Marti on travel

Penultimos Dias ran a rich Jose Marti quote last Friday wherein the apostol explained (in 1887) why he most decidedly would not travel to Cuba.

The dozens of readers’ comments that follow are a tutorial on Cuban expatriates’ views about traveling to Cuba today.

Marti would not go to witness the depredations of Spanish colonial rule, he said: “For what purpose would we go there when it is not possible to live decorously, nor does the hour seem to have arrived to return in order to die?” To travel would be painful and shameful, he said. His conclusion: “Others can: We cannot!”