Culture,
field of struggle always rebels against submission
When
the pressure of dictatorship is lessened, culture remains the bearer of
rebellion and of insurgence against dictators and oppressors in power whatever
their degree of control. This is explained by the fact that culture is pluralist
by nature and that in general intellectuality has a historic global vision of
the past, of the present and of the future, and bears the fruit of the
experiences of nations, peoples and classes. This vision allows one to have a
clear vision and an awareness of the relativity of the future phenomena. Above
all, it allows one to overcome the obstacles erected by the dictatorship
throughout society and within intellectual movements, whenever and wherever
these can be put under its control.
When
the dictatorship decides to ban the publication of a song, of a play, of a
literally or cinematographic production, or of a book; when it vetoes certain
names, voices or styles, this forbidden product, in spite of everything, manages
to reach its audience. It is transported and exchanged outside the agents of
control and the forbidden spaces. The agents to whom the dictatorship has given
the mission of overseeing "cultural security" and of carrying out its
policy in this arena are in fact incapable of standing up to the flood of
culture.
The
dictatorship does everything to try to pickle culture and to empty it of all
content, and to browbeat the intellectuals. However, cultures continue to
survive under dictatorships, since society is made up of classes and every class
has its characteristics which bear witness to its existence. There is no such
thing as uniformity anywhere. Contradiction, which runs through nature and
society just as it is the motor of evolution and of life, extends as well into
the thoughts of mankind and into the different forms taken by their
consciousness, which are expressed through the arts, literature, ideas,
judicial, political and religious texts...
Struggle
which is an expression of differences in interests and ambitions, is an
objective law and not a subjective act of will. It results in quantitative
accumulations and qualitative bonds. This law is the destroyer of certain
identities, and the builder of others... This is an objective truth which no
physical or metaphysical will can contradict or force to change course.
The
action of contradiction and the law of opposites may not be visible to the naked
eye during the process of accumulation. Its action can be slow and it may not
advance in a straight line, just as it may encounter defeats and it may be
forced underground, as is the case today. Nevertheless, it remains active and
fruitful. For its part culture maintains its role of activating the rhythm of
the march and of preparing the soil and the climate (those conditions which are
propitious to change).
If
culture is pluralist and differentiated by nature, the dictatorship appears not
to know this fact and refuses to accept its results. Just as it monopolises
economic and political life, it also monopolises culture and all cultural
activities. It makes every effort to force everything into submission to itself
and to bear its own image. It accords to culture the role of shielding its mode
of government. This role entails the blocking of real thought, falsifying
people's consciousness , and activating everything that is physical, hysterical,
and superficial... From this point of view, we can understand why the
Novemberist team in our country and its party are trying to take over every
cultural arena, sector and discourse under the control of its police and its
policies. Everything is bend towards the aim of deifying individual power. There
is not one activity, one club or association which does not have its
"flag" of the 7th of November (i.e. the 7th of November 1987, date of
the coup d'Žtat organised by the present president of Tunisia), of the
Constitutional Party (the party in power), and under the strict control of the
police. The structures of the party in power have taken the place of cultural
structures just as they have taken over trade union, health and educational
structures... No government minister can even pass a thread through the eye of a
needle without "authorisation" or under the orders of those who have
absolute power and who are "infallible".
Sometimes
a cultural event is organised without any approval either from the palace or
from the Desturien Assembly (the democratic (constitutional) Desturien Assembly:
the name taken by the party previously in power from 1956). It is quickly
diverted by those guard dogs of state power, those pseudo intellectuals who are
always trembling with fear that they might lose the meagre benefits that they
receive for services rendered. The event in question is then put under the
patronage of His Excellency or of his party, or else a telegram of best wishes
and support is sent to the event... This phenomenon reached its height this year
with the slogan: "Tunisia, cultural capital" and the 10th anniversary
of the 7 November coup d'Žtat. Even the university which up to this point had
tried to preserve at least the appearance of being scientific, joined in the
orchestrated festivities for this anniversary.
The
abandonment and impoverishment of cultural life has reached an unheard of
degree. The dictatorship has done everything (through means of bribes:
pressures, offers, bottles of vine...) to win over to its side even those who
have tried to protect their autonomy or just to remain silent. Even though the
dictatorship has succeeded with some, others have managed to resist and continue
to do so in spite of the daily terror. Those who have chosen to join the
government ranks now find themselves forced to fully play their role of
opportunists, of the "prince's intellectuals, the king's clown"...
Therefore, it is not by accident that peoples such as Midani (ex-pseudo militant
nationalist) remain at the head of the writers union, or someone like Mezghani
(ex-independent poet) is the director of the poetry society.
Both of these have done their utmost to polish the king's shoes. This is
the profit of the intellectual of "the new era".
However,
the dictatorship in singing the song of the culture of "harmony" which
represents for it the culture of excellence, runs against the grain of the
nature of things and the nature of culture itself. The latter refuses to be
frozen and only worthless people can accept this situation. And even these
charlatans sometimes range themselves against each other on opposite sides this
is the law of contradiction which plays our its role even at the heart of the
most narrow interests of personal profit, of cliques, of lobbyists, and of
narcissists. The recent disputes among the different so-called officials of
culture is a flagrant illustration of this law.
The
position of the dictatorship vis-a-vis culture comes from the fact that it has
absolute and savage power which has no respect for intellectuals even though
they are in its service. This contempt is explained by the nature of capitalism
itself which is a system of exchange values, which are quantitative and
degraded.
Since
the appearance of this system, whenever intellectual tendencies, or
philosophical artistic or literary schools of thought have seen the light of day
they have met with opposition. This is what has happened to romanticism and
other currents (art for art's sake). "Every social system except capitalism
has had art on its side defending it forcefully and effectively alongside the
expression of revolt and criticism. However, in the epoch of capitalism all real
art at bottom is an expression of protest, of criticism and of revolution
against the system. This is because at the heart of capitalism is the alienation
of men from his environment and from himself." (Ernest Fisher, Socialism
and Art, p.83) Only charlatans defend the system. Fisher has put them in their
place when he speaks of the incompatibility of art and capitalism.
And
if this judgement applies to capitalism and to the system generally, how much
more so as it reaches its highest stage, that of imperialism, and enters into
successive crises and decline. Things are even worse when we look at
underdeveloped capitalism, dependent and handicapped (as is the case of the new
colonies such as Tunisia). That is to say that intellectuals today, apart from a
minority, are not on good terms with the dictatorship, and this includes those
who are on their knees with fear and who are looking for a state of peace which
will never be realised. This reality becomes even more true since we are passing
through an epoch of general uncertainty with a feeling of having no protection
(either material, union, judicial, or institutional...) The dictatorship is
trying to get rid of everything "anarchic" and imposing its
"harmony and order". At the same time everything which culture has
need of in order to develop and to nurture creativity. Since the coming of the
Novemberist epoch and the reinforcement of its power and of its interference in
every sector, culture has continued to decline. The praising of the king has
re-emerged in artistic and literary productions (even if in a caricatured
fashion). There is only one subject which is seen to be unchallangable and
worthy of respect by the team in power. Even what is called the national anthem
is nothing other than a means to celebrate absolute individual power. In this
way the dictatorship is working for the destruction of culture and the
degradation of the intellectual level and the level of popular taste to the
lowest point (in relation to this we can see the effects of the culture of the
"liberation of the body", a cover for destroying thought, feeling,
taste and everything that is human in humanity).
However,
the contempt for and the marginalisation of the culture can also be found as a
deviation in the attitude of certain communists and revolutionaries on the basis
of the primacy of politics and the urgency of tasks in relation to the party,
the trade unions and the immediate present. In this way they simplify culture
and treat it in an erroneous manner which can lead one to consider aesthetics
and culture as a luxury, which the activist and the illegal militant have to
avoid. This attitude can also lead to a brutal repression of culture which shows
itself, for example, in the removing of the writer or artist from their field of
action or, on the other hand, demanding from them a hasty and rapid artistic
output. Either way their contribution is extinguished.
Repression
alone cannot explain the present state of relations between the "organic
intellectual" (if we use Gramsci's term) and the cultural arena. We must
also balance this with the conception which has guided us in our alternative
view. In fact, the insufficiencies and failures can come from a lack of vision
and of direction. In the past, Lenin confronted certain currents which lacked
dialectical vision in the treatment of this question and which did not
take into consideration this specific nature of culture and of the intellectual,
its creator in the first place. The Bolshevik leader was posing the subject of
Russian democratic writers and artists (19th century), was discussing the
problem of engagement, of evaluating Tolstoy and having a dialogue with Gorky.
To constrain culture, to adherence to the Party and to put cultural life under
the control of politics, during the first socialist experiment, was this not,
however legitimate and noble intentions, the beginning of freezing literature
and reducing the vitality of creation. This question must be debated and pass
through the crucible of criticism as part of the labour of drawing up a general
balance sheet of that experiment. However, a demarcation line must be drawn
between that and the fact of submitting the interests of the Revolution to the
whims of petty bourgeois intellectuals and their anarchistic tendencies. It is
up to communists and revolutionaries alone to put right any errors and to
develop further the dialectic.
Certainly
the rottenness of dictatorial power resulting from its oppressive nature whose
ill effects touch even its servants, leads to struggles and differences which
the victims of exclusion must exploit to deepen the crisis, always demanding
liberty and democracy. The present landscape confirms this orientation. In fact,
internal struggles around egoistic and narrow interests never cease to reduce
the ranks of the officials of the "7th of November" and the dismissals
have swept away various heads of those responsible for culture, some of whom
were "victims". These too could be transformed in to oppositionists,
or they could try to re-integrate the "opposition" after having
deserted it. Thus, we se disagreement intensifying in the heart of the
Novembrist clique. The victims of repression must know how to profit from this
situation by spreading progressive ideas, whether directly or indirectly, by
means of books, journals, cassettes, etc. At the same time they must develop
their own vision and find a balance between form and content in artistic
creation and theory, between aesthetics and ideology, in order to be able to
take on the bourgeois offensive in this arena, and to meet the challenge hurled
at them by the state's propagandists.
The
progressive vision in the domain of art, literature and general has a long past.
It has been forged through time in the struggle of opposites and has been
crowned with the gift of socialist realism. However, it needs to be put in to
practice in the light of the events of the last 10 years of this century as well
as on the balance sheet of the socialist experiment. Realism, socialist realism,
modernism - must we continue to see them in the superficial and simplistic way
indicated by Tahar Hammami in his "For Realism"? Can a just cause be
dedicated to the defence of something which was a mistake? It is absolutely
necessary to take such questions seriously. The militants concerned must build
dossiers about this mater, lead discussions and deepen debates, documents and
methods, they must avoid every formal adoption, and every purely sentimental
loyalty.
Another
aspect of the problem consist of questions posed by certain of our young artists
and writers. It is about questions which periodicals put before them and which
we must answer. Is there an effect of routinism and laziness which marks their
attitude towards certain writings as if they have always existed and cannot
teach us anything "new"? Without doubt the answer is in the breaking
with formalism, the reactivating of the spirit of criticism and self-criticism
about everything there is to be studied and discussed. Often, we find what we
are looking for in our hands, in front of our eyes, on earth; it never falls
from the sky.
On
the other hand certain activists ignore the level of consciousness of whoever
they are speaking to, in a club, during a cultural activity or an encounter.
They have a tendency to push hastily as far as they can, and to reach a
conclusion, posing "socialist realism" and the "proletarian"
position as the pre-condition (the end of discussion). This is completely wrong.
Those who do this lose sight of the nature of their destination, of the stage of
culture itself, and that the world is not only black or white, even if we
believe that in the last analysis everything can be reduced to this division.
The
present stage requires from communists great flexibility, exceptional patience,
a long breath and a concentration of forces on the most urgent and vital demand
of all for the immense majority of the Tunisians today, that of liberty, of
salvation from the claws of the Desturien dictatorship. This policy must be
conducted at the same time on the cultural plane: Profiting from the growing
discontent to present answers and solutions to concrete and exact cases arising
from the collisions and confrontations with the reality of exclusion and
monopoly, of corruption and of forced loyalty to the party in power which
continue to deepen in this area. There are many young women's voices which
complain of the rottenness within the journalistic and cultural and
administrative milieu, refusing to go back there and needing support. Will they
perhaps end by rejoining those on the side of liberty and dignity? There are
many first-time artists in the literary and artistic domains who are leaving
those areas in which they had thought to find refuge. Shocked, they leave these
posts without delay looking elsewhere for real friends. Militants on the side of
liberty must relate to these young people to take them out of the circle of
influence of the Novembrist clique. It is an arrogant dictatorship but at bottom
it is fragile. The future of its relationships with those whom it has repressed
and deceived is not certain. At present it is biting its own tail. The
progressive and communist intellectuals who are aware of this reality must find
the right road to reach the victims of repression and of exclusion, must perfect
their methods of intervention and not cease in reviewing their discourse with
the aim of bridging the gaps, developing their penetration of existing spaces,
creating other spaces, and winning new possibilities for our proposed social
project.
Workers
Communist Party of Tunisia (PCOT)