The José Martí Association of Cubans celebrated this January 28 the 170th anniversary of the birth of the National Hero of Cuba in a large event at the Mineral Center for the Arts, Mineral de la Reforma Hidalgo municipality, with the presence of officials from the diplomatic mission, representatives of the City Council and Mexican friends of Cuba.
The rector of the municipal Technological University, Víctor Manuel Delgadillo, evoked José Martí’s connection with Mexico and said that his ideas are present in the curricular programs of the national school system.
Sergio Chaviano, national leader of the Association, read a communiqué in which he pointed out that this anniversary is celebrated at a very important historical moment for our country, in which the brutal and troubled north, as defined by Martí, does not give up its efforts to seize Cuba by destroying its revolutionary process,
Faced with the imperialist offensive to achieve cultural domination of Cuba, he described the vocation for justice and humanism, the idea of goodness and the usefulness of virtue as pillars of Martí’s thought.
As Pablo González Casanova, a prominent Mexican intellectual decorated with the José Martí Order, pointed out: “the entire revolutionary history of Cuba, through its people and its leaders, assumes the moral, ideological and political heritage, the revolutionary heritage of Martí, considered as a whole in which, in order to achieve the moral and revolutionary objectives, it is revealed that it is necessary to make the revolution and also socialism”.
Chaviano said that in Martí’s work we find the premises to undertake this cultural battle for the unity and integration of Our America, for the defense of the national identity of our peoples, respecting the diversity of Latin American and Caribbean nations.
That, he added, we see palpable at the VII Celac Summit, where the need to seek unity as a guarantee of independence and peace was raised.
President Miguel Díaz Canel in his speech at that summit stated:
“The United States government insists on destroying the development model that we Cubans have sovereignly decided to build, through a cruel, illegitimate, illegal and immoral policy of economic suffocation. Cuba will not be intimidated by such aggressions”.
In these days when what it means to be a patriot is being debated, Chaviano pointed out, we cannot fail to quote what Martí wrote about it:
“Homeland is a community of interests, unity of traditions, unity of goals, the sweetest and most consoling fusion of love and hope.” “Patriotism is a holy duty when one fights to put the Homeland in a condition that men live happier in it.”
We Cubans who for various reasons live outside of Cuba do not stop being patriots and as the Apostle pointed out, “The Homeland must not be served for the benefit that can be obtained from it, be it glory or any other interest, but for the disinterested pleasure of being useful to it”. That is why our Association bears his name.
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