HISTORICAL COMMENTARY
`Marcha de Cadiz’ and José Rizal’s Execution
The
composer of Marcha de Cadiz (March of Cadiz) – supposedly meant to
celebrate the victory of Spain – could not have foreseen that his work
would one day be played by a brass band at the execution of the national
hero of a Spanish colony.
BY
ROSALINDA N. OLSEN
Contributed to Bulatlat
As soon as a work of art leaves the hands of the artist, it is entirely
out of his hands and takes a life of its own. The same applies to
scientific discoveries and to most inventions.
Marcha de Cadiz
(March of Cadiz), for example, is a beautiful victory march, very charming
and old, dating way back to the Napoleonic wars. Its composer couldn’t
have known that it would one day be played by a brass band in a far corner
of the Spanish empire. It was meant, after all, to celebrate the victory
of “Mother Spain.” However, the circumstances made it more of a victory of
the “forces of darkness” over the “true, the good and the beautiful.”
On the early morning of December 30, 1896,
the band played “Marcha
de Cadiz” amid cries of “Viva España!” (Long Live
Spain!) as the lifeless body of national hero José Rizal fell to the
ground. Nothing is said in the history books about how this affected the
Filipinos present at the execution. It is not necessary; it’s easy enough
to visualize how the Filipino patriots, including Rizal’s sisters, must
have felt.
Rizal was charged with sedition to which he pleaded absolute innocence. He
denied all connections with the revolutionaries. Let’s assume he was
telling the truth in all sincerity. Then, let us recall the two novels he
wrote, the Noli me tangere (Touch me not) and El Filibusterismo
(The Filibusterer). Rizal wrote that the novels would serve as mirror
for his countrymen to see themselves and what is ailing the country. The
mirror was too good that the Spanish saw themselves in the caricatures;
they vowed revenge. The mirror was so bright that it awoke intense
patriotism in the slumbering souls of the Filipinos. The Katipunan was
thus conceived and born.
His two novels can be regarded as a debate that Rizal conducted with
himself through his unforgettable characters – Crisostomo Ibarra,
Pilosopong Tasyo, Elias, Simon, Isagani and Basilio. In the end, Rizal
concluded that although a revolution was inevitable, the country and the
people were not ready. They simply had to wait. Elias and Simon, in the
person of Andres Bonifacio, couldn’t wait. Once the first battle of the
Katipunan was launched, nothing could have stopped the momentum.
As the author of the two novels that inspired a revolution, was Rizal
culpable? That is like asking if Albert Einstein had to bear part of the
guilt for the destruction of
Nagasaki
and Hiroshima because his scientific mind made it possible to create the
first atomic bomb. Same thing with Karl Marx; he wrote Das Kapital
but it is absurd to blame him for how the Leninists and Stalinists created
the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
In a short story titled “The Socialists”, the author (Gilda
Cordero-Fernando, I think) described how “socialists” from Manila
celebrated May 1, Labor Day, among the “socialists” in a small town just
outside the capital city. During the program, one of the “socialist
peasants” went up to the little makeshift platform and began reciting
Edwin Markham’s “The Man with a Hoe.”
Markham’s
poem was inspired by the painting of Jean-Francois Millet with the same
title. (See Figure) Its first lines give a vivid and powerful
image:
Bowed by the weight of centuries
he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the
ground,
The emptiness of ages in his
face,
And on his back the burden of the world.
There is
little doubt that the peasant on the stage was incapable of holding a
discourse on socialism. Yet, there can be no doubt that what little
English he knew gave him a full understanding of the theme. We can well
imagine a change in the intensity of his voice when he recited the last
lines:
O masters, lords and rulers in
all lands,
How will the Future reckon with
this Man?
How answer his brute question in
that hour
When whirlwinds of rebellion
shake the world?
How will it be with kingdoms and
with kings--
With those who shaped him to the
thing he is--
When this dumb Terror shall
reply to God,
After the silence of the
centuries?
Rizal loved Spain, but he loved Las Islas Filipinas (The Philippine
Islands) more. The mirrors that he created were for Spain to correct the
wrongs; and, for his countrymen so that they could lift themselves up
through education. Rizal couldn’t have foreseen how all the Eliases and
the Simons would use his writings, just as Jean-Francois Millet couldn’t
have known how his painting would inspire Edwin Markham’s famous poem.
Bulatlat
Editor’s Note: To hear the
Marcha de Cadiz, please check the author’s multi-media presentation at
URL
http://joserizal.info/movies/MarchadeCadiz.swf.
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