the nation, for the hierarchy that privileges
intellectual labour over manual work undermines the work of
reconstruction to which everyone must actively contribute (e.g., OC 4:
264-5; OC 6: 12). He overturns and replaces this hierarchy with an
ideology of work that emphasizes meaningful labour that participates in
national development. Similarly, FanonÕs intellectual Ômust
take part in action and throw himself body and soul into the national
struggle. You may speak about everything under the sun; but when you
decide to speak of that unique thing in manÕs life that is
represented by the fact of opening up new horizons, by bringing light
into your own country, and by raising yourself and your people to their
feet, then you must collaborate on the physical planeÉ We must
work and fight with the same rhythm as the people to construct the
future and to prepare the ground where vigorous shoots are already
springing upÕ (The Wretched 232-3).
Mart’ led the struggle for CubaÕs liberation through the
ideological preparation and mobilization of the people to ensure
popular support for the independence war that would achieve dignity for
each Cuban in a just and sovereign state. For Mart’, although
Cuba would achieve its independence late in the century, through
governance for the good of all and faithful adherence to the concept of
nationhood as the embodiment of the popular will, it was poised to
avoid the neo-colonial trap fallen into by the Spanish American nations
that entered the world as new republics at the beginning of the
nineteenth century. Nevertheless, the historical transformation of
these nations into inclusive and just societies, and the development of
valid forms of national culture, as well as regional unity, and
vigilance in a world of competing ideologies would secure their
sovereignty and their future. He affirmed that Cuba, the doorway to the
Americas, would complete the final stanza in the poem of 1810. Its
liberation would precipitate the true independence of nuestra
AmŽrica, save the honour of English America, and contribute to
the equilibrium of the world. His internationalism and contribution to
ideas of human progress resonate in the politics of liberation and
revolutionary activism of Franz Fanon.
Ultimately, both Mart’ and Fanon urge transformation in the
political, social, and economic dimensions of national culture in order
to create and defend sovereign states and just societies. Within this
moral and cultural space, and if we understand praxis to be the
criterion of truth, then ultimately, it is the peopleÕs
affirmation of the truth it conveys, realized through praxis, that
legitimizes the authority of discourse, art, and other valid forms of
national culture. For Mart’, as for Fanon, these include the
political, social, and economic dimensions of national life, embody the
aspirations of the people, ensure the existence and sovereignty of the
state, and contribute to human development beyond national borders.
Their ideas of human progress are clearly relevant to contemporary
discourses on national culture, humanism and global justice, and
continue to inspire social activism and liberation movements in a world
in which the new imperialism has fully exploded into hegemony on a
global scale.
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