Monday, April 11, 2005
The People Will Build Their National Culture
Under the present prevailing system, there is little hope that mass culture will be liberating, if at all, represent the hopes and aspirations of the exploited classes of people. It does otherwise; it consciously or unconsciously protects the status quo by producing cultural works without even the simplest intrinsic humanistic values. As a result, Adorno says, “The attitude of the public, which ostensibly and actually favors the system of the culture industry, is a part of the system and not an excuse for it.” In this era of nonsensical cultural forms and cultural monopolies, the current order has succeeded in creating a tit-for-tat relationship among the purveyors of idiotizing mass culture and the people, in which the former provides the drugs for cultural addiction while the latter forgets the contradictions of their situation. It has also reached the stage in which mass culture is not coerced and forced upon the people by the ruling class but has turned into a consensual affair, with the ruling class asserting its hegemony over the masses, according to Antonio Gramsci. The cultural situation has been so problematic now that they have placed the people within its cultural structures instead of the people being separate from it all and producing their own kind of organic culture springing forth from the exploited classes. Moreover, all efforts to create this kind of organic culture into a culture of the masses has always turn to naught as it is not the people and its vanguard who hold the keys to economic and political power as the ruling class will always be the ones to dictate the norms and limitations of cultural form and substance.
The National Democratic Front best describes the entire situation:
Centuries of foreign and feudal rule have built up a culture of subservience, blind imitation of foreign things and backward thinking, a culture which has made foreign and feudal exploitation and oppression palatable or unrecognizable.
As such, forcing a national culture in this kind of system will be a quixotic dream. The only recourse then is for the people to wage a national-democratic cultural revolution to create the consciousness that will impel the people to fight and overthrow their oppressors and in the process, give birth to a national and progressive people's culture. (NDF 12-Pt Program) But such mass culture in that scope will never be complete unless the national-democratic revolution through revolutionary armed struggle has been finally won, as the prevailing cultural structures have been so ingrained in the minds of the people that purging altogether is a very difficult process.
On the other hand, the revolutionary vanguard must take it upon itself to propagate and advance a nationalist, scientific and mass-oriented culture. It is nationalist because it upholds and defends the sovereignty and independence of the Filipino nation, combating colonial mentality and subservience. It expresses a distinct Filipino character and embodies the richness of the cultures of various regions and areas, as well as those of the Bangsa Moro, the peoples of the Cordillera and other indigenous peoples in the country. (NDF 12-Point Program) It is scientific because it upholds the scientific outlook and methodology, and opposes feudal thinking, superstitions and ideas which keep the Filipino people in a world of ignorance and unfounded beliefs, values, practices and prejudices which render them resistant to revolutionary and liberating change. (NDF 12-Point Program) It is mass-oriented because it emanates from, and serves the interests of, the broad masses of the Filipino people, reflects their conditions and expresses their needs and aspirations, and combats prevailing decadent, bourgeois and feudal, anti-people and anti- women values embodied in cultural forms and their introduction and propagation. (NDF 12-Point Program)
The national-democratic cultural revolution against feudal-bourgeois forms of culture must take place now. It should be an intrinsic part of the propagandist agenda of the revolution in all fronts, especially the youth sector, as they have more luxury in engaging in cultural activities under the present reactionary system. The culture that we have now is part of the state’s wide array of ideological apparatuses to subvert the growing revolutionary fervor brought about by the intensifying social contradictions of the day. It is then essential for the revolutionary forces to provide an alternative mass culture which the masses can turn to and believe in, to inspire them to liberate themselves from chronic oppression and exploitation.
The National Democratic Front best describes the entire situation:
Centuries of foreign and feudal rule have built up a culture of subservience, blind imitation of foreign things and backward thinking, a culture which has made foreign and feudal exploitation and oppression palatable or unrecognizable.
As such, forcing a national culture in this kind of system will be a quixotic dream. The only recourse then is for the people to wage a national-democratic cultural revolution to create the consciousness that will impel the people to fight and overthrow their oppressors and in the process, give birth to a national and progressive people's culture. (NDF 12-Pt Program) But such mass culture in that scope will never be complete unless the national-democratic revolution through revolutionary armed struggle has been finally won, as the prevailing cultural structures have been so ingrained in the minds of the people that purging altogether is a very difficult process.
On the other hand, the revolutionary vanguard must take it upon itself to propagate and advance a nationalist, scientific and mass-oriented culture. It is nationalist because it upholds and defends the sovereignty and independence of the Filipino nation, combating colonial mentality and subservience. It expresses a distinct Filipino character and embodies the richness of the cultures of various regions and areas, as well as those of the Bangsa Moro, the peoples of the Cordillera and other indigenous peoples in the country. (NDF 12-Point Program) It is scientific because it upholds the scientific outlook and methodology, and opposes feudal thinking, superstitions and ideas which keep the Filipino people in a world of ignorance and unfounded beliefs, values, practices and prejudices which render them resistant to revolutionary and liberating change. (NDF 12-Point Program) It is mass-oriented because it emanates from, and serves the interests of, the broad masses of the Filipino people, reflects their conditions and expresses their needs and aspirations, and combats prevailing decadent, bourgeois and feudal, anti-people and anti- women values embodied in cultural forms and their introduction and propagation. (NDF 12-Point Program)
The national-democratic cultural revolution against feudal-bourgeois forms of culture must take place now. It should be an intrinsic part of the propagandist agenda of the revolution in all fronts, especially the youth sector, as they have more luxury in engaging in cultural activities under the present reactionary system. The culture that we have now is part of the state’s wide array of ideological apparatuses to subvert the growing revolutionary fervor brought about by the intensifying social contradictions of the day. It is then essential for the revolutionary forces to provide an alternative mass culture which the masses can turn to and believe in, to inspire them to liberate themselves from chronic oppression and exploitation.
# posted by Terry Ridon : 1:19 AM
