The José Martí Cultural Society, a living project of thought and action, is a permanent workshop from which the Apostle becomes a tool for the citizen, said Lizette Martínez Luzardo, deputy minister of culture, at the national event for the 30th anniversary of this organization, held yesterday at the José Martí Memorial in Havana.
In the presence of Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party and President of the Republic, as well as Roberto Morales Ojeda, member of the Political Bureau and Secretary for Organization of the Central Committee, Martínez Luzardo described the Society as a platform of global reach that evokes the ethics of the National Hero and traces bonds of unity inside and outside the Island.
Among the reasons for the celebration, he added, are the centenary of Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz and the celebration of the 95th birthday of the intellectual Armando Hart Dávalos, key figures in emancipatory cultural policy, by conceiving participation as a right of the people, and by democratizing access to art and knowledge, education for critical thinking and diversity.
Víctor Hernández Torres, deputy director of the Office of the José Martí’s Program and vice president of the Society, recalled when it was founded in the midst of the strong ideological and economic struggles of the special period. The house of José Martí’s son, known as Ismaelillo, became the headquarters of the institution.
Summoned by Hart, he was accompanied on 20 October 1995 by Roberto Fernández Retamar, Cintio Vitier, Enrique Ubieta, Abel Prieto, Eusebio Leal and Carlos Martí.
They had the support of Fidel and Raúl at all times, because they responded to their urgent request to save culture.
Since then they have grown to the present number of more than 20,000 members, with branches in each province.
Another of the honored at the event was the eminent historian Eduardo Torres Cuevas, who died on August 31. Precisely, his widow, Patricia González Díaz, received from the hands of Díaz-Canel, the Order Félix Varela de i Grado, while the minister Alpidio Alonso Grau honored Rafael Polanco Brahojos with the Distinction for National Culture.
For his part, Morales Ojeda handed over the commemorative stamp for the 30th anniversary of the Society to its founders Abel Prieto, Enrique Ubieta and Graciela Rodríguez.
The subsidiaries of Guantánamo, Cienfuegos, Mayabeque and Isla de la Juventud were also recognized for their promotion of José Martí's ideas for human transformation.
BAYAMO AND THE FOUNDING SONG OF CUBA
The gala La Patria en mi Voz (Homeland in my voice), held this October 20 in the Anthern Square of the city of Bayamo, constituted the central nucleus of the 31st Fiesta de la Cubanía (Cuban Culture Festival), which transcended its artistic character to become a ritual of national reaffirmation.
The event fused essential elements of Cubans, from ancestral drums to Martian thought, into a melting pot of traditions that represents the soul of the nation.
The historian of Bayamo, Ludín Bernardo Fonseca García, highlighted at the gala that "before being a battlefield, Cuba was a field of ideas," and recalled the founding role of figures such as Carlos Manuel de Céspedes and Perucho Figueredo.
Especially emotional was the evocation of October 20, 1868, when Figueredo, riding a horse, composed the verses of the Bayamo Anthern, evidence of how culture became the backbone of the independence rebellion.
Fonseca emphasized that «culture is the ultimate and impregnable territory of the Homeland», and stressed that as long as a people preserves its cultural symbols, the nation will remain indestructible.
The National Anthem maintains its symbolic power intact, and beats in the collective memory as an inflamed verb of Cubans.
