By Alejandra Garcia on January 27, 2022 from Havana
March of the Torches, photo: Bill Hackwell
One bright Sunday in the mid-19th century, little José Martí walked the streets of Havana hand in hand with his father, as Cuban poet Fina García Marruz described in a famous essay, a result from his rigorous biographical research.
“The light is golden and ripe, like a Valencia orange, which is a pleasure to see (…) The island breeze blows lightly between the heat and the light of the hour, tender as a mother’s message. Only the old man and the child seem to enjoy the innocent stroll,” Fina evoked.
The writer imagines Martí in the Alameda de Paula, going down the side streets, “where the light no longer expands, but seemed to condense, and solidify.” The neighborhood where he was born was one of the 16 areas that formed the colonial Havana, which was well guarded by walls and five fortresses, with cannons pointing to the sea.
Through those streets, he probably saw “two soldiers followed by two poor women; a humble gentleman with some honorable patch on his jacket; an obese shopkeeper at the door of a tavern; a rich mother, full of gifts and ribbons, who did not want her son to play with a black child,” Fina described.
And then the boy stopped enjoying the walk, the afternoon light, the colonial houses. That day on his pale face shone “the repressed anger,” Fina said. He knew then that Cuba hurt his soul because of his “uncontainable outburst at the slightest hint of injustice or vassalage.”
The childhood was pivotal in the life of the Hero that preferred, above all, the word “decorum,” which is both “inner care and composure, and not tolerate the harm of others’ decorum,” as Fina García Marruz recalled in her essay.
The streets that saw him grow up, those imagined by the poet, will never forget that child whose memory illuminates the history of Cuba after more than a century and a half.
After two years of a pandemic that forced us to stay at home, this Thursday thousands of Cubans will return to the streets of Havana with their torches in hand, like an “army of light”, on the eve of another anniversary of Martí -he was born on January 28, 1853-.
In the parade, which is re-edited every year in the country, young people will go side by side in honor of the representatives of the Centennial Generation, those who, 69 years ago, started the March of the Torches to honor Martí.
Months after that first parade, those men led by Fidel stormed the Moncada Barracks, then disembarked on the Granma yacht and led a revolution that enshrined the dreams of the Apostle of Cuban Independence.
Without Martí, there would be no Revolution and no Fidel. The leader of the Cuban Revolution is a “successor, an effect, a consequence, a fruit of the good tree called José Martí,” political scientist Frei Betto commented.
The man who was “brought to life to be huge,” as Cuban writer José Lezama Lima described him, has in this 2022 more convening capacity than ever.
The desire to do good has been the most outstanding of the Apostle’s virtues, added the author of That Sun of the Moral World, Cuban writer Cintio Vitier. And tonight the young people, the children, the people of all ages, will advance along San Lazaro Street in Havana, towards the Forge of Martí, to honor once again his name and his legacy.
Martí’s “doing good” is reaching our days, explains Recaredo Rodríguez Bosch, Doctor of Science and professor at the University of Las Tunas. “It is a mandate for this hour.”
Martí is very missed, adds Pedro Pablo Rodríguez, director of the Critical Edition of the Apostle’s Complete Works. “He taught us that, although we may feel tired at some point, we must resume life without losing faith in the human spirit.”
At 10pm local time, the steps of the University of Havana will look imposing, full of light. The torches will be restless, the smoke will cross the sky, the people will look excited, and the solemnity of the meeting will be felt along with the youthful fun, as it has happened every time until COVID-19 came into our lives…
The Apostle will summon to those hours with more strength than ever and will be reborn as it is in his verses: “When the weight of the cross / A man resolves to die, / He goes out to do good, he does it, and returns / As from a bath of light.”
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano – English