BOOKS
By ALFRED SHERMAN
- The Thrills of Tyranny
Nor long ago I had the job of reading through the writings of British left wing visitors to the Soviet Union during the Thirties. I was irresistibly reminded of their fashionable 'I am not a Communist but' testaments when I came to read Red Rumba.* The fashion seems to be back in. The only difference I noticed was that Mr. Wollaston varies his more traditional New- statesmanship—earnest, indignant and patronis- ingly didactic—with passages of Angry-young- manship.
A familiar chord from the Thirties was the author's readiness to accept everything Castro's spokesmen told him without bothering to check for himself. He accepts their picture of pre- Castro Cuba, hazardous enough when dealing with any regime, but disastrous with Communists, for whom history was made to be rewritten. As for their present achievements, Mr. Wollas- ton accepted many of their claims so unsus- pectingly that he reproduces them in tato, with enthusiastic asides of his own, while they have in the meantime abandoned them and taken quite a different tack. For example, he waxes lyrical over the rural literacy campaigns, when Castro closed the schools and sent all children into the village to teach, illiteracy was banished . . Cuba was tackling the problem with an energy unequalled in Latin America . . doubled the number of teachers in two years.' Yet if he had troubled to visit the villages or check with educationalists he would have known, as the Ministry of Education admitted this sum- mer, that education has slumped badly in the past three years; the average standard in schools is confessedly two years behind, thanks partly to the 'literacy drive' and partly to the large number of teachers who left teaching, left the country, or were expelled. Under Batista Cuba had gone much further in primary education than most Latin American countries—which may not be saying much, but is something. Nine out of every ten children in the towns, and seven out of ten in the countryside, attended school. Any inquiring visitor could see that the situation was certainly not better in 1961; Castro himself has frequently complained that many of the rural schools built by his predecessors stand empty for lack of teachers.
But then, Mr. Wollaston was in no mood to find faults. He had found 'reassurance in the air,
* RED RUMBA. By Nicholas Wollaston. (Hodder and Stoughton, 2$s.) t THE VOICE OF LATIN AMERICA. By William Benton. (Weidenfeld and Nicolsou, 21s.) § BRAZIL, THE INFINITE COUNTRY. By William Lytle Schurz. (Robert Hale, 25s.)
a self-confidence that was refreshing after the former uncertainty and bewilderment.' He found it 'nice not to be pestered by counter-revolu- tionaries and disgruntled capitalists with a moan. In a gigantic swoop during the invasion a hundred thousand had been rounded up and imprisoned,' leaving our hero to enjoy his re- assurance in peace without dangerous thoughts. Like his forerunners of the Thirties, the author seems to hold the middle classes in contempt and to enjoy their discomfiture; like them, he is middle-class, which throws more light on the British middle classes than on the Caribbean.
Another,familiar note is the facility with which Mr. Wollaston switches from indignation at poverty, injustice and squalor to contempt for the decency, prosperity and cleanliness achieved by democracy. He refers scathingly to the 'Alpine sterility' of San Jose, and finds Costa Rica 'dull . . . respectable . . . complacent . . . lacking in hormones . . . complacent conserva- tive,' because, as he admits, they enjoy de- mocracy, a large measure of social equality, education and social services, and the proprieties of life. He indulges in raptures of self-conscious he-manship, with nudging odes to the 'sticky steaming sensuous fertility of Panama . . the girls are ripe, like mangoes, succulent and luscious . . . negro girls with rich full bottoms —an altogether gentler prouder animal than the American women . . . with their aluminium voices and vaccination marks.' All rather under- graduate, though, of course, bottoms, bosoms and brothels will appeal to a notably larger audience than politics alone. There is a strain of querulous complaint running through this section, indignation that these dagoes in Costa Rica should quietly introduce reforms, without being either colourfully squalid or colourfully revolutionary either. It is all of a piece with left-wing irascibility here at affluence, washing machines and semi-detached houses and ill- disguised nostalgia for the unemployment and poverty of the Thirties.
The pity of it all is that Costa Rica is far from dull, for anyone who cares for people and social progress. If only the author had troubled to meet members of their government, trade unions and co-operatives, and honest-to-good- ness workers, to see what they were doing, instead of spending his time in bars and night- clubs picking up gossip.
After Mr. Wollaston's exercise in alternately berating Americans and patronisingly advising them, The Voice of Latin America,t by a real live American and a member of the Establish- ment to boot, comes as a relief. Senator Benton revisited Latin America in 1960, together with Adlai Stevenson, who has contributed a fore- SPECTATOR. DECEMBER 28, 1962 word, and his book is ostensibly a report on the trip. It also reflects the knowledge and ideas he acquired during many years of work on Latin American affairs and to some extent the thought- ways of the people in Washington who make
Senator Benton shows himself to be well in- formed and thoughtful; he is free from the emotional involvement and identification which people in this country who take a sympathetic interest in less-developed countries are unfor- tunately prone to. His assessment of present Communist and Castrist strength is realistic, and he describes their tactics with considerable understanding, including their methods of dalli- ance with dictators.
The author shows many of the difficulties which beset both economic aid and US invest- ment, not as an argument against their con- tinuation, but in answer to over-simplifications and panaceas popular among Latin Americans and people whose heart is in the right place. His discussion of the 'universities in Latin America is instructive. He shows how students from predominantly middle-class homes, who lack self-discipline and are subjected to no serious academic disciplines, and who believe that the world owes them a living whether they exercise their brains or not, form the real revo- lutionary class in most parts of Latin America. The chapter 'How can the United States best help Latin America to help itself?' studies present US inter-American policies in the light of the past three decades of history and the main lines of Latin American criticism of Washingt0n. ft deserves a fair hearing from critics of US Latin American policy here. Senator Benton's sugges- tion that the Panama Canal zone might the transferred from US sovereignty to that of We OAS, whose headquarters could move there from Washington, opens interesting vistas. Brazil, The Infinite Country § is competent, informative, and makes no great demands on th! reader. It begins with a geographical survey an" the Portuguese settlement, and takes its tinle; only the last third deals with contempora7 history and problems. Dr. Schurz—a former un versity teacher and State Department specialistt —succeeds in showing how essentially differ°. Brazilian society and problems are from Euro pean and North American. He traces how tricately national character, individual PsY. chology and social institutions are interwoven.: and suggests that it is outmoded habits and 00.1., look rather than defective political and eco110014- institutions which prevent Brazil from realisgs its great potential. He confirms Senator Bent°, complaint that until the educational systenl..; modernised, to help students to learn to thl.n rather than to learn by heart and indulge in wild rhetoric, the region's intellectual, political and economic life and institutions will remain 0,"c satisfactory. But, on the whole, h and believes that one way or anoethi ser°tPhtiisrilvvi ste.11,1„: endowed giant will muddle through to Matur" as a nation. I enjoyed Dr. Schurz's spiritedof defence President Kubitschek's decision to build the 13'. capital, Brazilia, out in the middle of noWher',' astaL as a means of breaking out of the narrow co „ strip and settling the vast, rich hinterland- 1„ a reminder that Brazil, which was a virtul; a unsettled semi-continent when the Portugneed arrived, is still an undersettled and unf°r.rillos, country, still lacking proper communicatio national character and national solidarity.
the US has entered the age of the New FroatteL
the problems f he old. is still caught
the uP
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