Bantu persistence in Cuba, another prelude to the MogiNganga

One element slips away its silent presence in the political violence of Cuba's history, and that is its undeniable raciality; it may be invisible today, given the trauma that paralyzed all processes in the country, but latent in its rawness and potential. Of course, even the political trauma of the Cuban revolution exhibits its racial nature, in its own recurrences; but it has also camouflaged this nature of the conflict, with the myth of priorities, avoiding its transhistoricity.

Cuban racial violence would be submerged in politics since independence itself, which was already artificial; if in fact it did not count on the will of the people to redeem, but on the interests of his economic elite, which it legitimized. The first break would occur with the very first conflict of the republic, given its inconsistency, not directly but laterally racial; capitalizing on racial resentment in the face of the apathy and cynicism of that economic elite, which was already also political.

That would not be gratuitous, coming from the arrogance that justified this violence, with its literary and political fictions; which is the perversion inflicted with Martí's martyrology, like a useless Christ in that idealism of the modern spirit. Nor will it be gratuitous that the expression of times and place is Modernism, with its symbolist grandiloquence; surreptitiously perpetuating the postposition of black people, which is the one bringing some realism, in his existential pragmatism.

From there, like everything that is denied, that element will feed on its own negation, growing in its potentiality; not so total as to annihilate the nation, but enough to wash it down, in its impossibility. However, nothing can hide the contradiction, transparent in the inconsistency of the country's projections; and in which, what is frustrated with surreptitious racism is reality itself, rather than the black who expresses it.

The Negro, as a person in whom reality as a human is enhanced, cannot be frustrated in the face of difficulty; but only to remain in that same latency, looking for the way out in which to realize itself as that reality. Racial frustration is here the political trick with which he is manipulated, to tie him in symbol to transcendentalism; which as historical instead of metaphysical, does not offer him any possibility, but is what keeps him unreal.

The conflict then erupted in 1906, with Quintín Banderas, executed by the arrogance of his own naivety; in which, like the mythical popular simple faith of Catholicism, he mocked those he executed, in the name of his executioners. The conflict thus becomes scandalous with the massacre of 1912, but it is insidiously hidden, blaming Morúa Delgado; who covers the bastardy of José Martí, like the cursed inheritance of a nation arisen against the will of its people.

That’s why the conflict is retracted to the crisis of the Batistatos, making it clear that the problem is of a cultural nature; it is transhistorical instead of historical, not of transcendence but of immanence, denying the cosmos that sustains the black; and with it the whole adjustment of the Western culture, as the force in which the Negro would realize himself, if he overcomes the difficult. The peculiarity consists in the double religiosity that permeates Batista's culture, blackened in its popular character; with strong and cunning officials, such as the Coc of Buena Vista, positioned over the corpse of the one from San Isidro.

It is known that Morúa Delgado was a Freemason like Martí, it is speculated if that —unlike him— he could be a palero too; but it is known that Gustavo E. Urrutia was a palero, with fables of cauldrons buried in the gardens of Miramar; signifying, to the horror of Cuban Catholicism, that cultural advance, insidious because of hermeneutical in existentialism. Nor can it be gratuitous that the political violence against Batista was led by the Catholic university students; with a systematicity that provokes a reaction in accordance with its bloodthirstiness, but unforgivable for what it meant.

Stories with ache, a critical review

Warriors Editions has presented the title Stories with ache, a trilogy of short stories by black Cuban authors; in what seems a naïve effort, attempting to overcome the lack of will for effective integration in Cuban culture; but which, more than that, is the proof of a reality in its own consistency, apart from that lack of will. Thus, as a preamble, this editorial effort may seem socially vindictive, or even be objectively so; but beyond that —vindictive or not— it shows the sufficiency of an incredible culture, condemned to the margins.

Politically, the vindictive scope of this anthology is secondary, because its value lies precisely in its marginality; from which it can reflect on reality, beyond those conventions of the political, in a different scope, as existential. This would have always been the proper meaning of art, at least from that conflictive modernity that confronts it with Reason; but in a dichotomy in which it progressively lost ground, in the face of the crude advance of that conventionalism.

That is another discussion, which helps to put this wonderful anthology in context, but that is also secondary; because what matters here is the reality boiling in these stories, invisible in the falsehood of our political culture. That is also another discussion, just as secondary, but which also helps to contextualize the need for these stories; which with better and worse luck aspired to the realization of their authors, at a time when art itself is declining.

Above all, these are authors who have worked, loved and written stories that were invisible until today; but which now serves as an index and handbook, to navigate the parallel history of black culture in Cuba. This is what makes it necessary, even if against the evolution in which art is already declining of so much conventionalism; because that culture requires its own expression, which could even explain the shortcomings in which the one that covers it fails.

With a prologue of deserved density, this compilation refers to the darkened roots of Cuban black literature; in the tension between Martín Morúa Delgado and Cirilo Villaverde, which perpetuates the whiteness of Cuban negrismo; and in this, it refers to the presence of the black in national literature, with Salvador Golomón in Mirror of resilience. There are many reasons to believe and disbelieve the foundational character of Mirror of resilience in national literature; above all of them —and in both senses— is the moment in which it is known, at the mid-nineteenth century; when the founding myth of the nation is shaped, adjusting the past to legitimize the projection of the future.

Since then, the Negro has always been presented as a passive object of national culture, even if heroic; which is just a political fiction of literature, which does not express that effective reality of cultural miscegenation. That is what makes this anthology pertinent, not precisely as a vindication, which is always unnecessary and effective; but as an access to a reality hidden in its own scope, which that is there, in its own sufficiency, for everyone.

This cosmology, withdrawn and profoundly existential, is what explains the life of the nation, expressed in its culture; and it is the one in these stories, deloused from the profuse editorial activity that characterizes these times. None of them attests to an era, but to a reality, which in its parallelism adjusts the visible one, giving it perspective; and it is good that this work is brought together, as a basis to establish the true canon of national literature.

Georgina Herrera on Cuban’s Language Day

Miguel de Cervantes was born on April 23, 1547, and William Shakespeare was born on the same date, but in 1564; because both of them, this date is recognized as the day of the Spanish and English languages, which reach their maturity with the work of the latter. This points to the undeniable transcendence of these men, because it is in literature that language is organized and matured; as an external support, which enhances reflection as existential, as a peculiar understanding of the world.

On that same date but in 1936, Georgina Herrera was born in Jovellanos (Cuba), giving a similar value to poetry; not yet to language, which has matured since Cervantes, allowing this other maturation of poetry in Cuba; but to this poetry, which is peculiar because it renews the instrumentality of language for reflection as existential. It is, therefore, an event of similar significance, although the proximity somewhat clouds this scope of hers; because it will be in this instrumentality that culture achieves its best integration, as specifically Cuban.

Namely, as a reflection of reality, culture is a network of relations as chaotic as the former; but now —different from the former— with a sense on its own, because of the peculiarity in which it is carried out, even more as Cuban. In fact, Cuba is the critical point at which Western culture bubbles, unable to materialize due to its innumerable contradictions; which can only be reconciled in a functional integration, starting from a given and progressive understanding of reality.

This progression is what language would provide, as well as its own development and maturity, given in its functionality; and this is what would reside in its ability to reflect the real, in a poetic structure that unveils the meaning of life. This is what recognises the transcendence of art and literature, explaining the scope of Cervantes and Shakespeare; such as Georgina Herrera, whose poetics constricts the formal nonsense of Cuban literature to its existential function.

We should remember that Cuban literature has been distorted by political determinism since nineteenth century; when pseudo-realist symbolism prevails over the nascent national costumeries[1], provoking the bitter critique of the real. This is the drama that unfolds from Cirilio Villaverde and Morúa Delgado, and extends throughout the national novelistic; but unresolved, because the novel —distinct from poetry— is too susceptible to the author's interference.

For this reason, the Cuban novel can only expose these contradictions, but not solve them as poetry can; and this not for its own sake or in fact, but to the extent that this poetry escapes that same political determinism. Herrera does this, as the link that unites the two periods of splendor and decadence of Cuban culture; emerging as a power that sums up the first, to materialize itself through all difficulties in the second. The undeniable transcendence of Cervantes and Shakespeare is given by their immanence, no less undeniable; Georgina Herrera's remains to be seen, but like that lies in this existential —not political— nature of her poetry.

In all three cases, it is the durability that guarantees the functionality of the form, already excellent in its own value; in the latter case, because of that stubborn existentiality that denses it, beyond the political flourish and even the beautiful phrase. Herrera's poetry establishes a hermeneutic from which to reflect on the existence of the nation in its culture, that is its value; and it is functional, fulfilling Morúa's claim to Villaverde, with that effective integration of the political margin into its existentiality; not as a black —although because her blackness— nor as a woman —although because her femininity— but in her extreme humanity.

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[1] . It refers to “Costumbrismo” as a literary stile, based in the description of social costumes with similar sense to the Critical Realism of French modern literature.

From the series Georgina Herrera II

Regarding the racial question in Cuba, it must be remembered that it is not directly known, but through its government; whose projection is necessarily self-interested, due to its ideological nature from its very political practice. This works like this even internally, with a population meticulously educated based on a foundational myth; that interprets history —and organizes that myth— as its own justification, from the flawed hermeneutics of dialectical materialism[1].

The problem with this is the reduction of the phenomena to absolute terms, as nothing in reality is; which is serious, in the case of porous concepts such as racism, in all its variation from Cuban to that of the United States. In this sense, the affirmation of Cuba as the most racist country in the area before 1959 is tendentious[2]; ignoring the ethnographic exceptionality of these countries —in a generic Caribbean—, including mestizo racism in Haiti and Jamaica.

From here, there are enough inconsistencies in this governmental projection to doubt these parameters; such as the racial configuration of its ruling class, or the surveillance of foreign intellectual elites and its own. This is especially important with respect to the racial problem, because it constrains it to this governmental projection; which, being racially defined by the overwhelming white majority of its leadership, has repercussions on this inconsistency of its.

What is striking in this case would be the will of those foreign elites, by assuming this projection as credible; since it never exceeds the limits set by the government in its cultural policy, as de facto police surveillance. This may be understandable in the case of African Americans, because of the benefit of the political support of that government; whereas, however, it does not exceed the territorial refuge of its extreme combatants in the struggle for civil rights; but apart from that, it is reduced to a fruitless rhetoric, typical of its own confrontation with the U.S. government.

That solidarity, however, does go beyond that self-serving and comprehensible exchange of Afro-Americans; and permeates the politics of the black Caribbean, without even being able to be explained in such an exchange, beyond the rhetoric itself. Thus, the understanding of the Cuban racial problem must be built from the ground up, because its tradition was interrupted; which in fact would allow it to be more objective, projecting it even transnationally, in a maturity of the phenomenon; that recognizes the problem as cultural rather than political, in its popular projection —not the talented tenth[3]—.

After all, what would have distorted this understanding of the problem is this intellectual elitism of theirs; even as a class justification in that elitism, which is always of an upper middle class —as a false bourgeoisie[4]— and never popular. This, of course, is a contradiction, like the many that populate every historical development, in its punctuality; as a vicious circle, because of its historical transcendentalism, which can only be broken in an exceptional circumstance.

This is the case of art —especially poetry— because of the existential unconventionality of its reflection on the real; that allows it to circumvent all political or ideological conventionality, with its existentialism. Of course, too, that is only so long as art does not lose its popular character, and shuns that special convention of ideology; which, as a false existential experience, imposes from the hermeneutic that conventionality of the political. This is the value of transcendentalism in Georgina Herrera, retaining the existentialism in its surreptitious marginality; as the immediate referent of its immanence, which is not to be sought in the apparent consistency of ideology.

This allows Herrera scandals such as her identity with dubious heroes like Nzinga Mbande, unthinkable in theological orthodoxy; or her complex conception of motherhood, which includes the disdain for the sterile woman and the violence of her own power. Correcting the excesses of historical materialism understanding reality, transcendence is a condition of the immanence; with all transcendence as an existential experience rather than a political one, as in this case of Georgina Herrera’s poetry.

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[1] Cf: Introduction to trialectic of the real and The trichotomous question, in El enigma Morúa Delgado.

[2] It is a classic reduction, contrasting black people as popular with the white bourgeoisie, from the mimicry of the upper and middle bourgeoisie respect to North American segregationism; but ignoring the marginal spaces, in which blacks and whites transacted behaviors, to the point of the general miscegenation of the population. // Cf: Manuel Granados, Apuntes para una historia del negro enCuba.

[3] . It’s an allusion to a pivotal essay of WEB Du Bois, The talented ten, in which he insisted in the specialization of an intellectual elite to promote black development; contrary to the insistence of projects like that of Booker T. Washington, who insisted in a development through industrial training. // Cf: El error del Sr. Du Bois.

[4] . It is the upper middle class as a false bourgeoisie, which is false insofar as it does not establish itself as a class by its power of production but by its power of consumption. In this sense, the contempt with which they criticize the manual and service works to which the proletariat is forced is especially striking; when as a class identification —and from the so-called socialist morality— these should be the privileged ones, showing their inconsistency.

The Black Problem in the Cuban Revolution

The problem with the Cuban revolution is that, like all revolutions, it justifies itself and within its own parameters; so that it reorders history, in an understanding that justifies it transcendentally, just like religions do. In fact, all this has been happening since Modernity, in which politics assumes the doctrinal character of religions; and in doing so, it assumes its own superstructural function[1], stripping culture of its existential value.

With respect to the Cuban revolution, this means its reordering of history in an ideological sense; which, functioning as a foundational myth, legitimize it in its political behavior as transcendent. The problem with these justifications is that they are proper to the historical transcendentalism, of the idealist tradition; and in this, they do not understand the basic problem of dialectics, as a Manichean reduction of reality, which cannot comprehend this. In this specific case, it ignores the determinations of the real, in its understanding of the historical; remaining political rather than existential, thus violating the effective determinations of history, with ideology.

In any case —consciously or not— this is a political process with existential repercussions, not the other way around; and in this way it will respond to the political determinations —not existential ones— of Cuban society, different from its culture. Cuban culture and society diverge from the determination of the latter, in the feat of independence; which, ignoring the popular will of the country in its relationship with Spain, imposes nationalism as a founding principle.

The problem here is the violence, intrinsic to Cuban political culture, from its origin in the voluntarism of its patricians; whom as warlords, settles their differences with that violence and popular manipulation, in populism. This, coupled with the growing racial differentiation of the economy, will increase these already typical contradictions; which erupts into systematic conflicts, such as successive revolutions and coups d'état, beginning in 1906.

In these conflicts, the Massacre of 1912 stands out, which bloodily culminated the Independent Party of Color; imposing a turn that definitively marginalize blacks, as an emerging force in the political tradition; and whose development, although contradictory and difficult, had led one of them to the presidency of the Senate[2]. Since then, blacks have tended to join the ranks of the Communist Party in politics, due to their patronage; as is characteristic of modern liberalism, insofar as it subordinates it to its own political cause against capitalism[3].

This is the national state in which the Cuban revolution triumphs, but —at least in principle— as a bourgeois revolution; which went against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, precisely by that high bourgeoisie, because of its popular rather than populist character; as indeed it is that bourgeoisie, in its contradiction of this popular character of politics, that belches with Batista's violence. Note that the revolutionary process itself is as violent as Batista's, only justified in its transcendence; which is where the communist forces take it, organizing it ideologically, in the same sense of Christian theology.

In this sense, the advance of blacks is definitively interrupted by the strong political corporatization of society; which, responding to the political guidelines of communism, does not allow individual developments such as those that help black development. This may not be necessarily due to a racist character of the revolution, but to the racial nature of its bourgeoisie; which, being the one that feeds the revolution and integrates its political structure, reproduces typical behavior.

This process is also internal, not visible to the outside world behind the ideological curtain of socialism; which in its struggle against capitalism, subordinates all the contradictions of modern society. Thus, aligned with liberal anti-capitalism, the political emergence of the black Americans does not accede to this reality; having to contend with its own patronage by that same liberalism, which subordinates it to its particular political interests.

In any case, the inefficiency of the Cuban government would not be ideological but practical, due to its economic incapacity; and this is what makes it politically illegitimate, by justifying this incapacity in ideology, without effectively resolving it. It would be in this contradiction that blacks are especially affected, given their own political precariousness; in which they would lack the necessary resources to overcome it, due to the endemic disproportion of their poverty; that in the face of the revolution had alternatives in individuality, frustrated in this strong corporativity of socialism.

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[1] tags. Cf: On the Structure [Politics of Society and Its Substructural Functions]

[2] tags. Cf: Martín Morúa Delgado

[3] tags. Cf: On the Dialectical Contradiction Between Capitalism and Socialism

From the Gustavo E. Urrutia’s series

It cannot be stressed enough the difference between the intellectuality of Morúa Delgado and the political acuity of Urrutia; they only share the pragmatism, which in one is probabilistic and in the other is socially projected, more tactical than strategic. Between them, they illustrate the diapason of black intelligence in Cuba, with all its conservative nuance; which the relative liberalism of exceptions such as Juan Gualberto Gómez barely manage to tinge, pointing out its functionalism.

The difference is not only strange but also functional, which is what makes them both important in this illustration; one with the organization of a cosmology in the dramatic value of the real, whose anthropology emerges in their literature; the other in the understanding of that cosmology, and implementing it meticulously, in the brief piece of journalism. That is why Urrutia can never dare —nor does he care— in a project like Morúa's Political Essay[1]; but he can push that vision, as the other cannot do in his literary excellence, speaking to the common man.

Urrutia's other value is the illustration of Cuban conservatism, in its political advance with the triumph of Batista; that cannot obey just to a folkloric frivolity or a mere immorality, which is what it is reduced to ideologically. Any understanding of Batista is determined by his violence, as if the revolutionary one were not just as vicious; as if violence were not the characteristic of Cuban political culture, from its very genesis in the voluntarism of the Creole landowners of the independence.

This persistence should draw attention to its nature, at least in the case of black Cubans; who since Morúa presided over the Senate, only with Batista —and never again— did they achieve any political preeminence. Batista means something that is more serious than the supposed fickleness of a people that no one bothers to understand; and that secret would be in this sarcastic shadow, which follows him like a sixty-four[2] that the country recurrently encounters.

Urrutia makes it clear that Cuban racism, distinct from its racial prejudice[3], is a mimicry of that of the American; which is why it is typical of a high bourgeoisie with aristocratic pretensions, distancing itself from all petty bourgeois and proletarian ties[4]. That is important, because it is this false bourgeoisie that rejects Batista as well as Cubans in general in politics; and in this game of dichotomies, the Cuban is that sarcasm that persistently crosses it, eventually with its own violence.

This is important, because it diverts to Cuba the possibility of development that is impossible in the United States; since humanity cannot be concretized in this violence of subjugation, if it depends on the will to relate ones to others. That what means Batista's strength, understandable in the incredibly liberal reasoning of Urrutia's conservatism; and it is the kind of subtlety that, in its extreme tactical practicality, escapes the great cosmologies such as that of Morúa and his literature.

There is a detail in the joy with which Urrutia refers to Nicolás Guillén, no matter the obvious ideological divergence; and that recalls the subreptitious persistence with which Guillén maintains the memoirs of Lino Dou and Morúa in the revolutionary Cuba. It is an identity that, not being political, is not racial either —in that same ideological sense— but existential; even if this existentiality comes —as pragmatism— from his experience, in the political precariousness of his race. It is the same silent effort —perhaps unconscious— with which Fernández Robaina collects them all and puts them in order; it doesn't matter if he does it underhandedly, in that context of the Aponte Society in Cuba, which others take advantage of to ripe the new slave market of American Universities.

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[1] tags. It refers to the Political Essay or Cuba and Racial Integration.

[2] . 64, Grand Dead (ancestor) in Cuban Charade.

[3] . Racism and racial prejudice would be distinct categories, one referring to the organization of society as a principle, and the other to a cultural atavism with concrete practices; In this case, Cuban racial prejudice would be subordinated in principle to the integrationism of Iberian culture, while its racism would be subordinated to the mimicry of the Cuban high bourgeoisie of North American segregationism.

[4] . The excessive stratification of modern rationalism tends to identify the bourgeoisie as a single class, unaware of its own formation; with the upper bourgeoisie generated from the financial specialization of a part of it, which allows it to replace the traditional aristocracy, with the transformation of capital, from military to financial.// Cf: Onthe Reactionary Character of Every Revolution

Gustavo E. Urrutia and the Not-So-Strange Case of Black Conservatism

Martín Morúa Delgado may be the most dramatic black personality in Cuba, with his importance and deepness; but this drama has a historical meaning, given by the political confrontation with the Independents of color. More interesting, although less striking, would be the case of Juan Gualberto Gómez, with his black associationism; also Gustavo E. Urrutia, with his distrustful conservatism and middle-class rationality, excelling in prosperity.

All of them —but especially Urrutia— have against them that conservatism, making them reprobate to the revolutionary spirit; it may be —but no one knows— because in its anthropological functionality it shows the political dysfunction of the other. In short, liberalism is paradoxically conservative, with its emphasis on the preservation of the status quo; which is society as the ultimate structure of the human, in a value of its own that superimposes it on culture. In contrast, black conservatism is functional in its anthropological rather than political nature; responding to its intrinsic precariousness in this sense, even if it converges with classical conservatism; which is political, because of its directly economic determination, and based on the structurality of the social.

That is paradoxical as a principle, but not in the reality in which it occurs, as an expression of the middle class; with the agglomeration of an aristocracy resentful of the absolutism of seventeenth-century Versailles, with so much time available. This, in the context of a new economy extending the feudal clientelism in modernity with a consumer culture; in which economic corporatism subverts and corrupts industrialism, as traditional aristocracy is replaced by the financial, in the securing of capital.

None of this has anything to do with black culture, which emerges in Cuba as one of service, subordinated to this decadence; but it does condition it in that first precariousness, in which the concrete person must ensure his subsistence. This would be the explanation of this conservatism, incomprehensible to revolutionary moral suprematism; widespread in the patronage of the poor classes in another form of determinism, also racial in that suprematism.

In short, liberalism understands its own determinations, but not those of the black race it says to sponsor; and which it reduces to poverty of caste, with that difficulty of idealism in understanding historical singularity. The problem with conservatism in general would be that it starts from a contradiction of liberalism as a premise; which is false, because both are expressions of the same economic structure, distorted by political pressures.

From there it becomes the moral reduction, which presupposes a political identity proper to Black people, as poor; which is offensive, based on its patronage by the liberal contradiction, no less supposed than its own liberalism. Thus, the conservative Black person is universally regarded as declassed, condemned to the fate of the proletariat; who —in that racism of progressiveness— may escalate or try to escalate to petty bourgeois, but at the cost of its legitimacy.

For this reason, the political merit of these Black people is delegitimized on principle, without recognizing any possibility of it; discarding even—as supposedly individualistic—the family and community effort that built them. Gustavo E. Urrutia was formed as intellectual and politician against this political rudeness, from his professional solidity; as a representative of an astonishing black, Cuban and prosperous middle class, against all ideological reductionism.

There is no more eye-catching illustration of this than the collaboration between Booker T. Washington and Juan Gualberto Gómez; exchanging efforts for the professional training of black Cubans, as the foundations of their middle class and bourgeoisie. From this alternative network, which was of cultural rather than political resources, arose the elitism of the Athens Society; and this elitism, as the crosshairs of black society, as long as they were not played the dirty joke of socialist patronage.

Otra vez, José Martí y la tricotomía del negro en Cuba

Martín Morúa Delgado es el opuesto al trascendentalismo cubano, pero en ello mismo una figura contradictora; lo que le hace tan idealista como ese trascendentalismo, al relacionarse con este en la contradicción. Juan Gualberto Gómez tiene en cambio la capacidad mediadora que falta a Morúa, participando de ese idealismo; al que incorpora el pragmatismo de su negritud, semejante al de Morúa pero con la flexibilidad de que carece este.

Tan paradójico desarrollo se debe a su paradójica circunstancia, participando de ambas naturalezas; de la negra, que le impide la extrema sublimación de Martí con la realidad de su origen, en la esclavitud pero libre; y de esa misma sublimación martiana, tanto por formación como por su exposición al republicanismo francés. Gómez y Martí comparten la sublimación trascendental, pero Gómez la modera como no lo hace Martí; porque sus propias referencias son existenciales y no intelectuales como en el otro, que se acompaña de arquetipos en vez de realidades.

A Martí lo acompañan los ángeles que lo apadrinan, en la amistad y el mentorado de Mendive y Valdés Domínguez; pero ambos le aportan esa sublimación, sobreponiéndolo a su propia realidad, haciéndolo puramente idealista. Contrariamente, la formación de Gómez es costosa, desde los padres esclavos que le compran la libertad; y no sólo la compran, sino que se mantienen en una vigilancia activa, que no le permite cortar el vínculo.

De este modo, cuando el padrinazgo de los dueños de sus padres llueve sobre él, todavía lo hace a través de ellos; mientras el caso de Martí es opuesto, nacido libre de padres libres, disolviendo su pobreza en ese patronato. No debe olvidarse eso, la referencia liberal de Gómez es la tercera república francesa, álgida y filosófica, no ideológica; mientras que la de Martí, condicionada por el absolutismo restauracionista, semeja al posthegelianismo alemán.

De todo eso, puede ser la negritud el elemento más interesante de Gómez, dándole ese carácter existencial; por el que puede proyectarse en el mismo trascendentalismo del otro, pero moderarlo en una mayor eficacia política. De ahí que el pragmatismo de Gómez, siendo menor que el de Morúa sea más eficaz también, por esa flexibilidad; que no le permitirá tampoco el absurdo martiano de que el cubano sea más que negro o blanco; porque su comprensión no es empática sino existencial, partiendo de su propia experiencia, no su ideología.

Por eso, Gómez no encuentra su referente para un pragmatismo político en Morúa Delgado, que lo rechaza; sino en el controversial acomodo de Booker T. Washington en Estados Unidos, con quien intercambia correspondencia e intereses. Gómez encarga su mayor interés —que es su hijo— a Washington, como una vía para el asociacionismo negro; que se frustrará sólo por la algidez de los contrarios —que son Morúa y los Independientes— en Cuba, ignorando su flexibilidad.

No hay dudas de que esto hace de Juan Gualberto Gómez la figura más interesante de la historia cubana; en el sentido de que puede corregir el centro fundacional de la misma, desplazando la centralidad de Martí. Esta importancia en principio sería propia de Morúa Delgado, pero sólo por esa oposición directa al trascendentalismo; que sin embargo no sería suficiente para sostener una realidad, sino sólo para fundarla, no darle la consistencia.

Eso es lo que hace Gómez, corrigiendo incluso el defecto de Morúa, que es todavía negro por default; es decir, en el sentido del aporte efectivo de lo negro a la cultura cubana, sino sólo de justicia política. En este sentido, la justicia que aportaría Gómez es antropológica, acorde a la naturaleza propia de la sociedad; no social, como la pretendían los Independientes de color, ni política, como buscaba el pragmatismo de Morúa; sino exactamente antropológica, corrigiendo la cosmología cubana como occidental, en la centralidad del negro.

The Morúa’s Enigma, an introduction

El enigma Morúa Delgado is not limited to the historical problems surrounding this character, but goes within his reach; thus, it is more of an anthropological analysis of the historical determinations of politics in Cuba than of this politics in itself. Even in this sense, treating Cuba as the specific context in which Morúa Delgado relates to the Western culture; so it is also an anthropology of than Western culture, expressed in the political contradictions of its development.

That is why, for example, he compares —in appendices— the development produced by the Greek political singularity; but not in relation to the latest political processes in the West, but to their parallel in another exceptionality, African. The book is full of these contrasts, as the one proposing an understanding of history other than dialectics; with an introduction to trialectics, as proper to reality, which in turn would be the nature of the historical.

That is why, despite not being a long book, it gives the impression of being digressive, in its thematic expansion; with appendices as dense —sometimes denser— than the body of the book, trying to break down their topical implications. In this sense, it can be a book as difficult as the subject, struggling to establish an audience of its own; for postulating against the conventional understanding of history, it is as specialized as that very convention.

However, this difficulty is inescapable, even if it means postponing in time the impact of the book; because it is precisely another step in the development of a New Black Thought, like another tradition. Especially important in this sense, then, it seeks to correct the anthropological axis of national culture; moving it from his founding myth to a more practical understanding of these historical determinations.

Morúa Delgado, in short, was the one who postulated a pragmatic and non-moral argument against the autonomic solution; which thus allows for a more realistic establishment of the independence culture, and thus a more functional of these determinations. That’s why its importance is anthropological rather than political, even if its expression is inevitably political; and this in turn as a contradiction, which explains the instability of the republic, leading to its constant implosion.

Another interesting aspect of this approach to Morúa, is based on its same anthropological nature; which in this understanding of history, places it at one of the trico and non-dichotomous extremes of contradiction. The other two extremes would be that of Estenoz —overshadowing the angular function of Ivonet— and Juan Gualberto Gómez; and beyond them, those of Fidel Castro and Toussaint L'Overture, narrowing the Caribbean and displacing the centrality of José Martí.

It is therefore a complex vision of a phenomenon, that is already very complex, without reducing it in its determinations; and hence its contradiction, of avoiding conventional specialization, but with its own specialty, as emerging. Its index of complementary readings, apart from the direct bibliography, is just as apparently random and contradictory; but imposing with it its own object, on the transcendent determination of the real and its comprehension.

This is what makes this book so extremely complex, in that functional centrality of Morúa Delgado; as an elusive topic in current discussions of history and politics, which also now extends to philosophy. Hence the cardinal function of these appendices on Hegel's inconsistencies in relation to dialectics, for example; starting from the same contradiction about the Dasein, which he himself lacked, given his cultural hyper-specialization.

This is the contradiction correctable by black culture in its emergence, but distancing itself from all conventionality; even if through that thick thicket of true marronage, outside the domestic realm of academia. That’s why this approach aims to solve the so-called black problem, but undoing its artificiality; which is why this personality of Morúa Delgado is so central to the history of Cuba, as its capital correction.

This edition is accompanied by  that of Morúa's own Political Essay,  from which his anthropology is extracted; as that understanding of the ontological determinations of the Cuban, at the basis of a true national tradition of thought. With the subtitle of Cuba and the Race of Color, this essay by Morúa is one of his most and worst cited sources; with biased readings, which dissolve into specific data the scope of his very original systematization of the racial problem.

Los jacobinos negros, C.L.R. James

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Este es un libro capital, que explica la primera revolución de independencia en América, luego de la norteamericana; especialmente importante en esto, porque envuelve la enormidad del mundo latino, en su contraste con el anglo sajón. El libro tiene además el ritmo trepidante de la novela histórica, porque así de compleja y tumultuosa es la realidad que describe; superando en sutilezas y profundidad la más atrevida y surrealista de las ficciones, porque es como un primer momento de la creación.

Tan intensa es su comprensión de la realidad, que esquiva la justificación de los héroes, y los presenta en su humanidad; con lo que arroja luces sobre esos incomprensibles pasajes de todos estos procesos, deteniéndose en la naturaleza de los mismos. De paso, el autor expone la personalidad de Toussaint de Loverture, el más controvertido y complejo de estos héroes; cuya pasión es la historia misma que se desenvuelve hasta hoy día, que el autor vincula —eficaz en su ingenuidad— a Fidel Castro, lo que merece otro tratamiento.

Este libro deja claro cómo la revolución haitiana no fue un producto separado de la francesa, sino su expresión; resquebrajando las débiles estructuras políticas de la colonia, como el mundo en formación que era antes que la mera continuidad. No hay que confundirse, la revolución haitiana y la francesa, difieren en carácter —no en alcance— por su circunstancia; por eso una es expresión de la otra, pero a la misma vez que su extensión, si bien discontinua, en esa doble función de todo lo real.

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El libro también recuerda que tanto los sucesos en Francia como en Haití son super complejos, por su diversidad política; que no sólo opone un club de Massiac[1] al de los Jacobinos, sino que revela además las tensiones de sus respectivos extremos. Quizás la mejor parte, que impulsa ese ritmo trepidante, es la estricta sucesión de hechos y su concatenación minuciosa; narrando las líneas de tiempo de todo lo que ocurre, tanto en Francia como en Haití —todavía Santo Domingo—.

El libro es especialmente importante para los cubanos, por lo que significa esa revolución en el horizonte nacional; desde la ferocidad del Capitán General O’Donnell al levantamiento de los Independientes de Color, su masacre y consecuencias. Tal es esa importancia, que ocupa gran parte del ensayo de Martín Morúa Delgado sobre la integración racial en Cuba[2]; y que puede ser mejor comprendido no sólo por su propia traducción de la biografía de Loverture[3], sino también con este otro título.

La revolución haitiana es tan importante que figura en la dialéctica hegeliana, como la francesa en el marxismo; pero inexplorada en su dimensión antropológica, sus repercusiones son ontológicas, en la comprensión de la historia. Hegel comprendió en definitiva la referencia haitiana —de segunda mano además— desde su propia hermenéutica; que preestablecida ya desde Kant, adaptó el suceso particular de la revolución haitiana a su concepto universal, por ello insuficiente.

Esa complejidad es la que asoma en este libro, explicando así la naturaleza trialéctica y no dialéctica de la realidad; porque responde a tensiones tricotómicas y no dicotómicas, permitiendo por fin la superación de las limitaciones filosóficas modernas. Esa otra materia de lo histórico —que es la filosofía— es lo que puede extraerse de este libro, que es así una referencia capital; porque trascendiendo la función ideológica, permite por fin estos nuevos desarrollos, que exponen por fin la novedad del Nuevo mundo.

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[1] . A los conocidos clubes de los Jacobinos (republicanos) y los Feuillants (realistas), se unía el de los Massiac, que representaba a los colonos de las Indias Occidentales; como los Jacobinos toman su nombre del antiguo convento de Saint Jacob, los Feuillants lo tomaban del antiguo monasterio de las Frondas, y los del Massiac lo tomaban del hotel Massiac, en el que se reunían.

[2] . Primer acercamiento sistemático y minucioso, de valor incluso antropológico, a la estructura social cubana desde el punto de vista racial; con énfasis en estas diferencias estructurales, entre la sociedad haitiana y la cubana, para explicar la improcedencia de un tratamiento equivalente. El ensayo de Morúa podría de hecho ser un precedente para mover el eje hermenéutico de la antropología cubana, desde la perspectiva de la burguesía blanca criolla —Lidia Cabrera, Fernando Ortiz, Alejo Carpentier— a una más efectiva; que siendo de hecho integracionista, no se detenga en el negro como un objeto más o menos curioso, sino como sujeto activo en su singularidad etnológica.

[3] . Se trata de The Life of Toussaint L'Ouverture, The Negro Patriot of Hayti: Comprising an Account of the Struggle for Liberty in the Island, and a Sketch of Its History to the Present Period. Por John R. Beard. // CF: Edición electrónica.