José
Julián Martí y Pérez
Martí was ignored in Cuba until Radio
Martí started broadcasting in 1983 under Reagan. Then some in the
Cuban government decided to co-opt this phenomenon, forgetting that Martí was
strongly anti-socialist. The ill-read folks in Miami apparently don't know
this either, or they would use it to their advantage as Cuba is
awash in the glorification of Martí.
José Martí is considered the father of his country,
except that he never really lived much in Cuba and when he did come into
Cuba for the 2nd War of Liberation in 1895, he refused to listen to what
the black commander of the Liberation Army, Antonio Maceo, was telling him and went and got himself
needlessly killed. Maceo told him he was better off coordinating
international aid for the rebels out of New York as he did not have the
skills needed to be a soldier.
Some AfroCubans, such as Leida
Oquendo, have presented Martí as an antiracist, which is perhaps only
partially
true, as can be seen in his description of his visit to Curaçao (see
José Martí and Racism:
His Visit to Curaçao by Eugene Godfried). Martí
was patriarchal, he conceived of the feminine as irrational and
instinctive. His principal philosophical descendant in the 20th century, Enrique José
Varona, was frankly racist and thought men superior in intellect. In
response to all this mysoginist fervor, we can only point to Mariana
Grajales Coello, mother of Antonio Maceo and “Mother
of the Cuban Nation.”
Perhaps Martí's worse legacy is that of his son.
Martí's son: José Francisco
Martí y Zayas-Bazán
Martí had one legitimate son, José Francisco
Martí y Zayas-Bazán, who was a captain in the Army of Liberation, and
later in 1912 turned
on his former comrades in the Independents of Color and led a band of vigilante "volunteers" to
exterminate them. After the massacre, the government and big business
held a celebratory
banquet in Central Park, Havana, which was presided over by Francisco Martí
right under his father's statue and
attended by many of the troops involved. Francisco lived until 1947
and his house in Havana has been turned into the seat of the Centro
de Estudios Jose Marti under Armando Hart, a former Minister of Culture
who was sacked in the wake of his conflict with Pablo
Milanes in which he is said to have displayed open racism.
Revered on both sides of the Florida Straights by the
Ibero-Spanish Cubans, Martí is discussed to the exclusion of the man who
really lead the Mambi Army to victory, Antonio
Maceo, perpetuating the racism in Cuban culture.
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