On the Anniversary of Antonio Maceo's Death (1896-2007)

"I am now and I will always be on the side of liberty as my principles and sense of duty dictate. You say that we are confronted by insurmountable obstacles, but what was impossible yesterday may prove possible today. It is easy and fashionable for the defeatists among us to claim the gift of prophecy and condemn an entire people to perpetual degradation when even death by the tyrant's sword is preferable to living like debased savages under his heel. Given Cuba's present situation, what could be worse than to have our rights trampled by rapacious foreigners; our people exploited by befouled henchmen and political intriguers and submitted to hellish tortures and executions without end? Prison, chains, gallows, all this is still to be preferred to the shame of never having fought without respite for our liberties." — Antonio Maceo

Today marks the 111th anniversary of the death in battle of General Antonio Maceo, which was commemorated in Cuba as our Memorial Day. Half a million Cubans died besides Maceo in our wars of independence. Maceo exemplified for Cubans that vast legion of heroes who shed their blood more generously for freedom's cause than any other people in the history of this hemisphere. To appreciate the magnitude of that sacrifice, it is enough to point out that 4000 Americans died in Washington's Revolution and 10,000 South Americans in Bolívar's. Maceo was the greatest soldier and the greatest loss that the cause of Cuban arms ever sustained. No date is more fitting to remember all who have laid down their lives for our country, then and in all times, than the anniversary of Maceo's death.

José Martí said of Maceo that his mind was just as powerful as his arm. His letters, both personal and public, show him to have been a profound student of history who synthesized its lessons in sculpted sentences worthy of Caesar. Yet he is known, and has always been known, not as one of the political architects of our country — though he certainly was that — but as the intrepid soldier; the tireless fighter for his country's freedom; a veteran of three wars and more than 1000 battles; the man who bore on his body the scars of 22 combat wounds; and, of course, the peerless general — in sum, the arm of the Revolution. His military genius has always been acknowledged even by his enemies, who rejoiced at his death as at no else's because they believed, wrongly, that it would mean the end of the war so sure were they that no one could replace him (and, indeed, no one man could; but many men did). As a leader of men, it is enough to say his general staff included white men from Cuba's first families and that their loyalty and obedience to him were absolute and transcended race and all other superficial differences which then were less superficial than today. In him the general stood no higher than the citizen. His commitment to republicanism and the Rule of Law, his abhorrence of anarchy and barbarism, his fundamental sense of justice, and, above all, his noble intransigence, made him an exemplar of not only military but civic virtues.

Some day his tomb, desecrated hundreds of times by the Communists, who not only buried Blas Roca beside him but paraded troops destined for mercenary wars before it, will again become the altar of patriotism which it always represented to our people before history was buried in our country.