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IFLA:

Section on Reading and Section of School Libraries and Resource Centres

Literacy for Life: Promoting the Practice of Literacy, Information Literacy and Lifelong Learning

A One-day Pre-Conference Invitational Meeting at Oslo University College in Oslo, Norway, August 12, 2005

PAPERS FOR PRESENTATION AT THE PRECONFERENCE

CULTURE AND READING AGAINST THE HAPPY ROBOT

Mercedes Falconi, Ecuador

1

I will begin with a story that I read a few days ago, related to the four hundred years of the publishing of the first part of the novel Don Quixote:

–They once asked Alejo Carpentier what the difference was between Shakespeare and Cervantes and he answered that if he ever went back to his house and found in his living-room some of the characters created by Cervantes, he would ask that coffee be brought and would calmly talk to them. But if he arrived at his house and found his living-room filled with characters created by Shakespeare, he would urgently call the police.

Don Alejo was right. If I had to stand before Hamlet, I would be quite nervous. But if I had to face Quixote, I would dream, of course. If Sancho Panza were there, I would get ready to understand not only how the Barataria Isle worked, but also the Scandinavian countries, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, the countries with the greatest level of human development.

2

I would like to be allowed, right now, in this land of peace, to state a literary war declaration. I would like to be able to ask, at close range, which children's universal literature characters I would not receive at the Library called, due to literary reasons, Posada Borges. It is not easy to answer this question. If I were a happy and consumerist robot, I would not be concerned with this question. I would just go shopping or turn on the TV...

If the answer is ideologically correct, I would condemn classical stories. Let us be more specific. In the 70s, an essay written in Paris became famous. It was written by an Ecuadorian novelist and poet. The austere poet said that fairies, in children's stories, preferred blond and white adolescents –Norwegians, Danish, or European adolescents– and not dark-skinned or white-mestizo adolescents (who are the majority in Ecuador) or Indigenous persons.

As I am a woman associated to books and literature, I confess that I would not condemn anyone. Notwithstanding phobias and devotions, I think that all characters, in their own way and at their turn, help us see the world and its contrasts. All of them, in the end, have stayed here to share our life with us. With each of us. With you. With me. With all of us. Except, of course, with the happy robot.

The happy robot is the character who does not understand the most precise question put forward by T. S. Eliot.

–Where is the wisdom that we have lost while dealing with knowledge? Where is the knowledge that we have lost while dealing with information?

The happy robot is not concerned with living but with winning. With competing. With being successful. He does not strive to read carefully and slowly, in order to attain wisdom, but rather prefers speed-reading which is not reading.

The happy robot does not care where Ecuador is located. You, who are reading or listening, care, of course you do. A trip entices you. A trip enlivens you.

3

Ecuador is located in the Middle of the World. It is a small country, a short country. It is hardly visible on any map of South America. From a plane, flying over its land, you can make out four natural regions. The Galapagos Islands: splendid. They have a population of endemic birds and reptiles of immense value. These islands make Norwegians, who are always seafaring and adventurers, imagine all kinds of things. On the Ecuadorian mainland, there are three regions, joined together and diverse. The contrast is beautiful: on one side, the Pacific Ocean is visible, surrounded by gentle and extensive beaches. At the center, vast snow-capped mountain ranges and active volcanoes. On the other side, telluric jungles surround an immense biodiversity. The Coast is tropical. The Andean region or Sierra has its perpetual spring. Although sometimes, tourists are surprised to notice that all four seasons show up on the same day. The Amazon region is a large water and oxygen reserve. Cultural diversity is great. Population of African origin and the whites join the millenary Indigenous nationalities. The national soul is defined by the crossbreeding process of races and cultures.

If from an imaginary airplane, you approach the highest mountains, the European (or Norwegian) tourist will see enormous condors. The condor is the country’s symbol, and it is included in the national coat of arms. Quito, the country’s capital lies surrounded by mountains. Quito does not fear rolling into gorges. People from Quito are always either climbing up or down. Quito was named in 1979 "Cultural Heritage of Humankind".

Since 1830, Ecuador is a sovereign and independent republic. Democracy, with its stresses and social and economic contradictions, is its government system.

4

Let us review conceptually and in general the past 33 years. In 1972, Ecuador became an oil producing country. The wealth springs from deep within the ground. Power centers speak of sowing the oil to create schools, and cultural centers. A visionary writer said that Ecuador could never be an economic or military power but could become a cultural one.

The proposed utopia does not fit reality. The Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano wrote, in Quito, in 1976:

–In this country, everything centers on oil. The banana bonanza has ended. It is promised that in ten years Ecuador will have an income equal to Venezuela’s. This very poor country finds itself surrounded by the foolishness of millions and gets dizzy. Finally nausea prevails. Before schools, hospitals, and factories, color TV arrives. Soon there will be waxing machines on earth floors and electrical ice-cream machines in small towns with kerosene lamps. There are six thousand philosophy and literature students and only two oil technology university students. In college, all illusions are allowed but reality is not possible.

In our country there was no investment plan before the first oil barrel was exported, which contrasts with what Norway did. A huge difference. There was no effective and socially sensitive plan. Norway is ranked in the first place of human development in the world. In Ecuador, children and youth are ranked last in the social scale.

When oil exports started, books were not multiplied, but rather satellite dishes. Consumerism and hedonism. Life is becoming increasingly frivolous. Large cities are increasingly modern. Tall skyscrapers and great avenues appear overnight. In 1979, Ecuador became formally democratic, once again, after a long night filled with Latin American dictatorships. In theory, the future belongs to us. Ecuador's Political Constitution is a literary work. It is a Macondian creation, filled with fiction. It offers everything at cheap prices. The problem is that it does not include the tools to transform into reality all of the optimistic collective and social wishes.

5

In 1979, literature for adults has important authors. However, Ecuador does not have a famous and promoted author belonging to the Latin American literary boom. Ecuadorian literature, during the first half of the twentieth century is originally rural. It discovers and describes the life of Indians and half-breeds. Social injustice is denounced. Literature gradually becomes urban.

During those remote and recent times, children's literature hardly exists. It crawls like a baby. After asking for Garcia Marquez's permission, we can state that children's literature does not have anyone to write it. I present several albums without pictures.

The first album, which is black and white. Published literature is fragmented, without an independent body. It moves, like a rotating door, from a lyricism which sings to nature and to a social realism which condemns injustice. The child is idealized. A non-existing being is described. This being is converted into an angel.

After several years, the second album emerges: it describes landscapes and it is nationalistic. Fairy tales of European origin are questioned. This theory becomes, during a certain period, a semi-official ideology. Nothing is proposed, just rejected. Nothing is evoked, just condemned.

The third album is homemade. Oral tradition is drawn upon. Grandmother’s words. The voice of elders. In Ecuador, children’s literature is nurtured by popular legends of urban or rural origin. New authors, both men and women, record stories of ghosts, animal fables and elves. Myths receive a breath of life.

Many years afterwards, we find a fourth album, a more global one. In this album, changing, national, and diverse societies, which are both local and global, record their experiences. Human and children’s rights become a challenge and a literary topic. Reading is perceived as a possibly pleasurable activity.

6

Democracy has brought forth fruits. Starting in 1979, two national literacy campaigns have been carried out. Both were successful. Senior citizens learned to read and to write. A poet's anecdote has, justly, a special strength:

  • Have you had problems with the old people?
  • Yes, their hands shake, but nothing else.

After a few years, thanks to their active participation, Indigenous people’s rights are acknowledged. Bilingual intercultural education is praised and put into practice: Oral traditions are written in Quechua. And also in other Indigenous languages.

7

During the 1990s, in Ecuador, the Popular Libraries National System is created. This system, bureaucratic and with scarce financial resources, is still not completely formed. Additionally, Ecuador’s library sector is greatly flawed, not only regarding the professional development but also specific services. The National Library System does not work; there is no State policy to support its development. Public libraries have become book warehouses. They are obsolete both in their foundation and their operation. This is one of the serious reasons why in Ecuador, books are not read. And people are not accustomed to visiting libraries.

8

School books are being widely accepted at primary schools and high schools. School books have short legs, they walk slowly. Information is obsolete and does not contribute towards the education of students. It is not specialized. It does not promote literature; rather it opposes it by publishing improvised or summarized versions, in summarized anthologies. In Ecuador, literature is a minor subject, which does not belong to people's everyday life. Literature can be omitted. It is imprisoned within the school's solemnity.

In the Ecuadorian school system, reading is an academic activity. Children and youths associate reading and books with obligations, as a learning tool, not a tool to live better.

Students are asked to read in order to learn literature, to memorize biographical data of an author, not to promote an encounter between the reader and the writer, which is the true meaning of reading.

The Portuguese writer Jose Saramago believes that formulas can be sought to convert the book, that object and that continent, into a communication platform between one self and another… The book is a place where we will find, above all, a feeling. We will find a view of life, a perception of our fate -to live-, of our relationship with others, the explanation of a sensation, or the statement a theory based on the author’s sensitivity and education and which will be grasped in a different way by each reader.

This task has not been accomplished in our country. To make reading a source of recreation and emotion. A feasible path to intensely and easily entertain yourself or a group of persons. A valid way to learn about other realities and other worlds. A different mirror where one can see oneself from all angles.

9

Consumerism triumphs and overtakes the country. Owning things and not learning is sought. Reading is not important but to entertain people… with TV’s images. With the erotic or sexist publicity. With the promotion of consumer goods. Amusing yourself with cheap stuff suddenly becomes an obligation. It is a status symbol, a behavior pattern. The happy robot becomes stronger. He becomes a role model.

I do not condemn TV or the Internet. A library can coexist well with TV or a computer. "But TV is a real disaster", as the French writer and professor, Daniel Penac, said, "if this is the only thing in a person's life. The current serious problem is whether society wants consumers or thinkers. We are worried that we might be creating children who are clients and not educated persons. Children are publicity targets for many types of products: clothes, food, leisure time, and culture. This is a real civilization change, since for a professor, like me, who is interested in teaching children to develop a critical spirit, my rival is consumerism, which does not fulfill needs but wishes. Meanwhile, I am invoking their basic needs and I need to wait for them to slowly learn how to read".

TV and mass communication media do not cater to the needs for reading or for books. They do not glimpse at libraries. They are interested in cunning, in selling and in how you look. TV and mass media imitate the North American lifestyle. We cannot be like them, but we try to look like them..., even from afar, by using makeup and by consumerism.

Reality shows are increasingly accepted and have greater audiences. News broadcasts become reality shows. Sports do not create sportspersons but spectators.

The key to TV’s success is, in the words of the author of Essay on Blindness: "based on the fact that in order to be in from of the TV for four hours, no effort is required. No. You just sit on your sofa and that is it. But if you want to read, you need to make an effort. Reading is a battle, an encounter, a real dialogue between my sensitivity and my thoughts and the sensitivity and thoughts of the writer. Reading is a relationship and watching TV is not".

10

The hidden iceberg. The iceberg is starting to get bigger. During twentieth century's last decade, children's literature in Ecuador started to seek diverse topics and focuses. It renewed itself without loosing its oral roots. Fairies, including Scandinavian ones, were granted Ecuadorian citizenship. They were included in educational programs. Young writers, mostly teachers, started to write with a playful focus. Poetry and short stories were also renewed. There was an increasing influence from Brazilian and Argentinean literature.

Nevertheless, a small boom exists. More books are written now. There is no official network to promote reading. There is no visible large campaign. There are small networks. There are more contests, and more workshops. There is an increasingly larger participation of writers and editors. Homemakers organize reading associations.

The concept of the book and of reading is increasingly larger and playful.

11

I will include a brief overview on an experience that is taking place in an Ecuadorian province called Morona Santiago and located in the Amazon region. Its population is around 130 thousand. Its population is mainly composed of children and youths at risk. There are half-breeds or immigrants and the people from two Indigenous nationalities: the Shuar and the Achuar. These nationalities represent intangible cultural and humankind heritages and have territories yearned for by medical, oil-drilling, and logging multinational companies.

The Project entails the Creation of an Educational Recreation Center for Children and Youths. It will have different art and reading areas with interconnection halls. Between areas there will be channels for immediate supplementary interactions. Reading, the proposal’s focus, will open roads to painting, movies, theatre, and dance. There will be areas for communication media, for playing and for technology to train people on TV, radio and the Internet. What else can I mention? Reading will be used to promote art; art will promote imagination and culture will become the life's center.

The project's goal is to oppose the consumerist and happy robot.

The conceptual summary of the proposal that we promote.

Dario Fo said:

–During the first seven years of life, a human being’s life is established. During the first seven years of life by means of the relationship that the child has with his / her grandparents.

These words are highlighted: Not with the child’s parents but with his / her grandparents.

Saramago said:

–The word is not a word unless it is pronounced. The word that is written is a shadow. But when we pronounce it, a shadow rises, introduces itself and places itself in front of us. The most insignificant word, the word that apparently does not matter, the everyday word, is like a small treasure.

The future of literature depends on us. It does not depend on the happy robot. It corresponds to culture, to libraries, and to shared life.

Mercedes Falconí
Posada de Borges
Quito-Ecuador

Last Updated 5 September 2005 (LAC)