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Category: literati

July 14, 2012 @ 10:56 am.

Literature (art) and propaganda

The writers workshop method was imported from abroad by NVM Gonzalez and the Tiempos whose workshops continue to train our writers in the formalist manner. Generations of students fell under the spell of this pedagogy and a few of them, now grey-haired, are the ones quick to tag as propaganda works with varying degrees of advocacy.

By Elmer Ordonez

The PEN forum on what I thought would be literature and propaganda proceeded on a false start.

The invitation I got said the subject was literature (art) and propaganda. It turned out the other panelists received invitations to speak on “the uses of literature.”

When speaker after speaker spoke on such a broad topic I thought I was in the wrong forum. But moderator Bien Lumbera began his introductory remarks that in the early days oral literature was used to instruct the young on the moral values of the community. He then made a leap in time and alluded to propaganda as “falling into disrepute” in the 50s. He cited this as a result of the Cold War, the conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States.

On the topic “the uses of lite-rature,” poet Gemino Abad cited his classic comment that without “language (or literature), we have no memory, no history, no culture, no civilization. But a people is only as strong as their memory.”

Another mentioned social realism but did not speak on it at length, and I remember that was what we discussed at the launching of Rony V. Diaz’s three part novel Canticles for Three Women – and comparing it with Jose Rizal’s novels, that were written during the Propaganda Movement, the prelude to armed rebellion waged by the Katipunan. Literature then was unabashedly propaganda but the term did not carry the stigma attached to it by art for art’s sake proponents and Cold Warriors in later years.

Jun Cruz Reyes ventured that all literature is propaganda. In fact, what imaginative literature has in common with outright propaganda is the appeal to emotion not to intellect. I was told that in the UP English department which taught literature for decades using formalist textbooks propaganda is no longer used as a tag for literary work with some kind of advocacy.

Corollary to Jun’s statement would be—no literature is ideology free. And this seems to be generally accepted..

We may well be beating a dead horse – the issue between literature and propaganda, which I earlier called “popular but banal.”

Mila Carreon Laurel of UP gave a periodization of lite-rature in the country, which with my emendations, started with the Propaganda Movement with the works of Rizal and the Solidaridad, the early decade of American Occupation with the “seditious playwrights” and Lope K. Santos’ Banaag at Sikat and early class conscious litera-ture, writing in both armed (e.g. Sakdal) and parliamentary struggles for independence, the proletarian trend pursued by the Philippine Writers League in the 30s, the formalist tendencies of the late 40s and 50s, the resuscitation of nationalist literature during the 60s, and the influence of Mao’s Talks at the Yenan forum on art and literature on national democ-ratic writers during the First Quarter Storm and martial law under which flourished under-ground literature.

Here was a literary and historical situation where indeed art and literature for art’s sake became totally irrelevant. When one professor of English said at a conference that the formalist approach was “non-negotiable” she sounded anachronistic. The professor was among the last survivors of the critical pedagogy developed by John Crowe Ransom, the father of New Criticism, in the early forties.

The Cold War at its height in the 50s saw the use of English text books written under the tenets of New Criticism. As a beginning instructor in the 50s I had to use the prescribed Approach to Literature by Cleanth Brooks, James Purser, and Robert Penn Warren, all New Critics. The writers workshop method was imported from abroad by NVM Gonzalez and the Tiempos whose workshops continue to train our writers in the formalist manner. Generations of students fell under the spell of this pedagogy and a few of them, now grey-haired, are the ones quick to tag as propaganda works with varying degrees of advocacy. During the 50s the literature produced by the left were invariably labeled propaganda by academics. The “free world” writers themselves like Ayn Rand and the disaffected ones in The God That Failed volume or Congress for Cultural Freedom were no slouches in the uses of propaganda.

Nowadays writers are urged to use their talents to combat environmental degradation (as in the last Philippine Pen conference on climate change), corruption in government, human rights abuses and extrajudicial killings. It is not enough for writers to bear witness; they are invited to take social or political action, write or sign petitions, join demonstrations, and even man barricades.

No more will writers just bask under the glory of prizes won in literary contests. Historically writers have given up their lives like Rizal (against Spanish tyranny), Andres Bonifacio (for independence), Manuel Arguilla (against Japanese fascism), Lorena Barros (for national democracy), or they have sacrificed their individual freedoms as did national democratic writers like Jose Maria Sison, Pete Lacaba, Bien Lumbera, Boni Ilagan, Petronilo Daroy, Luis Teodoro, Ed Maranan, Alan Jazmines, Mila Aguilar, and many others.

Hence, propaganda in its USIS and Cold War sense or formalist meaning should be laid to rest. Let it be used rather in the sense of the Propaganda Movement or the continuing people’s struggles for a safe and healthy environment, peace and social justice, freedom and sovereignty.

June 30, 2012 @ 12:36 pm.

A memorable decade: Writers before the war

A book burning incident occurred sometime in the early 40s when younger writers led by Alejandro Abadilla and Teodoro Agoncillo cast into a bonfire the works of the so-called traditional and balagtasan writers. This was unfortunately reminiscent of the book burnings in the fascist world where books of Communist or Jewish writers like Thomas Mann were consigned to the flames.

By Elmer Ordonez

The thirties may well be my favorite decade. Born at the start of the Depression, I began to be fully aware of the world around me when the family moved to a house in Paco in 1933 prior to my schooling in 1935. I remember my mother telling me in a calesa in Bustillos about the presence of “Sakdalistas” in the Sampaloc plaza. In 1936 I began to follow on radio and the Tribune the outbreak of the “guerra civil” in Spain. There were also heard marching songs of the Falangistas. At San Marcelino Church I saw young mestizos in uniform in formation and giving the fascist salute. I would read later in Renato Constantino’s histories about the parades of “Franquistas” in Manila joined in by students and faculty of elite Catholic schools. By late 30s I was primed for the outbreak of the war in Europe and local preparations for the Pacific war like the building of air raid shelters (models shown in UP Padre Faura, and the practice blackouts (mentioned in NVM Gonzalez’s The Winds of April).

Maybe: Incidentally, The Satire of Fedrico Mangahas, ed. by Ruby Kelly Mangahas and James Allen’s The Radical Left on the Eve of the War rekindled my long-standing interest about a historic decade.

Another book Komunista (Ateneo University Press, 2011) by Jim Richardson has provided more context to the period – particularly the involvement of writers and intellectuals in what was essentially a working class enterprise.

Writers who figured in the first half of the 30s were founders and early members of the UP Writers Club (1927)—Fred Mangahas, Jose Garcia Villa, Gabriel Tuason whom I have always believed tried to humor their foreign advisers with the avowed purpose of the club which is “to elevate the English language to the highest pedestal.” Shortly after, Fred Mangahas began his satirical columns in the Tribune. Salvador P. Lopez, Jose Lansang, and Arturo B. Rotor followed the steps of Mangahas and Villa in establishing themselves in the literary community. Villa left in 1929 for New Mexico to make a name as a poet in the United States but at the same time influenced Filipino writers by sending his annual “honor” and “dishonor” rolls of stories and poems to the Manila press.

In 1936 James Allen arrived in Manila he made a note about the young writers whom he found problematical. He cited one who wrote a story satirizing the intellectuals who visited Central Luzon for a solidarity meeting with the workers and peasants. Interestingly Manuel Arguilla’s “The Socialists” has always been considered part of the proletarian writing during the Commonwealth. Allen’s reading of the story may well be different. Arguilla went on to write more stories “Epilogue to Revolt” and “Caps and Lower Case” for a volume titled How My Brother Leon Brought Home a Wife and other stories which won the first prize (in short fiction) in the Commonwealth Literary Contest.

The “young” writers at the second half of the decade would constitute the Veronicans led by Francisco Arcellana some of whom pursued the “art for art’s sake” doctrine of Villa as against the “literature with social content” of the Philippine Writers League whose prime movers were Villa’s colleagues Mangahas, Lopez, Lansang and Rotor.

A parallel but not similar conflict was seen in the Tagalog writers community. A book burning incident occurred sometime in the early 40s when younger writers led by Alejandro Abadilla and Teodoro Agoncillo cast into a bonfire the works of the so-called traditional and balagtasan writers. This was unfortunately reminiscent of the book burnings in the fascist world where books of Communist or Jewish writers like Thomas Mann were consigned to the flames.

The debate over textual and contextual criticism, balagtasismo and modernism, formalism and historical criticism has persisted to this day in the academe. The more popular but banal issue is called “literature (art) and propaganda.”

On campus, the young writers that would have interested James Allen were Renato Constantino, Angel Baking, Sammy Rodriguez, Juan Quesada and other young intellectuals, mostly from UP, calling themselves the Phylons. Alfredo V. Lagmay and Felixberto Sta. Maria later moved on to become scholars in academe. Allen left the country in 1938 but I wonder if he had occasion to meet them, perhaps in the Ivory Tower café in Malate, run by leftist writer Ma. Gracia de Concepcion, or at the People’s Book Center in Escolta.

As a grade school student I could only feel the vibrations of intellectual ferment and social unrest (especially after reading “We and They” by Hernando Ocampo in my Grade VI class) which would only make full sense after the war—doing research on the Filipino short story in English from 1935 to 1955 and meeting the writers themselves.

A literary clash between Fred Mangahas and a Spanish- tradition bound Nick Joaquin occurred in the pages of Philippine Review (during the Japanese Occupation) with the article of Mangahas critiquing the essay of Joaquin waxing lyrical about the La Naval celebration in chilly October. Otherwise the class struggles and aesthetic concerns of the writers during the 30s were shrouded by what Jamias called “total intellectual blackout.”

eaordonez2000@yahoo.com

April 14, 2012 @ 1:14 pm.

the house that literature built

thanks, Rogue Magazine, for letting me share this.
something that’s not common knowledge, and needed to be said.

BURN AFTER READING
By Katrina Stuart Santiago

There is much to be said about the probability that the writer who has not done any of the writing workshops, has not come out with a book with any of the commercial and academic publishing houses, has not taught at one of the four major Manila universities in the past five years, has not won any major writing prize in the past three, has not been employed by the academe or the publishing industry either, would be brushed off as a non-writer. Or just a not-one-of-us, the “us” being the writing community—the literati—in third-world Philippines. That “us” necessarily revolving around Manila’s academe and the literary stalwarts—and yes, they exist here and now even if you would rather read Game of Thrones any day.

This “us” of course is no surprise, and lest you imagine that this is another conspiracy theory about how the literary sector sets out to ostracize and disenfranchise people who are unworthy, I assure you that it’s so much worse than that. The years have taught me that right here what operates is an unspoken/ unconscious/ unexplained set of rules that have nothing to do with writing skill or literary merit. Right here, what operates is a togetherness that might be premised on friendships, but half the time is just a fascinating display of parochialism and patronage. Here’s a shameless alaga system versus real mentorship, here’s condoning the mistakes elders make because they’ve got past glory to fall back on, here’s a togetherness that banks on closing ranks against the deemed enemy.

Which would be okay if we were talking about the grand enemy that is globalization bringing in cheaper imported books, or the commercial publishing industry making sure writers don’t make money, or the government failing tremendously at funneling support to the arts in general. But no, the enemy is not the system as it is just a person. You or me, depending on who has dared point a finger at—or who has given them the finger for—what can only be a bubble within which criticism is frowned upon, no one’s held accountable, and everything happens with the giddiness of the most recent book launch/contest/workshop and a false sense of relevance.

Welcome to the Philippine literary world, leave your self at the door.

Because here’s a house with its own set of unspoken rules, ones that you know for certain exist because the moment you enter it there’s a sense of propriety and order in the hushed tones you suddenly use to speak, in the silences you’re expected to keep. And you shouldn’t mind. After all, right here your writing will be deemed legit, no matter how uncertain even you are about its merit. Here, all it takes to survive is to keep your critical thoughts to yourself, and (maybe unknowingly) keep your writing within the box of the expected. Here, the question “Is it new?” doesn’t matter as much as “Who wrote it?” Here, creativity is the least of your worries.

Here, all you must know is this: the foundations of this house are as strong as the literary barkada is, in control as they are of the academe and publishing, workshops and contests, everything that would deem anyone a “writer” on these shores. It’s a private literati party, and you’re made to believe you’re lucky to be invited. Know that it takes very little to keep you out of this house. Very few consciously and knowingly walk out that door.

There is after all a sense of security in community here, and the warmth of hearth and home can only be inviting. And you can learn in this space, make friends here, too, but it doesn’t mean that you’re home safe. Dissenting with popular opinion or aesthetic, doing things differently will not only warrant a reprimand or a snub, it could mean being thrown out the window altogether. Just like that, there will be no friends in sight.

Yes, it sounds brutal. Welcome to the real world of the Philippine literati. And much like reality TV, it’s a world where everything—everything—is personal.

Which is to say that any form of criticism is reason enough for you to be seen as the enemy. Questions that go against the grain of established thought, or which bend in a different ideological direction, are taken against you. It doesn’t matter that you talk about the work and not the people; the work is the person who wrote it, and these writers have built this house. How dare you bite the hand that feeds you. Don’t be surprised when “lacking collegiality” and “disrespecting elders” become epithets used against you. Soon enough, out of the woodwork, the monsters of this house reveal themselves.

They reveal themselves in letters written and sent out declaring you persona non grata, telling the world that you should be reprimanded and/or kicked out of the job you love. Or instances where you are told to your face that you’ve got an ideological chip on your shoulder. It won’t matter how fantastic a teacher you are, because outside your classroom talk can and will bring you down. When you find that no matter how wonderful your writing is, you will be without a publisher for your books. And forget about winning contests.

In what we imagine to be the most creative and intelligent of houses, where we’d like to imagine that conversations about culture and society, writing and responsibility, are taking place, right here is tsismis that can be vile and vicious, the kind that can break you. That is if your heart isn’t broken yet by this revelation: this house would rather the elder who commits intellectual dishonesty, than the young asking the most valid of questions. In here, you are as puny as you are negligible, as you are someone who can be transformed into the obedient, unquestioning, bright-eyed, and bushy-tailed son or daughter.

It is in these instances that it becomes clear that you’re not one of “them” and it takes a while before you realize that there is much freedom in that, in being away—far far away—from the house that literature built.

Because it means that you dare grow up, you dare stand by writing with which not many might agree, but for which you do find readers. Or haters who are willing to talk to you about it, who will tell you what’s wrong, who will dare question you because they appreciate that you do the same for them. Out of that house you will find that creativity is not about how the workshops or creative writing classes taught you to write, nor is it about finding so much comfort in the writing niche that’s gotten you published.

Out here where there are no comforts, there is also much freedom. Out here is where survival of the fittest actually applies, because they are the most creative, because they are continuously evolving, because they are continuously learning. Out here, people read, they write, they talk to each other and come up with ideas that are different, if not new. Out here, the more daring of writers challenge limitations and transgress institutionalized lines. Out here, the Internet, technology, and the changing landscape of cultural production across the world are not scary things; they are the writing on the wall. Out here, you prove there are readers, and they are beyond Manila, beyond the division between English and Filipino, beyond the familiar academic and cultural institutions. Out here, you see this audience and you want to write the books they might like to read. Out here, writing and creativity find their relevance.

Out here, you find that the great house of multiple sensitivities actually lives off the idea that there are no readers on these shores, that there is no money in writing, because this idea is what keeps that house up. The stronger the belief in the lack of readers, the easier it is to justify the little money that writers are paid for their books, the easier to justify the need to keep to oneself, keep to this house, stay in the rooms many others inhabit. The better, too, to imagine that the audience is America—for we should all want to be published there, after all.

This is why the Pinoy reading public doesn’t care about the literati. It’s because the literati doesn’t care about these readers. And that’s you, the Harry Potter, Hunger Games-reading public, you.

Meanwhile that house sure looks like it’s getting smaller and smaller by the day. And as you grapple with your writing, and think of how to self-publish your book, you look out the one window you, yourself built and see that the house up on that hill is on fire, ready to crumble under the weight of its own monsters. But the literati’s in there and they’re keeping it up—writers, plagiarists, sons and daughters, and alagas, all together now.

You got out just in time.

This article can be found in the April 2012 issue of Rogue Magazine, out on newsstands now! Other essays: How Nick Joaquin shocked polite society by Marra PL. Lanot; Junot Diaz on Writer’s Block, Oscar Wao, and Winning the Pulitzer Prize; “We were enemies of the state.” Butch Dalisay, Jo Ann Maglipon, Ricky Lee, and Pete lacaba revisit their darkest chapter.