[Marxism] An espisode in the life of Siquieros

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

Some members of the contemporary left have a fondness for stories like
that below, so this is a bit different from our usual discussions on
such weighty topics as ethanol, Evo Morales and what's wrong with the
president of Chile, Michelle Bachelet. Many among our ranks seem to
harbor a considerable nostalgia for the sixties, which was a more
hopeful time in many ways. For those of us who were much younger at
that point, many were more actively involved in revolutionary and
activist groupings. I was a member of the then-Trotskyist Socialist
Workers Party and can certainly recall how bummed we all were when
the Cuban leadership endorsed the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.

Even if we knew that their endorsement was of a kind which wouldn't
be much use withing the USSR, where it wasn't reproduced since it
said that what the USSR did was a violation of Czechoslavakia's
national sovereignty, it remained a depressing moment during a year
when we saw the near-revolution in France of May-June 1968. I helped
make up some beautiful silk-screened posters which we used to picket
the French consulate in Los Angeles with those terrific placards 
showing a cop with a club and captioned CRS=SS, not much different
from what many people say today about George W. Bush.

They were hard times for Cuba, having lost Che to an assassin's
bullet in Bolivia the year before. The very popular leader who was
not the type to give revolutionary advice from a desk had renounced
all his Cuban titles and responsibilities in an effort to help break
the island's isolation by quite literally putting his own body on the
line. Scholars and activists then and since have argued about the way
Che struggled to do that. Not long ago I re-read Joseph Hansen's very
thoughtful comments from that period. He had what really friendly
criticisms to make, and from the same side of the barricades, or as
we would say here in Cuba, from the same trench. Some people thought
in those days that it was possible to replicate Cuba's successes by
following some elements of the Cuban strategy. 

This morning I took a long walk down from where I live to the Malecon,
where I looked around inside the Galerias de Paseo, a Cuban shopping
mall. It's nothing like the Beverly Center or The Grove or any of the
ones I'm more used to in Los Angeles. It's still a surprise to see the
U.S. products and brands (Del Monte, Libby's and a few others I can't
right now remember. There was even marjorine from Brea, California, a
suburb not far from my own home in Los Angeles. 

On the way back home, I walked west and went past the John Lennon
statue on 17th street, across the street from the French restaurant,
a bargain indeed. Last time I ate there it was with a Mexican friend
and his Cuban boyfriend and it was more or less all you could eat for
$5.00. With all of the touristy placed here, there are plenty of nice
bargains if you know where to look for them. 

Lennon's statue is an extremely popular place among Cubans. So much 
is this the case, that I guess the Cuban government finally gave up
trying to prevent people from stealing his eye-glasses. Today I met
an enterprising old man named Navarette. He had a couple of green
plastic garden chairs stacked close to the statue, and a pair of 
Lennon-style granny glasses which he would lend to people wanting 
to have their picture taken with the former Beatle. He had a stash
of bootleg CD on sale for $2.50 each. I couldn't resist buying a
Very Best of John Lennon collection with originals and then a 
Tropical Tribute to the Beatles, a Latinized collection. This isn't
quite my cup of tea, but such stuff is quite popular here in Cuba
where people know the lyrics of most of these tune in English and
also seem to like the kitchy Latinized versions of these chestnuts
The originals are better. Come to Cuba and get yours from the old
man at the Lennon statue. Twenty tracks for just $2.50 and get your
photo taken - bring your own camera, please, with Lennon, too.

Walter Lippmann
Havana, Cuba
June 8, 2008
====================================================================

LA JIRIBILLA

A COMMITTED Artist
An episode in Siqueiros?s life

Lisandro Otero ? Havana 

A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.
http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs658.html


The year 1968 started with the Culture Congress in Havana, attended
by 483 foreign participants including prominent people like Julio
Cortázar, Roberto Matta, Jules Feiffer, Antonio Saura, Blas de Otero,
Ives Lacoste, Michel Leiris, Edouard Pignon, André Pieyre de
Mandiargues, Vasarely, Siné, Giulio Einaudi, Arnold Wesker, Luigi
Nono, Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, Francesco Rossi, Aimé Cesaire, David
Alfaro Siqueiros, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Mario Benedetti and Roman
Karmen, as well as a substantial representation of intellectuals from
Asia, Africa and the then-called socialist countries.

Before the Congress there was a Preparatory Seminar in one of the
beach resorts west of Havana, where it became manifest that tension
and conflicting trends among the various cultural sectors had
increased. There were heated discussions about the number of guests
at the seminar: each organization was vying for the largest number of
members from its tribe. Fierce rivalry for cultural hegemony underlay
the event: the old clashes were still there, only with new
contenders.   The Seminar became a battlefield. An astonishing unity
of surrealists, Trotskyists, communists, Catholics, guerrillas,
pacifists, Masons and Freudians to proclaim that the key conflict of
our times is between the Third World and imperialism was the most
important legacy of Havana?s Cultural Congress. These men of thoughts
and creation would provide the new avant-garde called to overthrow
the traditional structures and replace them with innovative
procedures. 

Yet, the invasion of Czechoslovakia put paid to this
alliance. As detached and restricted as it was, the stance taken by
the Cuban government led to relations being broken off. The Culture
Congress in Havana died seven months after its birth.   Not that it
was meager in colorful incidents. One of such developments helped me
make friends with one of Latin America?s great painters, David Alfaro
Siqueiros. A cultural complex was opened at a downtown corner in
Vedado, its foyer decorated with a mural painting made by the eminent
French artist Pignon.   On opening night, as the front steps crowded
with guests waiting to go in, I saw French-Egyptian poetess Joyce
Mansour approaching the first rows. I knew her, for I had personally
invited her in Paris at a suggestion of Jean Pierre Faye and the
Tel-Quel group. They had told me she was immensely rich and lavished
her fortune among genuine creators, so her patronage made her
appealing. At the time she struck me as a little delirious, her
ravings bordering on overblown surrealism. Beside her, Matta the
painter looked like a prodigy of reasonable self-control.   Ms.
Mansour moved behind Siqueiros, gathered up some impulse and kicked
him hard while she yelled, ?This is for Trotsky!", referring to the
failed assassination attempt in which the Mexican painter took part.

Siqueiros turned around in surprise, but his astonishment lasted only
a few seconds. Used to all kinds of scandals and challenges, he
rapidly assembled a political rally where he called his attack an
imperialist provocation. Amid discreet laughter and shy getaways by
those reluctant to get involved in quarrels of old, the incident
finished as the opening act began.   That evening I treated Siqueiros
and his wife Angélica Arenal to dinner to try and make him forget the
insult. Siqueiros said nothing about the episode, behaving as if it
had never happened. As a first course, they ordered noodle soup.

Siqueiros filled his spoon to the brim, in such a way that every time
he took it to his mouth a few drops would drop onto the dish and
splash his tie. Angélica reprimanded him: "David, be careful about
your tie!" Unmindful of her endless warnings, Siqueiros kept on
eating his soup and sprinkling his garment. On her third objection, a
laid-back Siqueiros took off his tie and dipped it into his soup
until it was soaked, then put it aside, grabbed his spoon once again,
and continued sipping the soup impassively as he asked his wife:
?Will you relax now??   Such feature of his character made him
definitely likable to my eyes. Seven months later I arrived in Mexico
and called him right away. He invited me to visit him in Cuernavaca,
where he was about to finish the mammoth metal structures of the
Poliforo in a vast empty space next to his residence with the help of
a team of assistants. 

Siqueiros embodied the committed intellectual, the artist who
embraces popular revolutionary causes. Except for some obscure
episodes that cast a shadow over his biography, he led a radiant life
as a pure fighter and a prolific creator.

---ooOoo---


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