The voices of Jose Marti, Simon Bolivar, and Fidel Castro rise from different moments in history, but what is most important is that they converge on a single concern: the fate of the Latin American people in the face of the imperialist power of the United States.
Marti's 15 years in the U.S. gave him the opportunity to understand that society and the transition of capitalism to its imperialist phase.
He witnessed it at the height of its emergence as an imperialist nation. Of this new, nascent threat, the Apostle said: “…A political aristocracy has been born…and it dominates newspapers, sells elections, and often obstructs assemblies concerning this arrogant caste, which poorly conceals the impatience with which it awaits the moment when the number of its secretaries will allow it to lay a firm hand on the sacred book of the nation, and reform it for the favor and privilege of a class, under whose protection these vulgar powerful individuals will believe the fortune they crave lies in gravely wounding them…
” With his brilliant vision, the Master bequeathed to history profound analyses and foresaw the dangers inherent in the strength and economic power that this tyrant was acquiring, controlling a large part of the economy and commerce, imposing monopolistic prices (tariffs used as blackmail), with the aim of obtaining super-profits, increasing the misery and poverty of the workers, and foreseeing the danger it represented for the people of our America.
In his essay "Our America" (1891), Marti warns of the danger that the expansion and power of the United States posed to the people of Latin America.
The "seven-league giant" alludes to an enormous being, capable of traversing great distances with colossal strides, a symbol of North American economic and military might.
"We can no longer be the people of leaves, who live in the air, with our crowns laden with flowers, and are carried away by the wind, like leaves. Peoples who do not know each other must hasten to get to know each other, like those who are about to fight together.
The seven-league giant is already on his feet, and he walks, and we must stop him at the gate!"
With his poetic and prophetic vision, he warned of “the seven-league giant” that threatened to extend its dominion:
“I lived within the monster and know its entrails: and my sling is that of David.” Simon Bolivar, from the dawn of independence, pointed out the risk that the freedom proclaimed by the North would become misery for the South: “The people of America are freer and more prosperous the more they distance themselves from the United States.”
He also stated: “The United States seems destined to bring all misery to America in the name of liberty.”
These words of Bolivar were not mere rhetorical warnings: they expressed an early awareness that political independence had to be accompanied by economic and cultural independence, otherwise the region would be subjected to new forms of domination.
Fidel Castro, heir to these warnings, transformed the denunciation of imperialism into a banner of resistance and dignity.
In numerous speeches—such as the one delivered in Revolution Square on May 1, 2000, or at the UN in 1960—he reiterated that “North American imperialism is the number one enemy of the people of the world” and that “the United States cannot forgive Cuba for having carried out a socialist revolution 90 miles from its shores.”
When his words are understood in context, it becomes clear that Fidel was not speaking only of Cuba, but of the need for continental resistance against Washington’s strategies of economic, political, and military domination.
His insistence that “there is no reason whatsoever to make the slightest concession to imperialism” was a call for firmness and unity among the people.
Gathering these voices opens a dialogue across eras and generations, its relevance clearer today than ever, now that the eagle with its blood-stained hooves soars over our America and the northern gendarme roams like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
It is impossible to count all the lives that Yankee power has claimed and all those that this decaying empire will cost.
What we do know is that the anti-imperialist struggle is the struggle for the dignity and self-determination of people.
We must return to the heroes of independence, whose clarity of thought illuminates the need for unity, sovereignty, and critical awareness in our America.
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