Unlawful enterprise

Le spedizioni clandestine di Narciso López rappresentarono uno dei primi contatti people-to-people a livello politico ed economico tra Cuba e gli Stati Uniti. Il diniego del supporto federale a tali iniziative illegali contro il dominio coloniale spagnolo a Cuba crearono un ampio movimento annessionista a New York così come a New Orleans e le attività di filibustering di López incarnarono una vera e propria risposta privata al fallimento della diplomazia nell’acquisizione di Cuba. L’epopea di López creò una solida joint venture cubano-americana volta a proteggere gli interessi creoli sull’isola nella preservazione del sistema schiavista, mentre molti uomini d’affari e imprenditori americani vedevano in Cuba un nuovo stato dell’Unione per espandere i propri interessi commerciali, incrementare la rappresentanza schiavista al Senato, fare fortuna con i Cuban bond o liberare l’isola dal dominio coloniale europeo.Narciso López’s clandestine expeditions to Cuba represented one of the first people-to-people political and economic contacts between Cuba and the United States. The denial of federal support for these illegal actions against Spanish colonial rule created a vast pro-annexation movement in New York such as in New Orleans and López’s filibustering activities embodied the very private answer to the failure of state diplomacy in acquiring Cuba. López’s epic created a strong Cuban-American “joint venture” in order to protect Creole interests in preserving the slave labor system in Cuba, while many prominent American businessmen and entrepreneurs looked to Cuba as a new state of the Union so as to expand their commercial interests, enlarge the representation of the slave states in US Senate, make a fortune with “Cuban bonds” or liberate the island from the European colonial rule

José Martí e los indios de Norteamérica: mediazione culturale e «scontro di civiltà». Una rilettura critica

The Cuban poet José Martí, “Master of the Americas” as pointed out by a famous Italian study by Carlo Batà, was probably the most important South American thinker of the two last decades of the Nineteenth century. This essay deals with the importance of “civilization clash” between US positivism - or WASP-ism - and the last resistances of Native Americans' cultural heritage during his personal experience as an exile in the United States. Martí, in this racial struggle and racist instincts, experienced a dual vision about the “Indian problem” in the Americas. In his first essays he focused on the positivistic view, really common among Latin American cultural élites (from Alberdi to Sarmiento), which depicted the Indian people as the burden of creole and white race in the path toward progress.On the other hand, as appeared clearly in Escenas americanas, the Cuban analysed more precisely the American struggle between civilization and savagery. In the cultural massacre inflicted to Indian tribes, he saw the real savagery in American civilization. So, this reflection paved the way to a new approach in considering the possibility of importing the Anglo-saxon model of civilization and political structures to the liberated Cuba after the independence (but also to continental Latin America).This relationship let us understand some interesting features in Martí's huge cultural production. We are introduced to the very essence of his cultural mediation between those two different lifestyles and models of civilization. This mediation would have represented a new way of intending North vs South America struggles or even Western way of life vs different ones, considered “barbarous” from the first.In our modern times, in which the terms “exporting values” or “civilization clash” seem to be very common in usage, it is really stimulating discover that the same problem was posed by Martí more than one century ago. Even if he did not propose any practical or scientific formul to obtain a real re-flourishing of Indian culture, he was one of the first Latin American thinker to underline the latent “evils” of US society and civilization.The “Indian problem” in Martí could be a lens with which we can understand his shift from a positivistic (or Western) view of Indios to a more critic position in the struggle towards modernization and economic progress. This ambivalence, these two different focal points let us understand the complexity of Martí's thoughts

José Martí e los indios de Norteamérica: mediazione culturale e «scontro di civiltà». Una rilettura critica

The Cuban poet José Martí, “Master of the Americas” as pointed out by a famous Italian study by Carlo Batà, was probably the most important South American thinker of the two last decades of the Nineteenth century. This essay deals with the importance of “civilization clash” between US positivism - or WASP-ism - and the last resistances of Native Americans' cultural heritage during his personal experience as an exile in the United States. Martí, in this racial struggle and racist instincts, experienced a dual vision about the “Indian problem” in the Americas. In his first essays he focused on the positivistic view, really common among Latin American cultural élites (from Alberdi to Sarmiento), which depicted the Indian people as the burden of creole and white race in the path toward progress.On the other hand, as appeared clearly in Escenas americanas, the Cuban analysed more precisely the American struggle between civilization and savagery. In the cultural massacre inflicted to Indian tribes, he saw the real savagery in American civilization. So, this reflection paved the way to a new approach in considering the possibility of importing the Anglo-saxon model of civilization and political structures to the liberated Cuba after the independence (but also to continental Latin America).This relationship let us understand some interesting features in Martí's huge cultural production. We are introduced to the very essence of his cultural mediation between those two different lifestyles and models of civilization. This mediation would have represented a new way of intending North vs South America struggles or even Western way of life vs different ones, considered “barbarous” from the first.In our modern times, in which the terms “exporting values” or “civilization clash” seem to be very common in usage, it is really stimulating discover that the same problem was posed by Martí more than one century ago. Even if he did not propose any practical or scientific formul to obtain a real re-flourishing of Indian culture, he was one of the first Latin American thinker to underline the latent “evils” of US society and civilization.The “Indian problem” in Martí could be a lens with which we can understand his shift from a positivistic (or Western) view of Indios to a more critic position in the struggle towards modernization and economic progress. This ambivalence, these two different focal points let us understand the complexity of Martí's thoughts

Unlawful enterprise Il filibustering di Narciso L\uf3pez people-to-people diplomacy tra schiavismo ed annessionismo

Le spedizioni clandestine di Narciso L\uf3pez rappresentarono uno dei primi contatti people-to-people a livello politico ed economico tra Cuba e gli Stati Uniti. Il diniego del supporto federale a tali iniziative illegali contro il dominio coloniale spagnolo a Cuba crearono un ampio movimento annessionista a New York cos\uec come a New Orleans e la attivit\ue0 di filibustering di L\uf3pez incarnarono una vera e propria risposta privata al fallimento della diplomazia nell\ub4acquisizione di Cuba. L\ub4epopea di L\uf3pez cre\uf2 una solida joint venture cubano-americana volta a proteggere gli interessi creoli sull\ub4isola nella preservazione del sistema schiavista, mentre molti uomini d\ub4affari e imprenditori americani vedevano in Cuba un nuovo stato dell\ub4Unione per espandere i propri interessi commerciali, incrementare la rappresentanza schiavista al Senato, fare fortuna con i Cuban bond o liberare l\ub4isola dal dominio coloniale europeo

American hýbris : US Democracy Promotion in Cuba after the Cold War — Part 1

Cuba is probably one of the best examples of the significance of the democracy promotion discourse in US foreign policy: the efforts to democratise the island have been one of the main features in the US—Cuba bilateral relations since the end of the Cold War. Even the embargo against the island has evolved from a tool to generate regime change to an instrument of democracy promotion to foster a democratic transition. Today, the Cuban embargo, after the codifications of the 1990s, is intimately connected to a ‘Cuban democratic future’. Moreover, in the last three decades, US presidents have committed themselves to promote democracy on the island, inaugurating a sort of ‘state policy’ with little or no evolutions or changes. The main aim of this two-part article is to explore the rationale behind US decennial efforts to promote a peaceful democratic change on the island, while trying to answer some crucial questions about US strategy in Cuba: Why promote democracy in Cuba? Why did democracy promotion become a long-lasting feature in US—Cuba relations? The first part deals with the security framework, and American economic interests in Cuba as a crucial push factor for democracy promotion, while the role of the Cuban-American community and the problems and perspectives of US strategy will be included in the second part, to be published in the next issue of the Journal

Jos\ue9 Mart\ued e los indios de Norteam\ue9rica: mediazione culturale e \uabscontro di civilt\ue0\ubb. Una rilettura critica

The Cuban poet Jos\ue9 Mart\ued, \u201cMaster of the Americas\u201d as pointed out by a famous Italian study by Carlo Bat\ue0, was probably the most important South American thinker of the two last decades of the Nineteenth century. This essay deals with the importance of \u201ccivilization clash\u201d between US positivism - or WASP-ism - and the last resistances of Native Americans' cultural heritage during his personal experience as an exile in the United States. Mart\ued, in this racial struggle and racist instincts, experienced a dual vision about the \u201cIndian problem\u201d in the Americas. In his first essays he focused on the positivistic view, really common among Latin American cultural \ue9lites (from Alberdi to Sarmiento), which depicted the Indian people as the burden of creole and white race in the path toward progress. On the other hand, as appeared clearly in Escenas americanas, the Cuban analysed more precisely the American struggle between civilization and savagery. In the cultural massacre inflicted to Indian tribes, he saw the real savagery in American civilization. So, this reflection paved the way to a new approach in considering the possibility of importing the Anglo-saxon model of civilization and political structures to the liberated Cuba after the independence (but also to continental Latin America). This relationship let us understand some interesting features in Mart\ued's huge cultural production. We are introduced to the very essence of his cultural mediation between those two different lifestyles and models of civilization. This mediation would have represented a new way of intending North vs South America struggles or even Western way of life vs different ones, considered \u201cbarbarous\u201d from the first. In our modern times, in which the terms \u201cexporting values\u201d or \u201ccivilization clash\u201d seem to be very common in usage, it is really stimulating discover that the same problem was posed by Mart\ued more than one century ago. Even if he did not propose any practical or scientific formul to obtain a real re-flourishing of Indian culture, he was one of the first Latin American thinker to underline the latent \u201cevils\u201d of US society and civilization. The \u201cIndian problem\u201d in Mart\ued could be a lens with which we can understand his shift from a positivistic (or Western) view of Indios to a more critic position in the struggle towards modernization and economic progress. This ambivalence, these two different focal points let us understand the complexity of Mart\ued's thoughts

Unlawful enterprise Il filibustering di Narciso López: people-to-people diplomacy tra schiavismo ed annessionismo

Le spedizioni clandestine di Narciso López rappresentarono uno dei primi contatti people-to-people a livello politico ed economico tra Cuba e gli Stati Uniti. Il diniego del supporto federale a tali iniziative illegali contro il dominio coloniale spagnolo a Cuba crearono un ampio movimento annessionista a New York così come a New Orleans e la attività di filibustering di López incarnarono una vera e propria risposta privata al fallimento della diplomazia nell´acquisizione di Cuba. L´epopea di López creò una solida joint venture cubano-americana volta a proteggere gli interessi creoli sull´isola nella preservazione del sistema schiavista, mentre molti uomini d´affari e imprenditori americani vedevano in Cuba un nuovo stato dell´Unione per espandere i propri interessi commerciali, incrementare la rappresentanza schiavista al Senato, fare fortuna con i Cuban bond o liberare l´isola dal dominio coloniale europeo