Fernando Dámaso, Translator: lapizcero
Nobody can deny the foundational importance of October 10, 1868 for the
Cuban nation. Though twenty years before Narciso Lopez had, for the
first time, unfurled the national flag calling for combat against the
oppressor, though his voice was not listened to then, the opposite
occurred in Yara, when Cubans, conscious of their nationhood, responded
to the call of Carlos Manuel de Cespedes.
This historic feat, praised and respected by all generations, is
generally presented only from the point of view of the heroism and
selflessness of its protagonists, ignoring the economic interests, which
had a fundamental role and that should not be forgotten. Many of those
who rose in arms that day, maybe most of them, were rich landowning
Creoles who for some time had been conspiring against Spain, as their
interests in expansion clashed with the restrictive policies it
ordained, that constrained their development.
They, other than their national sentiment, which without a doubt they
possessed, needed to throw off the Spanish yoke that smothered their
businesses and, as a result, the garnering of profits, needled by what
was happening further North, where the United States was rapidly
becoming a world power, with a regime of liberty and rights, that
constituted the example to follow.
It is not surprising then, that even Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, in the
beginning, supported annexation to the American Union, though he soon
gave up on that idea, focusing his efforts on obtaining Independence. It
must also be pointed out, if we are to be one with historical truth,
that the initial call for emancipation of the slaves included indemnity
for their owners and their incorporation into the uprising's army as
condition of their liberty, something that was only eliminated months
later in the Assembly of Guaimaro, where the total abolition of slavery
was decreed.
As can be appreciated, historical facts are not simple and
crystal-clear, as they are sometimes presented. They are influenced by
interests of a different nature, material as well as moral, that far
from diminishing their value, make them more real, and illuminate their
protagonists not as gods of purity come down from Olympus, but as mere
mortals, with light and shadow, that sometimes are right and sometimes
are mistaken, but that are capable of imposing themselves over their
difficulties and reaching their objectives.
On October 10, 1868 patriotic and economic interests conspired. The same
has happened in other historical moments of the Cuban nation, up until
our days. Today, the same as in 1868, the political and economic chains
imposed by the model, hinder the development of citizen initiative and
that of its the productive forces. To overcome this anachronistic
situation is everybody's obligation, so that the country can advance,
eliminate the accumulated misery and take its rightful place among free
nations, a place it once held thanks to the work of all her children and
that, because of erroneous policies, it lost.
*Translator's Note: The Cry of Yara.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Years%27_War
Translated by: lapizcero
October 13 2011
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