E.J.Hobsbawm in his “Assessment of the Cultural Congress of Havana" (‘World Outlook! Feb.16) draws our attention to so many important points in our present-day chaos, that I hope I may be permitted to quote him. He says, "One of the ablest men at the Congress, Rene Depestre of Haiti, praised Cuba precisely because "here art and literature are not confined to the direct support of ideology and politics" and one of the most spontaneously applauded speeches (by a Uruguayan) defended the revolutionary ‘intellectual’ against excessive encroachment by the 'man of action. In complete contrast to this, Hobsbawm points out, in the fifties intellectuals holding such views would have been tempted to see intellectual freedom as the key question.and the Communist regime as the main danger. This mood has changed, "In the 1960s it has become evident, at least in large parts of the world, that the defence of intellectual freedom can be combined with resistance to another, and at present greater, danger. As fascism united the intellectuals in the 1940s, so the United States united them at Havana, though one notes with relief that nobody even tried to pretend that the two were or are analogous." To Hobsbawm, the “most interesting fact" about the Congress was the demonstration, “That an extraordinarily wide and heterogeneous collection of intellectuals can today be mobilized on the common ground of support for the Vietnamese, for Cuba, for the movements of liberation in the ‘third world' and not least, for the Negro and anti-war movements in North America against the government of the United States. The situation of the 1950s has been reversed." ' Since Britain is ene of the powers where a great deal of control and prestige still rests in the hands of elderly lords and statesmen and still older captains of industry (in this country when you are between 60 and 70 you are in your prime !) much of the inability of our countrymen to see things as they really are is due to the propaganda put across by this senile section of the community. Those who listen reguiarly to the B.B.C.News and read the schizophrenic Leaders of the National Dailies, desper~ ately trying to sert out the truth from the wishful thinking, must weariiy conclude that the situation of the 1950s as oute lined by Hobsbewm has not been reversed. Our trouble is that these elderly statesmen, “progressive" politicians, leaders of pacifist and religiuus organisations, “see intellectual freedom as the key question and the Communist regimes as the main danger.” Due to their all-pervading influence on our educatienal system (which 4s still middle-class) their pernicious. and infectious arrogance and conspicuous display, used as a means of intimidating the lower paid workers and the working classes generally, so that men engaged in the effective
functioning of trades unions are treated with utter contempt;
they have used all the subtleties of their privileged positions
t» see that this country still shudders at the word "Communism"
and is hell-bent to burn and butcher Coy proxy ) the Vietnariese
people so that it won't taint these shores.
It is interesting that Hobsbawm makes this comment later in the
article .... “except perhaps in Britain, the common denominator
of all the possible cultural and political avant-gardes" (whose
500 delegates representing 70 countries were gathered in Cuba)
Was hostility to the American War in Vietnan.'