IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 7 ENGLISH | Page 44

these ideas were frustrated in the nascent
republic and many remained banished or
exiled, and deprived of their most genuine right to racial equality. The Liberal
and Conservative parties manipulated
the image of blacks for the same reason,
to win the elections. This image was
stigmatized as being extremely radical
and capable of subverting the dominant
order. Thus also continued the negative
predisposition of U.S. leaders at that
time, who were already prejudiced by
their own country’s political, ideological
and social structures. Estenoz was a
man of profound convictions and libertarian thought. He expressed his total
rejection of the personification of sacrifice, that is: that blacks should put up
with everything for the good of the nation. He was also explicit in his refusal
to lead the Liberal Party in the Cristo
neighborhood in Santiago de Cuba.
When he spoke at the Teatro Albizu on
June 29th, 1902, he said: “I will accept a
position in the Liberal Party when men
of color there feel they’d be able to defend the rights of all members and so
long as they did not find that those men
there would do nothing: until that time, I
would not return to it. Not if only the
black race has obligations. I cannot correct that conduct until it realizes that we
serve fully conscious of the fact that we
have value and can do a great deal more.
In one word, the black race must demand
respect, because it is not possible to be
free, to fight for freedom, and endure
being treated like freed, Roman slaves.
That cannot be accepted by even the
most degenerate, those people poor of

spirit who live with no limits, which puts
them in the ridiculous position they are
in.” What Estenoz described is still going on in today’s political context, not
only from a racial point of view, but also
as regards citizens. No society can exist
without citizens; in Cuba, the people,
folks, and social sectors exist without
full citizenship or a State of Law. They
are just a human conglomeration or flock
of people under the control. Anyone who
does not follow the official laws is considered a counterrevolutionary and brutally squashed. Estenoz believed that
“dignified men, who aspired to deserve
to be called free men need to live in a
society that deserve that name, and two
things: To be loved and respected…If
the first is not achieved, which is born of
a mutual and spontaneous feeling, the
second is important. That would be fair
and legal by and for all men.” There is
no legitimate civil society, something of
which the Cuban government’s organic
functionaries and those tied to it tried to
convince to contrary. Civil society is one
in which citizens are fully conscious
aware of their acts without the most minimal details of their private lives being
controlled by an authoritarian and partial
State. Cuba’s future belongs to the entire
population of Cuba, without distinction.
Civil society does not tend to justify the
State’s actions as the central player and
articulator in society if it does not democratize public actions on behalf of the
coexistence of free and autonomous Cubans. “We have worth and can do a great
deal with respect is demanded for us, in
a word,” Estenoz stated. This leader and