Marcos Aguinis Quotes
Remember, this is a country where even the non-Jews know they have no rights.
Marcos Aguinis, Argentine Novelist, Quoted in New York Times, Editorial, May 14, 1990
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Jamaica, then part of the British Empire which had outlawed slavery, was quite racially integrated with negroes and mulattos in civil positions such as magistrate. When the ship landed, the slave, John Anderson, was kept locked below deck since if he ran off and reached shore, the Jamaican authorities would have declared him a free man. The presence of the captive negro slave leaked out and a group of Jamaicans boarded the ship uninvited and forcibly removed Anderson, He was taken before a Jamaican magistrate who declared him a free person. The ship’s captain demanded that the authorities return the American private property which had been stolen from an American ship by a “mob”. Harrison, the US Counsel complained to the Jamaican Governor of the “Insult” to the American Flag that had taken place and demanded redress. In both efforts, the original decision of the magistrate was supported and Anderson was a free man. Harrison, an ardent Southerner from Virginia was apoplectic and asked the State Department to make this case a major issue in relations with London. His description of the public opinion then in Jamaica was classic. His racial bias was even supplemented by a virulent anti-Semitism because not only had Jewish Jamaican merchants supported abolition of slavery but some had intermarried with Negroes who had converted to Judaism.
Marcos Aguinis is an Argentine writer. Trained in medical studies, music and psychoanalysis, his work and his thoughts are focused on the notions of independence, democracy and rejection of authoritarianism. He is a proponent of political liberalism, and participates in seminars and conferences from the Freedom Foundation organized by Mario Vargas Llosa.
