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José Martí, |
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"INSIDE THE MONSTER": MARTÍ AND THE UNITED STATES Circumstances There are those who choose to perceive José Martí as an enemy of the United States. To prove this point, they quote the following phrase written by Martí the day before he died: "I lived Inside the Monster; I know its entrails." Like most, this famous statement cannot properly be understood out of context. The statement was made in a letter that deals at length with Martí's fear of annexation of Cuba by the United States. As his letter to his Mexican friend Manuel Mercado explains, Martí felt that his long efforts to gain Cuban independence from Spain would be meaningless unless they succeeded at the same time at averting U.S. annexation: "Every day, my life is in danger. I am in danger of giving up my life for my country, for my duty -as I understand it and must execute it- so that Cuba's independence will prevent the expansion of the United States throughout the Antilles, allowing that nation to fall, ever more powerfully, upon our American lands. Everything I have done, everything I will do, is toward this end. It has been a silent and indirect process, for there are things which must be kept hidden if they are to take place. Otherwise, the obstacles become insurmountable." These thoughts were prompted by an interview Martí had had with George E. Bryson, of the New York Herald, which he describes as follows: "Even now, just a few days ago . . . the correspondent from the Herald, who by the way got me out of my hammock on the farm, has been talking to me about annexationist activity .... of the kind of people who are happy only if there is a master, be he Yankee or Spaniard." Bryson had told Martí of "a Yankee syndicate" that planned to "take a mortgage" on Cuba so that "it [could] be inextricably bound to the North." Furthermore, before visiting Martí, Bryson had interviewed the Spanish general Martínez Campos(1) who assured him, according to the letter, that "given the right circumstances, Spain would rather deal with the United States than surrender the island to the Cubans." These were the immediate circumstances of the celebrated and too often distorted phrase, but the roots of Martí's fears and the reasons for hiding his objectives went much deeper. As Martí perceived it, there were three groups that supported U.S. expansion toward Cuba: the ultraaguilistas ("ultraeagles"), as Martí called them, in the United States; their allies in Latin America; and proponents of annexation in Cuba. From the time of Martí's arrival in New York in 1880 until his final departure for Cuba in 1895, the first group seemed to be gaining ground in the rank and file of Republicans and Democrats, whose political behavior Martí carefully observed, and twice during that period, under the administrations of presidents Garfield and Harrison, an avowed expansionist, James G. Blaine, had been appointed secretary of state. When the International Pan-American Conference was held in Washington in 1889, it was under Blaine's direction. It was then that Martí came to believe, to his great dismay, that the majority of the Spanish-American representatives favored Cuba's annexation to the United States. In a letter written at the time, he despairs of that "congress of American nations where, incredibly, there are more representatives inclined to help the United States take possession of Cuba than there are those who understand that their peace of mind and the fact of their own independence depend on their preventing the key to the other America from falling into these alien hands." But Martí was even more afraid of the third group of proponents of annexation -his own countrymen. Among those who attended the Pan-American Conference were José I. Rodríguez (a Blaine appointee), Juan Bellido de Luna, Ambrosio J. González, and Manuel Moreno.(2) In Cuba, many sugar magnates ("sugar is in favor of annexation," commented a contemporary newspaper), businessmen, and even some who at one time had favored integration with Spain, sought American tutelage to protect their interests. Having seen Spain discredited and fearing its ineptitude, they had shifted their allegiance. Strange as it may seem, men who favored autonomy under continued Spanish rule, like Rafael Montoro and Antonio Govín,(3) at the same time advanced U.S. interests because they believed that Cuba's "financial capital" lay in North America. Martí also knew that many people in the very ranks of the separatists were too vulnerable to American influence. Tomás Estrada Palma was called an "undercover annexationist" by Enrique Collazo;(4) Gonzalo de Quesada, Martí's "favorite disciple," went so far as to propose at the Cuban Constitutional Convention of 1901 that "the right to United States' intervention in Cuba" be incorporated into the Constitution. And when the Pan-American Union building in Washington was inaugurated in 1912, he evoked Blaine's memory with great praise, notwithstanding Blaine's covetousness with respect to Cuba (he had said: "If Cuba ceases to be Spanish, then it must be American"). Martí believed that the annexation of Cuba would not come to pass without the combined efforts of these three groups because, given "the complex political system" of the United States, the idea of annexation could not be "presented as the government's own." Of course, we will never know whether he was right, because, as he predicted and hoped, the war of independence put a stop to the annexationist cause, disproving its basic premise: that the Cubans could not govern themselves. Their ability to organize themselves for the war and their great bravery during it earned them the right to claim their sovereignty. Nevertheless, Spanish arrogance, the indifference of the Americas, and the complicity of those labeled "colonial Cubans" by Martí, left the island open to American penetration during the period following independence in 1898. In later years it was that very same colonial mentality -represented by other figures, of course- that forced Cuba into a Marxist mold and eventually handed it over to the Soviet empire. (Perhaps the best credential a true anti-Communist can offer is total adherence to Martí's anti-imperialist stance.) Marxist historians in Cuba have tried to make Castro's betrayal seem consistent with Martí's above-quoted statement that "there are things which must be kept hidden if they are to take place." They posit that Fidel Castro had a legitimate reason to conceal his ultimate goal of implanting communism in Cuba, and they compare the concealment with Martí's tactics to gain independence. But Martí never hid his objectives; he merely did not openly antagonize annexationists. The immediate enemy was Spain, and it would have been a mistake to create animosity between the separatists, who opposed annexation, and others who likewise rejected Spanish rule but saw future U.S.-Cuban relations in another light. There can be no comparison between Castro's betrayal and Martí's tactic unless we rewrite history to show Martí proclaiming himself against annexation only to turn around later, as Castro did by presenting himself first as a lover of democracy and an anti-imperialist, only to establish a totalitarian regime in Cuba and turn it over to the Russians. Fortunately there is no basis for such revisionism. As should be expected of any honest politician, Martí was consistent in his private and public statements regarding Cuban-American relations. As a result of his interview with Bryson, Martí wrote a letter to the New York Herald denouncing the annexationist tendencies "of those arrogant or weak Cubans too ignorant of the vibrant energy of their homeland to support their nascent society . . . who would rely on an alien power, which would enter as an outsider, meddling in the natural domestic struggles of our island, favoring its oligarchical and useless class over its own productive population." Then he issued warnings against annexation to both Latin America ("no sane Latin American republic will contribute, under pretext of Cuba's ineptitude, to the perpetuation of a master's mentality in a nation designed to be a peaceful and prosperous beacon for other nations") and the United States itself ("the United States should prefer contributing to the solid foundation of Cuba's liberty, offering the sincere friendship of its independent people, over being an accomplice to a pretentious, ineffective oligarchy seeking only the local power of class . . . over the higher class . . . of its productive citizens"), and he concluded optimistically: "Men should not dare seek the seeds of tyranny in the United States.... We will silently show the people of the United States what they cannot but choose, so that they can choose: the legions of men who fight for what they fought for and who march alone and unaided to conquer the freedom that will open up the island, which is closed today to the United States by Spanish interests." In the same way that Soviet Cuba represents a present danger to Latin America, Martí thought that a Cuba incorporated into the United States would represent a danger to the rest of the hemisphere. But neither this belief nor Martí's statements make him the irreconcilable enemy of the United States that some propagandists would have us believe. One can admire, and even love, a foreign land without imposing its interests and whims upon one's own country. Indeed, Martí was aware of both the good and the bad in the United States. Expressing this dichotomy at one point, he said: "We love the land of Lincoln just as we fear the land of Cutting" -A. K. Cutting, one of the most noted militants in the American Annexationist League. The relations Martí sought between Latin America and the United States are well defined in his writings. The last article he published in Patria on politics appeared shortly before his death and dealt with this topic: "On the one side there is our America and all its people, who have a certain character and share a common or a similar ancestry; on the other side, there is the America that is not ours, whose enmity it is neither wise nor practical to instigate. But with a firm sense of decorum and independence, it is not impossible, and it is useful, to be its friend." Going further to discuss trade relations with other countries, he added: "Every worker is sacred and every producer is a root, and anyone who brings useful work and love, whether he comes from a warm or cold climate, shall receive ample room to grow, like a new tree." Martí's fear of annexation was constant, especially since he perceived it as the goal of many Cubans. A good part of his insistence in pointing to the defects of the United States was due to this fear; he tried thus to diminish the blind and unwise admiration of his countrymen for this land. When Martí wrote to Máximo Gomez(5)' in 1882 (they had not yet met), he stressed the urgency of raising a separatist consciousness. His principal reason was the threat of annexation. After writing of the problems on the island, he warned:
There has always been a tendency to look at Martí's attitude toward the United States in absolute terms. It is easier to simplify and seek a scapegoat than to find fault in one's compatriots. But each time that national pride succeeds in shifting the burden of guilt to others, Martí's message loses its meaning and we our ability to learn from it. That it is not easy to assess and acknowledge the blame is clear from Martí's own anger in his "Flowers of Exile,(6) where he faced up to the played part by other Cubans in advancing the annexation of their country:
There is another context in which we must understand Martí's statement: the etymology of the words he used. Ignorance and propaganda have changed the meaning of "I lived inside the monster ; I know its entrails" to something like: "I lived with an abominable being and I am familiar with its most repulsive aspects." Some time ago, a New York Times editorial translated the phrase as "I know the monster, because I have lived in its lair." The English word monster means something misshapen and horrible, and to render entrails as lair is a gross error, since lair connotes the dangerous refuge of a wild beast. This kind of misinterpretation and the images it evokes stem from simple mistranslation of the key words in the sentence. Martí was exceptionally conscious of his mother tongue and did not use words carelessly or without knowing their shades of meaning. His was not the normal preoccupation of a professional writer in choosing his words; Martí was almost obsessed with precision in language. One of the greatest innovators in the Spanish language, he consciously labored over the exact meaning of words to convey sense and achieve beauty. He summarizes this preoccupation thus: "Words are wrapped in an outer layer, which is their daily use. . . . It is essential to reach deep into their structure. Through this process one senses something breaking, and one can see the depths. Words should be used as perceived in these depths, in their real, etymological and primitive meaning, which is the only solid way to ensure that the idea expressed by the word will endure." Let us then follow Martí's advice and reach into the depths of his words to extract their true meaning. Monster has come to mean that which deviates from nature; something extraordinary, gigantic, or unique. Its Latin root had a similar meaning, and the word was used in this sense by Cicero, Ovid, and other classical writers. But since a horrendous, abominable character can also be considered an exception to the rule, he may also be a "monster." The word entrails, also from the Latin, means that which is inside, essential and private; what is inside the body. That is the way it was used in Latin. The "primitive meaning" Martí spoke of is, in the case of his statement, the one that most closely reflects the etymology of monster and entrails and their use by Spanish classics and other sources much read by Martí. When Cervantes refers to Lope de Vega in the prologue to his Ocho comedias y ocho entremeses, he says: "I had other things with which to pass the time and I left my pen and set the plays aside. Then came that monster of Nature, the great Lope de Vega, and he rose with the monarchy of comedy." Cervantes refers to an exceptional, extraordinary character, stressing the uniqueness of his contemporary's genius. Entrails has often been used to mean a person's character or idiosyncrasy. In the Old Testament, entrails referred to the site or origin of feelings -the heart. In Genesis, when Joseph meets his brother Benjamin, he is so moved that the passage states: "And Joseph hurried seeking a place to cry, so moved were his entrails at the sight of his brother, and he entered his room, and there he cried." In Spanish, a person who has good or bad "entrails" is kind-hearted or evil, as the case may be. Fray Luis de Granada, another master of the Spanish language, uses entrails in this way in his Introducción al símbolo de la fe. "And he followed the example of he who, having nothing else to give to those he loved well, gave them, as is often said, his entrails." And Saint Teresa, in the Moradas, wrote: "I know he suffers, and that this sorrow is as deep as his entrails." By the same token, in keeping with the meaning of that which is hidden or private, we speak of the "entrails" of an animal when we refer to its viscera, and to the "entrails" of the earth when we mean its core. But this etymological sense, which Martí sought to preserve, would not be sufficient without that other "real" meaning that he mentions. This is the meaning with which each author imbues his favorite words. In one of his contributions to La Opinión Nacional of Caracas, Martí referred to the European immigrants entering through New York Harbor, and to the law that would levy a tax on each traveler: "And this will be the new law for Castle Garden, which will be famous in the future, when this land will seem a marvelous monster, and that immigrants' house, with its wide doors open, will be feared for its enormous fauces." Monster is used here with the connotation of gigantic, emphasizing in the Spanish singular (as Martí used it), the monster's inordinately large mouth. It cannot have been intended to mean something horrible, obviously, since that connotation would be inconsistent with the adjective marvelous. The metaphor of the giant, applied to the United States and New York, is frequent in Martí's work. Martí used the word entrails elsewhere: "He who delves into language, delves into life.... To really see the entrails of something is to learn." Entrails here are the hidden substance of words. On another occasion, writing for La Nación of Buenos Aires, Martí explained how the Constitution of the United States had been written, stating: "Within its entrails lie the reasons for the federation." For the same newspaper, he described the presidential elections of 1884 in New York, seeking "to paint this vigorous and complex land on its day of sovereignty" by "touching its gigantic entrails now that they have been moved." This can only mean the inside workings of the electoral process. Considering human nature, he repeats: "Man is not merely what can be seen, but rather, what cannot be seen. He carries greatness in his entrails, just as the black and wrinkled oyster carries the pale pearl within its entrails." In its "real meaning" then, Martí used the word monster to convey the gigantic, exceptional, and unique, and entrails to mean that which lies within, deep, and is essential. On another occasion, Martí used both words together. He was writing an impressionistic description of Coney Island beach and sought to express his surprise at its proportions. He speaks of the United States as a "colossal nation" of "gigantic wharves" wherein dwell "an amazing people." On the beach, the hotels "are so large ... they do not even seem like towns, but entire nations." He adds: "What is surprising there is the size, the quantity . . . the monumental aspect of the whole" offered by "these prodigious people on a prodigious beach." At nightfall, when that "colossal crowd" returns home to New York, Martí describes the process "as a monster emptying its entrails into the open mouth of another monster." From a historical perspective, considering the circumstances under which the famous phrase was written, as well as from a purely semantic point of view, "I lived inside the monster; I know its entrails" can only be understood to mean "I lived in this gigantic (singular, extraordinary, or unique) nation, and I know its inner workings well" (its good and bad characteristics). Martí was qualified to make this statement, for he lived in this nation for fifteen years, studying it like no other man of Spanish roots had done before. Thus read, the phrase loses a great part of the drama and tone of accusation that have been heaped upon it over the years. But this reading restores to the statement the balance that characterized Martí's life and opinions. Like so much of his writing, it was a timely, frank, and necessary declaration of his views, which included a perception of danger for humanity, for his country and for his ideals, without the strident and demagogical hyperbole that honest thinkers reject. |
