In Miami they are worried about Martí being banned. At least this is reflected in an article in the Nuevo Herald, whose author, with alarm, is worried that the radicalism of a 19th century Martí may provoke the censorship of Cuba's National Hero.
With the reactionary wave sweeping Florida, at the hands of its governor, and presidential candidate, Ron De Santis, that Martí wrote "the slavery of men is the great sorrow of the world" may sound suspiciously close to the so-called critical race theory. According to the laws and regulations passed by the fascistoid Ron, it is enough that some upset parents denounce books by the Apostle for them to be withdrawn from school circulation.
We cannot deny that, in such a case, parents would have a good case. It is more than evident that Martí wrote not only against slavery in Cuba, but against racism in the United States, too. And De Santis would be right if he considered Martí dangerous for his vision of how education should be in his State, a vision that can be summed up in something like the denial of racism in the history of the country.
It is that Martí, irreducible, wrote in 1887, describing the violence of the whites with the political power against the blacks: "Cautiously advancing, through the forest bordering a southern town, a somber procession What war is there that they are armed? They carry the carbine wedged in the bow, as if to lose no time in falling upon the enemy. Bandits they seem, but they are the mayor and his patrol, who come to kill the blacks of Oak Ridge, in punishment for the fact that a black from there lives in love with a white woman. (...) The mayor arrived at the town: he intimidated the inhabitants to surrender: the gunpowder answered him: there were dead on both sides: the defeated blacks disbanded: four were left on the field, and eight were killed, without trial, on the gallows. Who will punish the mayor, if he is the law? For another hunt he will be cleaning his rifle".
It was horror. Marti, no more and no less than on the 4th of July, denounced racist violence in the United States. Fabiola Santiago, the author of the article in the Nuevo Herald, seems to be already dreaming with fright, of texts like this one reaching the censors in the form of Education Committees, with shouts that condemn Martí and his radical books to the stake. Santiago tells us: "No, neither the literary merit nor the honor that the tomb used to bestow on authors save great works from a Florida law that allows a parent -no matter how ignorant or intolerant the argument or the person- to question the mere existence of a book in a classroom or a school library". Fascism can be disguised in many ways, but it is ultimately consumed by fire.
Ron De Santis, the Floridian presidential contender, accuses Trump of leaning to the left. Don't be surprised, anything is possible. Even if the electoral race gets tougher, I warn you, do not doubt that Ron will be capable of calling Trump a communist. In that country anything goes, despite the evidence. For De Santis, books can be aborted, women are forbidden.
I imagine that some people must already be drawing up national indexes, in case De Santis becomes president, of subversive books that should be condemned. How many other lists will be in the making. Difficult to predict, those who hate life do it in such a way that they need every vital corner to remember death. Like Batista's Cuba. Like the Cuba longed for by those who assaulted Buena Fe in Barcelona and smiled as they predicted the reckoning that would follow when they came to power in Cuba.
That is the country of the North and, in spite of this, or perhaps because of it, a fellow countryman of ours, one of those who, hidden under his guayabera, wears a Yankee flag like a mesh, stuck to his skin like the skin itself, praised it as the supreme example of a great country, while he asked Cuba for a balance in which we would cease to be a cause and move closer to the inevitable leadership of the chosen nation. Get rid of the horrible blockade, he tells us, but he adds that, in order to do so, we should bow down to the enemy of the Cuban nation. That is what some French tightrope walkers used to say in the face of the Nazi invasion. They ended up calling the traitors collaborationists, you know what happened later. If you do not know, read Sartre.
Remembering Corvalán, the communist, the bitch of fascism is in heat, more so today with the imperial decline. Let us not underestimate its capacity to cause harm. The whale may have lost its teeth, but it still reigns by the power of its tails.
And remember, having consummated his misdeed in Florida, the governor is already cleaning the rifle for the next hunt.
