The necessary war as the founding myth of history in Cuba

Ilustración de Michel Blazquez

In the heart of Cuba's historical tapestry, there lies a mythic thread, delicately woven and laden with intrigue—an assertion that the war for independence was an imperative, an inescapable crucible that shaped the nation's destiny. Yet, beneath this narrative, there exists a subtle choreography, a manipulation of history's dance, orchestrating Cuba's genesis as a revolutionary entity.

This hermeneutic manipulation, veiled in the guise of necessity, proves to be a formidable labyrinth, resisting the correction of distortions it engenders. It resides within the foundational myth, serving as both architect and arbiter of reality's formal determinations, enshrouding them within the mantle of culture.

Firstly, it is imperative to acknowledge that the independence process in Cuba may not have been necessary at all. Instead, it emerged from the frustration of annexationist ambitions harbored by the landowning bourgeoisie. Their vision of incorporating their domain into the commercial sphere was thwarted following the American Civil War, wherein their aspirations shifted from the fledgling American republic to the Confederate states. The latter, with their imperial designs, promised an economic prosperity previously denied to this landowning class due to Spain's monopolistic trade policies.

It should be noted that, prior to the British occupation in the West, Cuba's economy was primarily service-oriented, reliant on the military budget (known as "situado") from Mexico, which served as the colonial headquarters for the Indies. The Spanish presence in the region was further complicated by the ongoing process of independence on the South American continent. These movements, stemming from the Napoleonic era, added pressure to the already militarized nature of the colony.

The contradiction was, therefore, largely circumstantial, driven by Spain's logistical inability to yield to the autonomist pressures. The colony was gradually transforming into a militaristic society, entailing political rigidity. However, popular will was not inherently inclined towards independence; it was a population largely accommodated within the framework of their situado-dependent economy, especially in the wake of Western development following the British occupation. This development injected capitalist elements into the region's economy.

This is why independence struggled to find a foothold and resorted to scorched-earth strategies in the invasion of the West. Even this, however, failed to decisively defeat the Spanish army, which still had significant popular support. Hence, the recurring necessity for American intervention, a course of action laden with complications for the country's status—not as a contradiction but as an imposition of the desire for independence upon a largely indifferent population.

It is this anthropologically fragile concept of independence in Cuba, both historically and as a contemporary construct, that compels the myth of historical necessity. This myth bolsters itself as an ideology, filling the void left by practicality. The absence of this quasi-religious hermeneutic lens would result in political instability within the republic, a condition that persisted until its reorganization under Fidel Castro's Fidelismo and his "Cien Años de Lucha" (One Hundred Years of Struggle). Castro artfully appropriated the established myth of José Martí, effectively galvanizing it as the cornerstone of his generation's ideology.

This is what imbued the 1895 war with necessity, akin to the resurrection of Jesus in Christianity. It upheld the revolution's cosmology, analogous to the transcendental nature of the Christian solution. This shift represented Martí's pivotal change, unifying the independence conflict into an ideology that had been previously foreign to the landowning Creole annexationists. It now served as the foundation for the country's political vision.

However, as an ideology, this paradigm lacks practical significance, rendering its solutions as formal —similar to the Christian faith— carrying its pseudo-religious nature in its ideological core. More critically, this manipulation wasn't orchestrated by a pragmatic dictator but an idealist, who subordinated the country's economic structure to this transcendental function, ultimately leading to its destruction.

This is the crux that necessitates correction, a task that proves arduous due to the absence of hermeneutic resources. All projections become subservient to the initial distortion of the independence, cloaked in its transcendental aura. This elucidates the recurrent failure of political opposition in Cuba, which fails to develop a pragmatic approach, always returning to the transcendental nature of the foundational myth, embodied in Martí's legacy.

Therefore, it is the concept of independence itself that assumes this transcendent role, derived from the Martí-inspired Cuban identity. To effect change, it is imperative to address this, recognizing it as an event in history, potentially flawed and undoubtedly unnecessary. This wouldn't restore the original state but would allow for a redetermination of the current one, grounded in pragmatism —a formidable challenge given the aforementioned dearth of hermeneutic resources and the supposed original necessity.