“Fernando Baez: "Cultural plunder of Latin America" La Nacion (Argentina)
29.01.2006”
Perhaps time now to do some research on the "cultural plunder of Africa".
shiraz
Kila usiku una asubuhi yake!
Jua utaliona tena!
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-----Original Message-----
From: Zapopan Martin Muela-Meza [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, February 08, 2006 1:30 PM
To: Lib InfoSociety; Progressive Library International Coalition; Shef LIS
Com; ALA International Relations Round ALA-World; faife faife; Rekombinant
commonsRekombinant
Subject: New @ E-LIS: Fernando Baez: "Cultural plunder of Latin America" La
Nacion (Argentina) 29.01.2006
Baez, Fernando (2006) Saqueo cultural de Latinoamerica. In La Nacion, La
Nacion (Argentina).
Full text in Spanish at E-LIS, the most comprehensive and worldwide open
access archive in LIS:
<http://eprints.rclis.org/archive/00005524/>
Abstract in English:
[English abstract] Title of the article: "Cultural plunder of Latin
America." Since the Conquest, the plunder of the art treasures and the
destruction of documents has caused an irreparable damage for the memory
of million of beings. Since more than five hundred years, Latin America
has been subdued to the most ruthless looting in its history: its twenty
two million of square kilometers have suffered pillaging and destruction
of most of its resources. The destruction of Latin America, however, also
affected the cultural sectors: the historic memory has been object of
manipulation, fire, steal and censorship. The process was slow and
systematic, ferocious and implacable: today we know that sixty per cent of
the written memory of the region disappeared. A fifty per cent by
premeditated destruction and a tenth per cent by carelessness. More than
five hundred tongues were extinguished forever. Between the 16th and the
21st centuries, libraries, archives, and unique editions, pieces of
pre-Hispanic art or colonial and during the modernist and surrealist
epoch, were sank into oblivion or plundered. Dozens of librarians and
archivists were assassined from Mexico to the Tierra del Fuego, what makes
these jobs the most risky jobs of the continent after that of journalists
and priests. During the dictatorships of the 1960s and 1980s, many
publishers were victims of violent attacks and thousands of writers were
killed or exiliated. In recent times, thousands of books from the 19th
century are disappearing due to the lack of budget for their restoration
and preservation. The fifty percent of the Latin American libraries
suffers the abandonment and indolence, and the same happens with archives.
In fact, I think that despite the evident efforts to understand the past
from a more plural perspective, Latino Americans still feel vertigo at the
time of eximining our history. [Abstract assambled from excerpts taken ad
litteram from author's original text, translated by Z.M.Muela-Meza]
Keywords: Latin America, history and present; pillage, plundering,
looting, censorship and destruction of the written memory, libraries,
museums, archives; opression against librarians and archivists.
Subjects: B. Information use and sociology of information.
Zapopan Muela
----------------------------- v -------------------------------
"Tiranos y autócratas han entendido siempre que el alfabetismo,
el conocimiento, los libros y los periódicos son un peligro
en potencia. Pueden inculcar ideas independientes e incluso
de rebeldía en las cabezas de sus súbditos.
----------------------------- v -------------------------------
"Tyrants and autocrats have always understood that literacy,
learning, books and newspapers are potentially dangerous.
They can put independent and even rebelious ideas to the heads
of their subjects."
----------------------------- v -------------------------------
-- Sagan, Carl (1997). The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle
in the Dark : El mundo y sus demonios: La ciencia como una luz en la
oscuridad. México: Planeta, p. 390; New York: Ballantine Books, p. 362.
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