Cuba || PROBLEMS IN THE CREATION OF CULTURE IN THE CARIBBEAN

PROBLEMS IN THE CREATION OF CULTURE IN THE CARIBBEANAuthor(s): JOSÉ LUIS MÉNDEZSource: Caribbean Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 1/2, Cuba (MARCH-JUNE 1975), pp. 7-19Published by: University of the West Indies and Caribbean QuarterlyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23050256 .

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PROBLEMS IN THE CREATION OF

CULTURE IN THE CARIBBEAN

Literature and National Liberation in the Caribbean

It is not easy to discuss the function which literature plays in the struggle for national liberation, in the Caribbean at a moment when various Latin American writers

are seeking an expression which is capable of capturing the problems of our whole

Continent. With this end in view, the best Cuban and Dominican writers, as well as those of Argentina, Uruguay and other countries, do their utmost to transcend the

purely national boundaries in which they have wished to define the individual of this

region, and try to give to their works an essentially Latin American orientation and

character. To view Latin America as a whole is, in itself, an act which generally implies a certain degree of national affirmation, but which does not necessarily imply the identification of literature with the forces which are working towards the liberation of our Continent.

Literature is much less innocent and impartial than is generally thought. Its

compromise with the truth, its love for freedom, and its constant search for coherence

and authenticity are always based on the concrete historical and social milieux and

generally expresses the most significant and definitive values and attitudes in the life of

the social groups. The literary artist is not then, an impartial judge or a creative

divinity who, without regard to social groups and human passions, struggles with

eternity and gives account to the supreme tribunal of Art.

This does not mean, nevertheless, that Art as such may lack all specification, or that

one ought to judge literature with the same criteria which are used to analyse a

political discourse, a propagandist message or a historical document. Art, as Karl Marx

said, is an end in itself for the artist, and begins with its aesthetic value. It must be

judged as a literary creation, and not by such criteria as its good or bad intentions, or whether the views expressed are in accord with our own.

In the same way that specialists in particular fields of endeavour must demonstrate

high quality and efficiency, the writer who decides to work for a revolutionary cause must realize that literature is a form of action with its own laws, though not auton

omous, employing specific techniques and particular tools which must be known,

explored and improved. He must realize, too, that the best way to make literature

serve a revolutionary cause is to regard it seriously as an art. Many persons, neverthe

less, have argued, on various occasions, whether a capacity for artistic creation can be

compatible with a political commitment.



8

Implicit in this argument is a conception of art as a form of autonomous activity,

with a purely passive relationship with the rest of society. Those who have this con

ception, see art and action as mutually exclusive, since one cannot serve two masters at

the same time, the revolutionary artist must, of necessity, choose between imagination

and politics, or inevitably sacrifice one of them to the other.

This is why the defenders of art as a kind of autonomous activity interpreted Marx's statement: "for the artist, art is an end in itself', as a Hegelian residuum, or as

a posture in favour of art for art's sake, without taking into consideration the fact

that, for Marx, practical application, rather than theory is eminently important in all

cultural activity, and that, far from proposing a divorce of the artist from his society, what Marx's famous statement truly affirms is that, for the artist, art is the form of

action by which his life acquires meaning and reality. The fact that the writer may elaborate an imaginary universe, where he struggles to find freedom and coherence

which the historical reality denies him, does not constitute a renunciation of action, but should rather be interpreted as the assumption of a political and philosophical position with obvious practical implications.

Truly important art is not flight but pursuit, is not apathy but commitment, is not

refuge for inaction, but action which responds imaginatively to the most important and significant historical tensions. This is why in artistic works of the highest quality we see manifested not only the individual creative capacity with its peculiar biographical problems, but also, and particularly so, the social groups, with their

particular conceptions regarding morality, art and science.

It is precisely these social groups which, in the face of the most significant historical tensions, elaborate the mental structures which organize the imaginary universe of the

great works of cultural creation. The matter is not as complicated as it seems. In the

same way that social tensions are generally only partially conceived by common or

dinary individuals, yet manage to produce exceptional men like Lenin, Fidel, Che, and

others, whose personalities and actions are merely an articulate product of the in

tellectual and political attainments of a particular human group in its historical and

social praxis, literature also transcends the individual consciousness and produces works whose significance and importance generally elude the average man of the social

class whose particular world-view it expresses, as well as the individuals who write it, since what is expressed is the highest level of awareness of a human group in a specific historical situation.

Therefore, art and action cannot be incompatible, and one very frequently finds

great artists who participate actively in political life, and great politicians who have seen in art a medium of action in seeking that same liberty which opposes them to the

world of convention and impells them to transform the reality of their societies and of

their epochs. In the Caribbean, there are many examples of men who have sought

simultaneously an artistic and a political reality.

Figures like Marti, Hostos, Betances or, more recently, men like Aime Cesaire, Juan

Marinello, Nicolas Guillen, Frantz Fanon, Jacques Stephen Alexis, Juan Bosch and

others have sought liberation in art as well as in active politics. Only some of those

men have managed to maintain equal importance in both activities. Some have disre



9

garded art or have abandoned it altogether in order to dedicate themselves to politics.

Others, without ever abandoning politics, have not attained the same importance in

that field as they have achieved in literature. And others in spite of having explored the literary field, have not succeeded in dominating that activity to the same extent as

they have in politics.

Frantz Fanon, for example, has authored three theatrical works, but his name is

known only through the books which express his political ideas, or because of his action in favour of the Algerian revolution. As far as I know, his theatrical pieces have not even been published. Hostos and Betances have also produced literary works but

their names are known nowadays only because of their political writings or their

political and social activities. On the contrary, a poet like Nicolas Guillen, despite his constant active participation in politics, has been traditionally associated with creative

writing and not with politics which is of minor importance in his case, since his work is one of the best achievements in political, poetical productions. The case of Cfesaire is

perhaps the best example of a perfect equilibrium between important political action

and vigorous artistic activity of a high quality.

A producer of an epoch of crisis, Marti took up arms for the same reasons that

made him take up the pen. But the society and the historical moment in which he

lived required his total dedication to active politics, and Marti fully accepted his

responsibility as the revolutionary intellectual. "These are not times", he said, in his

essay "Nuestra America", "for lying with the handkerchief on the head, but with arms

for a pillow, like the men of Juan de Castellanos: the arms of justice must conquer the

others. Trenches of ideas are worth more than trenches of stone".

In spite of everything, as Juan Marinello points out, Marti does not truly renounce

being an artist, and a great artist of his time. In him is united "the artist of rich, varied

sensitivity, anxious and vigilant, and the revolutionary of a vigilant and austere con

duct inseparable from his responsibility and function". For Marinello, Marti was not

only the admissible leader of a freedom movement, but was also the director of the

cultural course of twenty peoples. In his opinion, although there are moments during

Marti's youth, such as the period in Mexico, when literature consumed most of his

attention, and his effort, towards his years of maturity, prose and verse became har

nessed for political action, and his political literary writings are his best.

According to Marinello, it is in the whole collection of Marti's poems - with his

cantos to the fatherland, to his wife, to his son, to love, to sacrifice, and his exaltation

of virtue — that is revealed his most direct and dramatic world-view, since, in his

anxiety to express reality, Marti eventually rejects prose fiction.

f Marti does not create realities, but comments on reality. Therefore, states

Marinello, Marti's novelistic production, as well as his short stories and his theatre, were always subordinate and were never able to satisfy the author's demands.

On the contrary, his production in prose and poetry opened a new route in the

history of Latin American letters along which travelled the most important movements

which succeeded it. Ruben Dario himself wondered: "Cannot Marti be considered a

precursor of the movement which I initiated years afterwards?"



10

According to Marinello, there is no doubt that Jose Marti reflects in his work

influences common to the Modernists. Nevertheless, Marti's work surpasses the realiza

tions and objectives of the Modernist writers. This is why Marinello wonders if it is

legitimate to imagine that without Marti there would be no Dar'io, or if Mart'i could engender his own negation.

f Although the relationship between Marti and Modernism is undeniable, his prose

and poetry towards a theme of humanism, towards clearly defined patriotic motiva

tions and a romantic and moralistic Americanism which makes any attempt to liken

the poetic or prose production of Marti to the individualistic, aristocratic and

Dionysiac verses of Ruben Dario, somewhat abusive.

The world-view of Dario is fundamentally an antithesis of that of Mart'i. Dario is chiefly viewed as a literary artist and nothing else, as a man according to his own

words, who loves beauty, power, grace, money, luxury, poetry and music; he believes

in God, mystery attracts him, dream and death sadden him, he has read many philoso

phers, but does not know a word of philosophy. He has his own Epicureanism which

he synthesizes in the following statement: "enjoy as much as possible the soul and the

body on the earth and do your utmost to continue enjoying the other life".

Marti, on the other hand, always places the collective interest before self-interest.

He is disposed to every sort of sacrifice for the liberation of his country and only conceives of a kind of survival in posterity.

For Mart'i, "to change owners is not to be free". It was not enough to liberate Cuba

from Spain, it was necessary to guard her from what he called "the effrontery of the

thieving eagle". Marti not only rejects the imperialism of the United States, he also

rejects the values and attitudes of that country where, in his opinion, "instead of

solving the problems of humanity, they are reproduced; instead of being amalgamated in the national politics, localities are divided and provoked, instead of strengthening the democratic machinery, it is corrupted, and hatred and misery result. These com

ments remind us of similar affirmations by Frantz Fanon. I

Marti was not the only politician of the nineteenth century who was aware that the

struggle for liberation in the Antilles would not end with the defeat of Spain, and that soon the imperialism of the United States would have to be confronted. Ramon

Emeterio Betances who had previously considered the United States as a defender of liberty and of oppressed peoples, soon saw-very important defects in the political system of that country and informed the Cuban and Puerto Rican revolutionaries

about the real intentions of the powerful neighbour. 1868 became a year of great revolutionary significance.

Betances began to seriously consider the idea that the Caribbean islands should not

aspire to different destinies, and that only united and confederated would they be able to form a strong block and achieve true liberty. By 1870 the idea of a Caribbean Federation had been fully formed in his mind and he outlined this in a speech before a Lodge in Port-au-Prince.

/ Hostos and Marti too had previously expounded the idea of Caribbean unity. The

idea of a Caribbean Federation was to reappear during the twentieth century. In 1915,



11

right after a trip through Santo Domingo and Cuba, the Puerto Rican poet and patriot

Jose de Diego founded an organization for the promotion of a Caribbean union, whose

purpose as expressed in its statutes was to favour and encourage closer ties between

the islands in the Caribbean with the aim of achieving a future political alliance.

That idea which the Puerto Rican seekers of independence of the end of the

nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century proposed as a tool for liberation, is

found expressed in Puerto Rican literature in the twenties and thirties. Jose de Diego himself, in some of his poems, gives us the ideological basis of his project for a Caribbean union.

In his poem "Aleluya", for example, de Diego addresses those whom he identifies as "the gentlemen of the marvellous and fecund north". He reminds them that "the

Centre is also a part of the globe", and that "through extension of the sphere, the Caribbean islands are a part of America".

For de Diego, the separation between the dominators of the North and the people

of the Caribbean is a natural historical phenomenon. The individual of the Caribbean has a language and a culture which are very different from those of North America

and, therefore, to imagine that the Latin peoples ofthe Antilles can be assimilated by the Anglo-Saxon Collosus is an aberration, it is something unnatural.

De Diego feels that North America cannot impose its culture on the Spanish

speaking Caribbean islands because the civilization of the two regions has certain

distinct features. In the same poem he refers to these. He states that the Latins excel in

Art and Philosophy, and the Anglo-Saxons in government.

De Diego's position is the typical posture of the Creole bourgeoisie of that era, which reflected a certain desire for autonomy or independence without, nevertheless,

assuming a consequent anti-imperialist position.

The only historical solution which that Creole bourgeoisie saw was Latinity con

ceived as a perfect adaptation of man of European origin to the tropical setting of the

Caribbean. That concept of Antillean Latinity had many supporters in Puerto Rico in

the second and third decades of this century. One of them, the poet and politician,

Luis Llorens Torres, director of the Revista de la Antillas idealized, like de Diego, the

jibaro, the Puerto Rican peasant of European origin.

He was strongly criticized by the Puerto Rican poet Luis Pales Matos, who accused

him of having disregarded the negro element, the racial nucleus which has been nobly mixed with the white element, and because of the fecundity, the strength and the

vivacity of its nature has impregnated our psychology with unmistakable traits, pro

ducing its true Caribbean character. Jose de Diego, for example, omits that presence

when he speaks of the ethnic composition of the Antilles in his poem "Aleluya".

That omission, was something consistent with the over-estimation of Caribbean

Latinity which characterized the reformist thought of the Puerto Rican bourgeoisie of

the beginning of the century, and indicated the orientation of many of the writers of

the twenties, thirties and forties, the intellectual base of the Puerto Rican writers of

those years was Creolism, which was defined by the poet and journalist J.I. de Diego Padro as "a transplantation of European

- modus operandi with equally European

attitudes, traits and sentiments, epidermally modified and adapted to our ends".



12

According to this theory the negro magnificently adapted and assimilated the culture which came to him from the West while the man of European origin "con

served in all its integrity the general lines of his culture and merely adapted himself to

the tropical environment, which may have slightly modified his features and perhaps his liver, but not his psychology, his tradition, his mental attitude or his reactions towards objective reality". This position proposed to demonstrate that "the people of the Antilles, in spite of their diversity of colour and of origin are eminently European in structure and culture".

According to de Diego Padro, "the only thing of relative value in negro art is the

stylization and the purification which the deep and superior sentiment of the white man imposes on it". Therefore, says de Diego Padro, the most that Caribbean poets like Guillen, Laleau, Ballagas, and Pales, have achieved in their poetry, is the utilization of the usable facets of negroidism by harmonizing and incorporating them with the

general poetic procedures.

For Pale's, on the contrary, the Spanish attitude is an evasive, incompatible and inadaptable position, whereas that of the negroid is firmly and resolutely fixed in the new environment. Pales maintains that it is very difficult to dissolve under allegation of superiority, the roots of a supposedly inferior culture, when the progenitive race

maintains its vitality.

The best example of this, in his opinion, is Haiti, where the Haitians speak French, and officially adhere to the Roman Catholic faith, although, internally, the Haitian

remains immutable, and there is nothing so diametrically opposed to the French spirit of clearness, lightness and rationalism - as the Haitian spirit — of sensuality, super stition and witchcraft. The Haitian, Pales points out transformed the language into

patois and changed the Catholic symbol into a Voodoist cult. Therefore, the Haitian

soul, utilizing the expressive recourses of an exotic culture, achieved its essential

objectives by means of very subtle but secure channels.

According to Pales, a similar phenomenon would probably have taken place in

Cuba, Santo Domingo, and Puerto Rico, with their combinations of Spanish colonial culture and that of the negro slave, in a setting which was absolutely strange for both — if the mixing of blood and the fusion of racial values thereby creating a new type of mulatto had not occurred. This has displaced the vital accent of the three islands.

Their accent, says Pales, is neither Spanish nor African. Consequently, their poetry cannot be defined as either black, white, or mulatto, it is rather Antillean, for in his opinion, the Greater Antilles - Cuba, Santo Domingo and Puerto Rico — have developed a homogenous spiritual type and are culturally poised in a similar direction.

This "homogeniety of a spiritual type" which differentiates the Antilles from the common mass of Hispanic peoples, is the negroid factor which, as Pal^s says, has

intermixed to form the Antillean psyche. With the presence of the Negro, the poetry of Pales not only broke through the "insularist" wall which surrounded certain Puerto

Rican intellectuals such as Antonio S. Pedreira but it was oriented towards an Antil

lean vision of wider perspective than the Antillean Latinism of Jose de Diego or the

Creolism of the generation of the thirties.



13

As regards Latinism and Creolism, which disregard the presence of the negro in our

society, the poetry of Pales is as Arcadio Diaz Quiiiones has pointed out a new concept

of ethnic and cultural solidarity. His vision of the Negro was, in certain respects, a

unique one in Puerto Rican literature, but it had many elements in common with the

aesthetic quest of the Grupo Minorista of Cuba who also saw the negro as a symbol of

and banner for their political and social demands.

In the beginning, the nucleus of writers of the Minorist movement shared, although to a lesser degree, the idyllic, sensualist and erotic vision of the poetry of Pales but the

internal dynamics of the Cuban political reality made many of those writers turn to

other directions. Alejo Carpentier, for instance, without losing his interest in the Negro theme, abandoned the exaggerated Negroid exoticism which characterized his first novel Ecue - Yamba — O! and which is still found, although to a lesser extent, in E3 reino de este Mundo. He replaced it with an ever-growing preoccupation for the

problems of revolutionary activity, a theme which achieves its greatest expression in

his extraordinary novel — El siglo de las luces. In Carpentier, one finds the theme of

the negro fused with that of the native and of the Spaniard, in that ethnic — naturalist rainbow which represents his famous quest for "the marvellous reality".

In Nicolas Guillen, on the contrary, the Negro element receives progressively more

attention. While dealing with the peculiar problems of the Negro in Cuba, the Antilles, North America, and Africa, he includes these in a revolutionary view of the world

which makes his work one of the best poetic productions in political and popular

poetry of this era. Once, while I was in North Africa, a friend of mine from Angola

gave me a poem written in praise of Nicolas Guillen.

He is a poet who not only gives us an authentically Cuban poetry, but is one of the

poets who has known best how to express the concrete problems of colonized man in

his everyday experience of exploitation, as well as the social plight of the negro

throughout the world.

His poetry, as his "Balada de los dos abuelos" testifies, is mulatto. Guillen knows that the mestizo represents the essence of a truly free Cuba, and dreams of the

moment when its two cultural heritages will become fused in a climate of solidarity

and democracy. The symbol of that new solidarity is the two grandparents, don

Federico and Taita Facundo whom Guillen wants to see embracing, and singing in

"black longing and white longing".

But as Taita Facundo chiefly represents the oppressed, the poet takes a stand

mainly for that half of his cultural and human heritage which still suffers humiliation

from the neo-colonial Creole and racist society. Guillen accuses colonialism and im

perialism of having "robbed a poor defenseless negro of his family name, and of hiding it in the belief that he was going to lower his eyes in shame". But no, the poet feels

completely "clean", and shouts with pride to his oppressors that he is "the grandson,

great grandson, great-great-grandson of a slave," and adds, "let the owner be

ashamed". The Negro, in Guillen's poetry, is a living proclamation which recalls the

treacherous national independence and the limping of the Cuban bourgeoisie in the

face of North American domination.



14

On becoming one with the Negro, as did the Minorist group, and later the revolu

tionaries, Guillen assumes what Roberto Fernandez Retamar has called the condition

of Caliban, the savage and deformed character of Shakespeare's The Tempest who the

foreigner, Prospero, robs of his island, enslaves him and then teaches him the language

which Caliban uses to curse him.

Fernandez Retamar insists that our symbol cannot be Ariel, which Rodo proposed,

thus identifying us with Latinity, but Caliban the enslaved man who lost his land and maintains his oppressor by his labour.

The name Caliban — Fernandez Retamar states — comes from the word "cannibal"

which is derived from "caribe". The implications which have generally been given to these terms have been utilized by the colonialists in their attempt to justify their

unjustifiable exploitation of colonized peoples. Fernandez Retamar — stresses the fact

that in spite of its Carib origin, the word "cannibal" has been attributed, by antono

masia, not to the extinct aborigine of our islands, but to the African Negro, whose

image has been systematically and grotesquely deformed by the Tarzan films and by

all the colonialist propaganda. Therefore, to assume the position of Caliban, as Fernandez Retamar proposes, is to say "NO" to colonialism and to get ready to

combat its racist myths.

That is precisely what the Martiniquans Fanon and Cesaire have done. Ce'saire not

only reinterprets the Shakespearean play in his work Une Tempete in the light of a

"demythefied" colonialism, but constantly intervenes in history in order to clarify such events as the struggle for the liberation of Haiti, in his drama La tragedie du roi

Christophe. In order to give us the colonized man's version of certain current matters, he presents as the theme of his drama Une Saison au Congo: the life, passion and death

of the Congolese patriot Patrice Lumumba.

Fanon, for his part, discovered empirically, through his profession as a Psychiatrist, to what extent the image which- the colonialist creates of his victim penetrates to the

base of the psychic structure of the colonized person, and concluded that there is no

other solution for the mental health of the oppressed than that of breaking through the wall of oppression by means of a revolution of national liberation. Fanon spoke so

clearly that his words, apart from penetrating the understanding of the colonized

person, were like a hammer on the conscience of the European and North American

who struggled by every means to safeguard their colonialist and criminal innocence.

Since his work, there has been no more place in the world for innocence. His words

have cut deep not only in Africa, Asia and Latin America, but also in the Negro and

Puerto Rican ghettos of the United States, and in the consciousness of all the op

pressed groups of this country and of the world who have undertaken the task of

making everyone listen to the message of the colonized man.

The positive lyricism of the work of Fanon is the result of the conceptualization of

his own experience as a colonized individual and of his conviction that only by

transforming the material bases of exploitation will the man of the colonized countries

be able to achieve the dignity and the vitality which colonialism deny him. Fanon

knew that the colonized individual could not coexist within the image of his own



15

negation, but that the fundamental matter was not a problem of images, but of power,

not a problem of good or bad conscience, but a conflict which would be resolved in

only one way: by placing the man of Asia, Africa and Latin America where he should

be: in charge of his own destiny. It was precisely that conviction which led that

Martinique doctor, who had explored dramatic expression, to polish his prose in order

to convert himself into the main theorist of the African revolution.

An analogous conviction led the author of La historia me absolvera to put his

imagination at the service of action and his action at the service of a revolution whose

triumph resulted in a total redefinition of the man of our region.

For the Latin American writers and intellectuals, the Cuban Revolution was a

surprising encounter with the first serious hope for that world of coherence and of

human authenticity that many of them had sought in their expression of an imaginary universe.

In the beginning, the revolution was all emotion, all hope, all lyricism then came

the imperatives of action, the moment of definitions. What had began as an antidicta

torial insurrection became an authentic socialist revolution. And to say socialism is to

speak of a totally different world-view from that which previously prevailed in the

literature of the Caribbean previous to this extraordinary event.

The Socialist and Marxist writers themselves, also susceptible to the ups and down

of the historical moment, felt the necessity to restructure their messages in the light of

the new occurrences. The writers who had not been in agreement with the dictator

ship, but who could neither be identified with the revolutionary cause which was now

clearly defined in socialist terms, found themselves progressively floating in an

existential vacuum and with very little to say. Other writers, in a more problematic situation, still had not verified their position. They still oscillated between the bohe

mian — bourgeoisie, world in which traditionally they had found refuge for their

escapism, and the commitment which the historical moment demanded of them. The

present generation devotes itself to the exploration of new forms, but when faced with

definitions, chooses the only way which can give meaning to the Latin American

youth of the present day: the quest for the authentic revolutionary expression.

The clash becomes inevitable. For a large number of the bourgeoisie writers, whose

techniques and world-view have been permeated by bohemianism, individualism and

elitism, try in every way to continue imposing the values and attitudes of their class,

reserving for themselves the function of dictating the artistic and literary style which

they try to impose on even those writers who wish to place art and life at the service

of the revolution.

For the writers committed to national liberation in the Caribbean, literature cannot

continue being a luxury product for the exclusive use of those who see the imagination

as a substitute for revolutionary activity, which although it leaves the present state of

oppression intact produces a certain spiritual peace and above all, much prestige for an

elite identified with a book culture. The truly revolutionary writer cannot convert

himself into the inhabitant of a synthetic universe with autonomous values, or of an

ivory-tower whose doors are closed to the immense majority of men and women



16

committed to national liberation, but on the contrary. The reason for being a revolu

tionary writer is, mainly the obligation to one's own imagination, but this is placed at

the service of the revolutionary transformation of reality, since, for the individual who

has understood the mechanisms of oppression and of class struggle and has fully

identified himself with the progressive forces of history, that is the only way of

achieving his liberty as a man and as an artist.

Literature and Ideology in Puerto Rico

The meeting of the members of the various literary magazines of Puerto Rico which

took place in the bookshop, La Tertulia on Friday, 30th March, 1973, revealed some

very important problems regarding the literary activity in our country. All the groups

gathered there had a two-fold commitment: to independence and socialism, on one

hand, and to literature and art on the other. The main topic of the evening: "Litera

ture and Ideology" only came up sporadically. For the most part, discussion centered

around the personal problems which have resulted in the opposition of one group to

the other, the exaggerated illusions about the possibilities of literary creation and the

degree of commitment which each group has in the Puerto Rican political situation.

All those matters are, of course, complementary aspects of the general topic, but,

on various occasions, they seemed to lead us away from the original question. All the

tensions between individuals and groups were merely the result of varying political and

literary postures. This is something which always disturbs in some way, the relation ship between persons who participate in those activities, because literature, like

politics, if taken seriously, requires a total involvement on the part of the artists. That

involvement may, nevertheless, increase or diminish in intensity, depending on the

historical moment in which it is developed.

In Puerto Rico, in recent years, there has been a tendency towards the increase of

intensity in political and artistic commitment, as well as in the proliferation of literary

magazines, in the appearance of "guerilla" theatre groups and of a genre which until

recently was unknown in our cultural reality: the protest song, which has been the

chief artistic auxiliary of the practical political activity.

These occurrences are consistent with our political and social evolution. The

structural changes of our island reality, coupled with a whole series of international

events such as the Cuban Revolution and the Vietnam War, have made equally in

adequate both the means available for artistic expression and the prevailing concept

regarding art and literature. Because of this, there have appeared groups which

dedicate themselves to the explanation of new forms, to the creation of new instru

ments of expression, and they challenge the artists and intellectuals who had until then

dominated the cultural life of our people.

The challenge is very legitimate, for one cannot expect that writers, born in

societies as different as the Puerto Rico of the forties and fifties and those who were

born and grew up in the epoch during which our country was a fundamentally dif

ferent society in its class structure and in cultural life, can make use of the same tools

and be oriented by identical principles to express messages which differ in essence. But the only point of tension is not the generational problem. With the important trans



17

formation which have occurred in the Puerto Rican economy, the university com

munity has been joined by a considerable number of students of various social levels

who for reasons of class, need also to create their own instruments of expression and

to create new forms for communicating their artistic messages. Despite the differences

of class and generation, the literary groups of some importance which exist in Puerto

Rico today agree in at least one aspect: all are committed to the struggle for our

national independence although that commitment may have important differences in

degree and nature.

The magazine Sin Nombre, for example, orients its efforts towards purely literary

objectives. It has no editorials and opens its pages to any valid artistic and intellectual

collaboration, independently of the political leaning of the author. In spite of this, the

political and literary activity of its editor Nilita Vientos, was considered subversive by the most rightist sectors of the country, and the magazine formerly entitled Asomante,

had to be rebaptised. But, now under its new name, as under its former name, the

magazine of Nilita Vientos has played an important role in our cultural life, and for

many years it was practically the only vehicle of expression for a considerable number

of good Puerto Rican writers, almost all independentists.

The apolitical posture of its criteria for artistic excellence was resented by some of

the new literary groups which began to appear in different parts of the country from

the beginning of the sixties. The Guajana group, for example, which defines itself in

political as well as literary terms, reproaches Sin Nombre for a certain elitism, and

stresses the necessity for writing committed literature which is oriented fundamentally

towards the people, towards those masses of the populace who until now have been

practically on the margin of literature.

The Zona Carga y Descarga is like Sin Nombre, oriented chiefly towards literary

ends but has a definite political editorial. Its defiance is directed chiefly against the

sclerotic forms of traditional Puerto Rican literature, and emphasizes, the necessity for

giving a new impulse to the literary activity in our country and for seeking in all the

horizons, but particularly amongst the writers of the Latin American boom, the

models which are capable of enriching the cultural milieu of Puerto Rico.

From its inception, the Zona Carga y Descarga has shown a fundamental con

tradiction. Despite the fact that a large number of its members, chiefly, Rosario Ferre,

are well known independentists and have declared themselves supporters of socialism,

it uses certain artistic criteria which sometimes seem to approach the much disparaged idea of Art for Art's sake, and at times seem to define literature as something all

powerful, as a kind of magical activity in the face of which political struggle or any other form of mundane activity is somewhat insignificant.

For a large portion of the nucleus of writers who contribute to the Zona Carga y

Descarga, art has been an important vehicle for achieving political action, since, by means of that activity, they have become aware of the folly and the superficiality of

the bourgeois society, and it is along that route that they have taken their first steps of

patriotic and revolutionary affirmation. For this reason it is very legitimate that they made art their chief vehicle. But if they lose sight of the possibilities of literature, or if

they think that a writer, because of being artistically valid, is above political criticism,



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they will be bungling before the aesthetic conceptions of the bourgeois, who always take advantage of the doctrines of Art for Arts sake, of literary apoliticism in an effort to impose their elitist and counterrevolutionary positions.

Zona is an eminently literary magazine, and, its main interest is in the artistic

product as such, and not the good or bad intentions of the writer. That is totally understandable and valid, but when it is a question of a publication which, besides

being literary, has assumed political and social positions, we might expect that the aesthetic orientation of the magazine would be consistent with the political and social concerns of its members. That is why it seems very important, to me that the sup

porters of Zona tell us whether or not, in their opinion, there exists progressive criteria

for judging the aesthetic value of a work of art. If the reply is negative, it seems to me that it is going to be very difficult for them to reconcile artistic with revolutionary activity. Nevertheless, they would still have a way out: to elaborate their own criteria in that direction. But then it would also be very valid to ask: What has Zona done in that sense?

I do not think that the adoption of the hedonist and eclectic positions of Susan

Sontag is sufficient to close the debate. Art is not as disinterested as the supporters of

Zona think. Besides the conceptions and the forms of literary expression of a Jorge Luis Borges or of a Guillermo Cabrera Infante, there are values and attitudes which

they try to impose.

I know that, for one who is seriously interested in literature, it is very important and totally necessary to be acquainted with all the good writers, even the reactionaries.

But this is far different from seeking prestige under the shadow of counter

revolutionary Artists.

The supporters of Zona aspire to criteria of quality and of artistic excellence which

are very wholesome for the Puerto Rican cultural milieu, but if they lower the guard in

the matter of literary criticism and continue directing their magazine by artistic

criteria of the bohemian wing of the Cuban exile (which are those which are prevailing at the moment), instead of gaining prestige under the shadow of some cows, which are already not so sacred, they will be compromising a trust which, in spite of the many disagreements, inspire most of the independentist intellectuals.

This should not, nevertheless, be interpreted as an invitation to cease expressing the concrete problems which most concern them and to not give testimony to the world

which they know best and are most qualified to describe and examine. It is not an invitation to embrace the populism which has so much permeated most of the groups who are partisans of committed art in our country. Now it is time to remove that

misunderstanding. There are many structural barriers which separate the common

people from certain literary genres like the novel, the short story and even poetry. Those limitations have been partly overcome by Artists who have embraced the

protest songs or the "guerrilla" theatre.

But, despite that problem of communication, there is no reason — and here we

agree with Rosario Ferre' — for the abandonment of the literary genres which have

least appeal at present, or for the Artist to abandon the message which most disquiets



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him and which he knows best, in order to appoint himself spokesman for the popular

masses and to become self-satisfied thinking that his poems stir the souls of the

multitudes when, in reality, they are as isolated from the common people as is Borges

in his ivory tower and his purely bookish world.

This does not mean, nevertheless, that the writers who are interested in establishing an authentic contact with the common people ought to not strive to communicate

their messages. On the contrary; perhaps, the best way of establishing true communica

tion with the public, which is really interested in the writers of committed art, is to become aware that the message is not being communicated, and that it will possibly

never be, if they continue utilizing the same techniques which have produced such insufficient results for so many years.

In Puerto Rico, the conditions are ripe for the establishment of a greater integration of the common people into the culture. That is why the most positive idea which was

stated at the conference on literature and ideology was that regarding the necessity of

organizing an ample cultural front, so that our artistic struggle may rest on more solid

foundations. But before embarking on that enterprise, it is well to remember that the

revolutionary imagination in art as in politics, is not a simple flight from reality, but on the contrary, is a confrontation with reality in order to transform it, and make it

recover the human and aesthetic dimension which it has lost in capitalist societies. For

this reason we cannot fall into the trap of literary apoliticism, nor in that of ingenuous

Populism.

JOSE LUIS MENDEZ

Translated by Dr. Sheila Carter



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