FEMINISM AND HOMELAND INDEPENDENCE
By Pedro Albizu Campos
Facing a people anxious for its independence and willing to make the necessary sacrifices to obtain it, a group of leaders had been placed unwilling to break with the prevailing regime of the colony. When we say a people, of course, we refer to the Puerto Rican national unity, without distinctions of any kind, and much less, the absurd distinction, of dividing it between men and women. The contemporary Puerto Rican woman has suffered, until now, the abrogation of her representation made by a group of ladies, who with the title of feminists, have always spoken in her name, and have fought for the right to suffrage to be granted to her. If the men who direct public opinion wasted a large part of their time fighting each other, instead of facing the invader, the feminists dedicated all their energies to the acquisition of suffrage, believing without a doubt, that by fighting the men who opposed this measure, they fulfilled the purpose of the existence of their organization. They have obtained suffrage. We are obliged to ask them what they want it for. Is it perhaps to reinforce colonialism over their Homeland? Or to annex it to the United States definitively, nullifying its international personality to turn it into a North American province. (“State” sic.?) Or is it to make Puerto Rico a Homeland, free, sovereign and independent? We repeat the public interrogation that before the Nationalist Assembly we formulated last: Are women going to repeat the sin of men of dividing among themselves on the vital issue of the independence of their Homeland? If feminist women are to present themselves to the country representing, not a solid libertarian movement, but the various existing political parties, fighting each other, and disseminating before the public opinion of the country all the political errors committed by the leading men during the last thirty years, it is necessary that they be called to attention in the most energetic way about the historical responsibility they acquire when exercising suffrage for the first time. If one wants to give an opinion in politics, one must assume the responsibilities necessary. The woman as director of political opinion, since in that ground she has placed herself, has and must expect, that responsibility is demanded of her for what she says. It is not a patriotic ideal to preach the annexation of one’s country to any other country. Nor is it a patriotic ideal to defend the colonialism that weighs on the country.
The only transcendental civic duty that one who was born in a colony has, whether man or woman, is to redeem it from colonialism. Are the feminist ladies ready to fulfill that unavoidable duty?
It seems so. We have read with great interest the manifestations that in the section called “Conversing with the main feminists of the country”, regularly published in the Sunday edition of EL MUNDO, by Mrs. Angela Negrón Muñoz.
With rare exceptions, the interviews published in that section with that epigraph, have discouraged us enormously. We have seen repeated almost all the errors of political, social, economic and religious appreciation that have ruined a healthy orientation of our people. Everything, almost everything, has been an accumulation of repetitions of things old, worn out and refuted, ad nauseam.
The sad case occurs that when the direction headed by men in the different political parties begins to orient themselves towards patriotic and definitive purposes, it is from this feminist section that the most disorienting affirmations rain down on our people. We insist that the woman, like the man, has to be responsible for what she says.
Doña Angela confesses to be mortified by certain manifestations that we made before the last assembly of the party on the occasion of the exciting offer made to me by the Club de Damas de Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, representing the Dominican woman, to defend the independence of Puerto Rico.
Hasn’t Doña Angela been moved by this offer? Haven’t the feminist ladies that she claims feel hurt by my manifestations before the Assembly been moved? Why, if they represent the highest values of our woman, have they not yet met to send a message of gratitude to the Club de Damas de Puerto Plata that in such a generous and spontaneous way has offered its assistance to liberate them from this shameful tutelage?
We owe Doña Angela a congratulation. For the first time, since we read her, we have seen her invoke the name of immortal women of our Homeland who sacrificed everything for its independence.
We also owe her a rectification. We should not compare with figures anointed by the sacrifice for the redemption of this land to people who maintain as an ideal the annexation of their country to any other, or defend the empire in their Homeland, imposed by a foreign power. Madam, allow me to tell you that there are impossible parallels. That the one who writes has a historical responsibility and cannot make a confusion of values.
Several times we have repeated that we have to go back to the year
- At the time of the Grito de Lares. There existed then an authentic and patriotic leadership in our Homeland, of men and women willing to make any sacrifice to impose its independence. We will thank you to continue presenting only before our people those luminous libertarian figures. If that was so in ‘68, as you well say, that more civism was needed than today to defend the cause of freedom, without a doubt, you will consider it justified, that today, according to what you affirm that it costs nothing to do the same, we urge men and women to comply with the most important civic duty: To immediately constitute the free, sovereign and independent Republic.