By Miguel Barnet Europeans are very clear on this point, we Latin Americans are marvellous; we are sensual, hedonistic, and original. We are great artists, great writers, and this is where they grant us our originality, with no hesitation. Oh yes! We are also great athletes and very good tourist guides. But because of our long history of violence and pain, whenever we set out on the path of social change we are viewed with suspicion: watch out, here comes the bogey-man! We are delirious, adventurous or at the very least we are inveterate utopians. They look at us the same way a scolding grand-dad views an aberrant grand-child. There is no other way to question the metropolitan model unless we use “civilized” methods and patterns which have been pre-established and which are, of course, European. Different methods for different conditions…that would never do; that would be a sin worthy of Caliban. The run-away slave charging with his machete. The West…interpret this as the West which was conceived first in English capitalism and then in imperial capitalism at the end of the 19th Century....cannot be challenged; on that tabula rasa we must measure each one of our steps, as if we were out and out western Latin Americans, but with individual cultures tinted by wise thousand-year-old civilizations and an organic stream of personal experiences. For some time now of course, the word NORTH has been used to substitute West, thus placing all the rest of the countries, including the Latin Americans, in the South, following that binary inclination. DICHOTOMY with its diabolic metamorphosis transforms us into either angels or devils, depending upon how we have been behaving ourselves. We are, therefore, the devil incarnate. At times a very charming devil, but as is the wont of all devils, dangerous and fearsome. And, why should we deny it, a devil who is also impoverished, colonized but not tamed. This is where the great problem lies. A demon whose stuttering speech is branded as lacking in theory, rational thought or logical sense; hence, I repeat, we are the repository of all that is sensual and instinctive, Eros and Thanatos, but an Eros with a playful projection. Fortunately, not everyone shares this opinion. There are those who approach with respect, even admiration, but I have found them to be in the minority. Our pre-Columbian civilizations were decimated by colonization and we were left with just the illusion of a lifeless world that we remember with nostalgia but which imbues us with immeasurable subconscious strength. The metropolis has profited copiously from this imaginary Latin American ideal that provides an impetus for the formation of a modern civilization. But the West insists on making us bow to their canons so that, in their eyes, we may arise as nations worthy of being recognized and succored in social and political matters. This is somewhat resembles a watered-down philanthropy. “All the work done by our robust America will bear the inevitable seal of the conquering nation, but it will improve on it, it will move forward and it will amaze the world with the energy and creative impulse of an essentially different people who have noble ambitions and who, even though wounded, are not dead”: the words of José Marti, Apostle of Cuban Independence in his article “New Codes” written in 1877. This means that there is no true battle, nor will there ever be, waged between civilization and barbarism; there will be a battle waged between false erudition and nature; in other words, nature has created men as natural beings, without artificiality, who are wise but not because of formal studies. Our Greece, Marti assured us, is preferable to a Greece which is not ours. Bolivar stated that we are Afro-Latin Americans; our branches have been grafted onto a world of life-giving vitality. This in itself is a declaration of anthropologically rooted principles. By necessity then, our culture is one of synthesis, just as all protean cultures, just as all multi-cultural continents. That is how we express ourselves. While the European elite fail to notice this, while they do not modestly accept this fact, they shall never understand the Latin Americans. It is not a matter of vulgar categories that posit what is superior and what is inferior in itself, but different points of view about reality. As it is true that we must learn from ANCIENT GREECE and her ethical values revealed by the Iliad and the Odyssey and in her entire cosmogenic world enriched by the natural philosophers, we must also recognize the philosophy of the Maya and the Inca and of the African cultures and their ethical and moral values that have suffused us with such immense energy; because even today, we do not know for sure if it will be the western formula that shall finally dominate the future, particularly seeing today’s barbaric examples of relentless looting and unjustified illegal wars. When Fernando Ortiz, the Cuban intellectual, speaks of “Trans-culturalization” in his unrivalled book “Cuban Counterpoint: Sugar and Tobacco”, he refers to a cultural synthesis which is like the “embrace of individuals in genetic copulation: the child will always be different from each one of them”. On the whole, this is the trans-culturalization process and this term shelters all the phases within its parabola. Santeria is Cuba’s popular religion: it is a compendium of Catholic saints fused with incredible equivalencies to Orishas, the Yoruba saints who arrived on our shores in the slave ships. I know of no other more spectacular or fertile encounter than this one between European Catholic culture and the poorly named syncretic beliefs or religions which were in direct opposition to the Western beliefs; as if Catholicism and the evangelical religions did not enjoy –and notice that I use the word “enjoy”- their own storehouse of syncretism originating in the pagan and the medieval. Fernando Ortiz wrote that culture is no luxury or ornament, but an energy and a necessity. It is a category of the being and not of the knowing. To force ourselves to take on globalization would always be an act of violence, of incomprehension, of racism and of totalitarianism. We, as Latin Americans, are well aware of this and it is for this reason that we understand dialogues between equals. In the name of all the peoples of the so-called South or developing world, we demand comprehension, not tolerance which is a paternalistic word that lacks dignity. Comprehension and acceptance of another's culture, of their customs, their ways, of their ethical and philosophical principles, of their day-to-day life, so that the NORTH -the developed countries- do not stand unscathed and with arms crossed before the crimes committed by the hegemonies; these powers are threatening to unleash preventive wars which eventually become savage as in the instance of Iraq, or they may be irrational and Manichean acts like those of the European Union in its recent policy towards Cuba; the EU has followed the American model of constant aggression and announced coercive measures at the behest of their diplomats creating an absurd dispute with Cuba, weakening historic cultural relations, facilitating meetings in their diplomatic offices with the so-called internal dissidents –this being a bizarre euphemism for the counter-revolutionaries that are being nurtured by the U.S. Interests Section in Havana- and reducing the relationship levels between European and Cuban officials. Why do we have such an absurd situation? It is absolutely clear to me that there is an under-estimation of our capabilities, and an ignorance of our countries’ histories, in this case, of Cuba’s; Cuba has inherited the best of European culture for it may be said that in Cuba he who does not have the Congo has the Carabali, and he who does not have the Galician has the Catalan or the French or the Italian. Moreover, we are the depositories of European culture as much as African and Chinese culture, and this is mentioning just three undeniable examples. We are joyously celebrating the 250th anniversary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, that universal Austrian, that man for all latitudes; his example is excellent, just as that of Latin American music which has the quiet and sensible Austrians giving standing ovations in their Viennese theatres. This is what I am referring to. We love cultured and universal Europe, autonomous and dignified Europe. Not the Europe which bows down under imperial projects that are far-removed from their own idiosyncrasies. We look to this Europe as we participate at this event in the honourable Cervantes Institute. These European peoples and their governments who wish to accompany us in our battle against GOLIATH should know that Cuba will never surrender; she will never give up her honour. The Cuban people have been fighting for their sovereignty, liberty and social justice for 200 years, from the time when the priest Felix Varela proclaimed Cuba’s independence from Spain and proposed the abolition of slavery in the Cadiz assembly in 1810, until the outbreak of our first national war lead by Carlos Manuel Céspedes, then by José Martí and finally by Fidel Castro. They are symbols which personify the nation’s will to defend its right to exist, to exist per se in the face of every type of violence and exploitation. We are never going to ask anyone to lend us that right, we are taking it from the French Revolution, we have conquered it with our own struggle and we have paid for it with our own blood. Our culture is not built over fake foundations, nor is it constructed on an outdated utopian idea. We are nature because we are history. We have created our own tradition. We are not for sale, nor can we be frightened by rhetorical threats. Latin America awakened with the dreams of Francisco de Miranda, Simón Bolívar and José Martí. This is OUR AMERICA and we shall be respected, today more than ever before. Violence spawns violence. On the other hand, reason advocates civilized dialogue. The noble and brave Europeans who have lived through so many unjust wars themselves on their own continent shall learn how to respect us in an embrace leading to the conquest of PEACE.
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