Diario las Américas Newspaper, June 9, 1957, Page 25

Germany, where the work of urban lomatie represeniatives, do not rebuilding and social planning in general is most intense and sy- stematic. Is there any European conscious- ness or felling or way of thinking, over and above those of the vari- ous nations taking shape? In cer- tain respects perhaps; in others not: the nationalisms are as yet more alive than the sentiment of European unity, Meanwhile, many highly civilized Europeans hold a conviction that seems to favor its development — that their nations . have two powerful.common enem- jes, Soviet Russia and the United States. Two “barbarisms,” from the point of view of these Europeans. I observed this conviction in Englishmen and Scotchmen, in Frenchmen, in Germans, in Dutch- men, in Spaniards, even in Swiss and Danes. In al] these countries there are, certainly, those who re- pudiate whatever is gross preju- dice in this Yankeephobia. I heard not a few Europeans express ad- miration for the United States, even — incredible as it may seem — for Coca-Cola. The social-ser- vices director of a large German factory told me that the problem of alcoholism among young people in the industrial areas of West Ger- Many was diminishing thanks in large part to this Americanism — an Americanism that, no one knows why, is so much to the taste of the young in almost every coun- try where it has been introduced. There are also a certain number of intellectuals who recognize the present-day superiority in various aspects of post-graduate studies in U. S. universities. Some of them lament what they regard as the backwardness of European univer- sities in some of the social studies — sociology, social anthropology, social psychology. At Cambridge I had the pleasure of seeing again my old acquaintance Professor Ho- mans of Harvard, there to give a course in sociology — much to the satisafction of Professor Meyer- Fortes, who is convinced of the need for a chair of sociology in this ancient university. And in the University of (West) Berlin, there is a trend, apparent also in the work of French sociologists such as Professor Friedman, toward com- bining European and U. S. metho- dology. in the social sciences. As for that part of America call- ed “Latin,” in the eyes of almost every good European it is an out- of-focus image, an indistinct blur. They like the music: Brazilian con- fused with Cuban, Cuban with Me- xican. So-called Mexican orchestras add an occasional note of Indo- Hispanic picturesqueness to sumpt- uous réstaurants. In cultured cir- cles there are those who admire Villa-Lobos, as there are those who have heard of modern Brazilian architecture and Mexican painting. In France, the writer Blaise Cen- drars — whom I visited at his home in Paris, where I was magni- ficently received with champagne — never tires of extolling Brazil- jan cooking. True, there are centers special- izing in Latin American studies: to mention only those I visited, Canning House in London, the In- stitute of Latin America in Paris, , the admirably organized Latin American Library (formerly the Ibero-American Institute) in Ber- lin, the Ibero-American Institute of Ibero-American Stud. ies of the University of Utrecht, ; the Luso-Brazilian section of the University of Heidelberg, the In. stitute of Hispanic Culture in Ma-: drid. But these centers are far from influential. Not one can compar with the first-rate Royal Institute of the Tropics in Amsterdam . ( which, unlike most nonspecializ- ed institutions, has begun to in- terest itself in Brazil). European attention is turned nowadays to- ward the Orient and Africa. In large part the fault lies with Latin America itself, which, except possibly for México, has no repre- sentatives in Europe charged with } making its culture known. Despite } this, some of the Latin American works that are being published in Paris by Gallimard, under the sup- : ervision of Roger Caillois, have had an extremely favorable press and have gone through several print- : ings, solely on the basis of literary merit. These, of course, are some- thing no government or patriotic propaganda could invent. But I cannot see why the Latin Ameri- can countries, through their dip- SUNDAY, JUNE 9, 1957 &. Institute‘; of the University of Hamburg, the undertake a strong joint effort to publicize aspects of their culture capable of attracting the curiosity or interest of Europeans — Brazil- ian architecture, for example. Aft- er all, it is rare to find in Europe a modern building — such as the Theater in Muenster or Festival Hall in London — before which an American can stand in wonder at splendid new solutions to the prob- lems of construction, ventilation, lighting, decoration, and acoustics. I was also in Spain, lecturing at universities and meeting students and professors. (This was a good preparation for my later meeting in France, at the Cerisy, with leading Sorbonne pro- fessors such as Georges Gurvitch to discuss my work and ideas, some of which have been published in France.) The students of Our Lady of Guadalupe College of the Uni- versity of Madrid invited me to give a lecture, but agreed to a question-and-answer session __in- stead. The subject was political and other forms of democracy; my’ language was what the Brazilian writer Tristao de Ataide calls “frontier Spanish” — in which, if I do say so myself, I am quite fuent, able not only to recite Ruben Da- rio but to curse with some viva- city. I began to study it with my Peruvian, Chilean, and Mexican col- leagues ,at a university in the United States and have been, shall I say, perfecting it ever since. A week later at the University of. the Escorial, which was found- ed by Queen Maria Cristina and is run by the Augustinian Fathers, I Chateau de. they were following me in a Jan- guage that Spaniards have assured me is easy enough to understand when spoken by a Brazilian but more difficult than Italian or even French when spoken by a Portu- guese, however well educated. Ac- cording to the Spaniards, this is because the Portuguese speak too fast, the Brazilians slowly to the point of sounding didactic. In my lecture at the University of the Escorial I pérhaps exaggerated this slowness, and from the be- ginning an audience first-class in both size and quality gave’ me its full attention. So much so that when I argued that Brazil is the most Hispanic nation in America — because it was settled both by Portugal and by Spain, and because carrying on this doubly- Hispanie tradition, it imports more Spanish- language books than any other American country — I received immediate and lively applause: the applause of an audience that is ac- companying the lecturer through all the nuances of a subtle argu- ment on a new subject. I thus learned from experience that a Brazilian lecturing in a. Spanish university need not feel he is speaking a dead language. In. Salamanca my wife and I were received by the Rector, An- tonio Tovar, a disciple and follow- er of Unamuno. With him, I saw my old friend Salamanca all over again. At the Rector’s magic word, arsther Salamanca opened its du__s to me, one that few outsiders know’ so intimately as we now know it. Professor Tovar showed us gave a long lecture in Portuguese everything, explained_ everything. I took the precaution of asking every “fifteen minutes how well After we had visited the two cathe- drals, the old patios, the old class- Royal Festival Hall in London, according to the author, is one of few modern buildings in Europe that can impress people from’ Western .Hemisphere, rooms (including the historic one used by Fray Luis de Le6én), after we had admired all the old por- traits of great scholars of the past, after we had touched lovingly some of the rarest of the ancient books in the University library, I asked Professor Tovar about the “sala- mancas” of Salamanca. He smiled and explained: “In Spain the word salamanca has lost the meaning of witches ‘cave’ or ‘den of sorcery’ that ‘it still nas in Spanish Ameri- ca and Brazil. But, you shall see a salamanca all the same.” And he took us to the hidden, almost un- known place identified by tradi- tion as a retreat of sorcerers. But that was not all. He took us also to the old Rector’s quarters, now occupied by the Unamuno Mu- : seum. This is a splendidly alive museum: Unamuno’s home as the great humanist kept it during hig days as Rector of Salamanca. With the same furniture, the same phos tographs, the same papers, the same pictures. With the original manue scripts of some of his most famoug works, With the books in which he made the annotations of genius, With the old armchair from which he contemplated the street, the town the other university buildings, An independent man, caustic in hig pride, contemptuous of the powere ful of his day — that was Unarhue no, and thus he is honored, with the best of all possible tributes the live ing can pay the dead; the preservase tion of the atmosphere in which ° ¢ spent his most fruitful days ag scholar and thinker. HAHAHA AAA IAAL A IAAI IIIS AIA IAA HAAN ¥NAVGAAIAIIAIAIAIIIIADI IAI OICICTTIOOIIDIIDISD IID i pbb bb tatt + PROGRESS IN VENEZUELA SECRETARIAT, The offices of the Presidential Secretariat, formerly located in Miraflores House, the President’s headquarters, | » have just-been moved to this new building completed last year and located on Urdaneta Avenue, Caracas, just across the street from | __Mirafl The Offi fe WORKERS HEADQUARTERS. “Casa Sindical,” built by the Govern- ecial Studies of the Presidency will alse be located here. ment at a cost of 8 million bolivares, is the center of business and social activities for workers in Caracas. ° f The modernistie Library Building in University City, Caracas, where { | = the Book Festival was held this month. : Reprinted by Courtesy of VENEZUELA UP TO DAT@ eBPhahepnmnputrtowgw EU=——...Y.o(ll\QQQQQQQ]]\Q\Q\oSJS EMISPHERSE PAG. 1].