Cultural policy in Colombia; Studies and documents on cultural ...

’ Cultural policy

in Colombia

Prepared by Jorge Eliécer Ruiz,

Valentina Madanda with the assistance of i!

Studies and documents on cultural policies

In this series :

Cultural policy: a preliminary study Culturalpolicy in the United States, by Charles C. Mark Cultural rights as human rights Cultural policy in Japan, by Nobuya Shikaumi Some aspects of French cultural policy, by the Studies and Research Department of the French

Culturalpolicy in Tunisia, by Rafik Said Cultural policy in Great Britain, by Michael Green and Michael Wilding, in consultation with

Cultural policy in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, by A. A. Zvorykin with the assistance of

Cultural policy in Czechoslovakia, by Miroslav Marek with the assistance of Milan Hromddka and

Culturalpoliey in Italy, a survey prepared under the auspices of the Italian National Commission

Culturalpolicy in Yugoslavia, by Stevan MajstoroviC Cultural policy in Bulgaria, by Kostadine Popov Some aspects of culturalpolicies in India, by Kapila Malik Vatsyayan Cultural policy in Cuba, by Lisandro Otero with the assistance of Francism Martínez Hinojosa Culturalpolicy in Egypt, by Magdi Wahba Culturalpolicy in Finland, a study prepared under the auspices of the Finnish National Commission

Culturalpolicy in Sri Lanka, by H. H. Bandara Culturalpolicy in Nigeria, by T. A. Fasuyi Cultural policy in Iran, by Djamchid Behnam Cultural policy in Poland, by Stanislaw Witold Balicki, Jerzy Kossak and Miroslaw Zulawski T h e role of culture in leisure time in New Zealand, by Bemard W. Smyth Cultural policy in Israel, by Jozeph Michman Cultural policy in Senegal, by Mamadou Seyni M'Bengue Cultural policy in the Federal Republic of Germany, a study prepared under the auspices of the

Culturalpolicy in Indonesia, a study prepared by the staff of the Directorate-General of Culture,

Culturalpolicy in the Philippines, a study prepared under the auspices of the Unesco National

Culturalpolicy in Liberia, by Kenneth Y. Best Culturalpolicy in Hungary, a survey prepared under the auspices of the Hungarian National

The culturalpolicy of the United Republic of Tanzania, by L. A. Mbughuni Cultural policy in Kenya, by Kivuto Ndeti Culturalpolicy in Romnia, by Ion Dodu Balan with the co-operation of the Directorates of the Council of Socialist Culture and Education

Cultural policy in the German Democratic Republic, by Hans Koch Cultural policy in Afghanistan, by Shafie Rahe1 Culturalpolicy in the United Republic of Cameroun, by J. C. Bahoken and Englebert Atangana Some aspects of cultural policy in Togo, by K. M. Aithnard Culturalpolicy in the Republic of Zaire, a study prepared under the direction of Dr Bokonga Ekanga

Culturalpolicy in Ghana, a study prepared by the Cultural Division of the Ministry of Education

Culturalpolicy in the Republic of Korea, by Kim Yersu Aspects of Canadian culturalpolicy, by D. Paul Schafer Culturalpolicy in Costa Rica, by Samuel Rovinski Culturalpolicy in Jamaica, a study prepared by the Institute of Jamaica Culturalpolicy in Guyana, by A. J. Seymour Culturalpolicy in Peru, by the National Institute of Culture Cultural policy in Colombia, by Jorge Elidcer Ruiz, with the assistance of Valentina Marulanda

The seiial numbering of titles in this series, the presentation of which has been modified, was

Ministry of Culture

Richard Hoggart

N. I. Golubtsova and E. I. Rabiaovitch

Josef Cbmust

for Unesco

for Unesco

German Commission for Unesco

Ministry of Education and Culture of the Republic of Indonesia

Commission of the Philippines

Commission for Unesco

Botombele

and Culture, Accra

discontinued with the volume Cultural policy in Italy

Published in 1977 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 7 Place de Fontenoy, 75700 Paris Printed by Imprimerie des Presses Universitaires de France, Vendôme

ISBN 92-3-101417-X La Politica Cultural en Colombia: 92-3-301417-7

0 Unesco 1977 Printed in France

Preface

The purpose of this series is to show how cultural policies are planned and implemented in various Member States.

As cultures differ, so does the approach to them; it is for each Member State to determine its cultural policy and methods according to its own conception of culture, its socio-economic system, political ideology and technical development. However, the methods of cultural policy (like those of general development policy) have certain common problems; these are largely institutional, administrative and hancial in nature, and the need has increasingly been stressed for exchanging experiences and information about them. This series, each issue of which follows as far as possible a similar pattern so as to make comparison easier, is mainly concerned with these technical aspects of cultural policy.

In general, the studies deal with the principles and methods of cultural policy, the evaluation of cultural needs, administrative structures and management, planning and financing, the organization of resources, legislation, budgeting, public and private institutions, cultural content in education, cultural autonomy and decentralization, the training of personnel, institutional infrastructures for meeting specific cultural needs, the safeguarding of the cultural heritage, institutions for the dissemination of the arts, international cultural co-operation and other related subjects.

The studies, which cover countries belonging to differing social and economic systems, geographical areas and levels of development, present, therefore, a wide variety of approaches and methods in cultural policy. Taken as a whole, they can provide guidelines to countries which have yet to establish cultural policies, while all countries, especially those seeking new formulations of such policies, can profit by the experience already gained.

This study was prepared for Unesco by Dr Jorge Eliécer Ruiz of the Colombian Institute of Culture with the assistance of Valentina Marulanda.

The opinions expressed are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of Unesco.

The designations employed and the presentation of the material in this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the '

part of the Unesco Secretariat concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.

Contents

9 Introduction

11

32 The situation of culture 49 70 Cultural development

87 Appendixes

History of the development of Colombian culture

Assessment of the cultural situation

Introduction

This monograph, prepared for Unesco by Dr Jorge Eliécer Ruiz, contains a brief summary of the social and cultural evolution of the country, a description of cultural activity at present, including in particular the work the government is accomplishing through the intermediary of the Colombian Institute of Culture, and a description of the projects being undertaken by the present government.

Since Dr Jorge Eliécer Ruiz is at present Deputy Director of Cultural Communications of the institute, and in charge of the cultural development and policy project being carried out with the technical collaboration of Unesco, he has been able to make a comprehensive critical study of the situation and not simply an enumeration of activities and programmes.

It is clear that cultural development as a factor of social policy has acquired, in the past few years, an importance which could not have been foreseen twenty years ago, and that at the present time cdture, regarded as the expression of the creative potentialities of the human being through attitudes, skills, knowledge and objects, constitutes the basis of any development project at national level. Instead of being an activity of the privileged classes, a leisure occupation or a subject for anthropological research, culture is now regarded as the summation of a people’s personality and the underlying motive for the preservation of its national identity.

The task now being pursued by the Colombian Institute of Culture corresponds to one of the aims of the overall policy of the government, which is designed to lead to the emergence of a juster and more democratic society in which all individuals, whatever their station therein, contribute actively to the attainment of the national objectives.

Inasmuch as no cultural policy can ever be static but should adapt to changes in the national situation, it is very probable that some of the aims here described will be modified in accordance with circumstances and with

9

Introduction

the funds available. None the less, although certain of the judgements expressed are inevitably those of the author, the monograph which has been written by Dr Ruiz and is to be disseminated by Unesco fairly describes the cultural policy which is at present being pursued and which the present governing board of the Colombian Institute of Culture intends to promote.

GLORIA ZEA DE URIBE Director, Colombian Institute of Culture

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Geographically and culturally, present-day Colombia is the outcome of a historical process which began with the dissolution of La Gran Colombia (Greater Colombia) in 1830, the year of the death of the liberator, Simón Bolívar, and culminated, from the territorial viewppint, with the separation from Panama in 1903, and the boundary treaties with neighbouring countries concluded by successive Colombian governments in the course of the twentieth century. Politically speaking, Colombia, in the past century, experienced a long period of instability, reflected not only in innumerable revolutions, civil wars and uprisings of all kinds, but also in frequent changes of constitution and even changes in the name of the country, it being first called La Nueva Granada, then the Confederación Granadina and the United States of Colombia until finally, in 1886, it adopted the name of Republic of Colombia. The same year was marked by the promulgation of the constitution which, with certain modifications, is still in force today.

The political instability and armed struggles which characterized the life of Colombia during the past century, and which are the main thread running through the social history of most of the countries of Latin America, are attributable to deep-rooted causes, closely linked to the history of the Spanish conquest and subsequent colonization of the territory of Tierra Firme y Nueva Granada. The violence which accompanied the slow penetration and subjugation of this large territory populated by tribes at different stages of cultural development and having different habits and customs, together with the looting of their natural wealth and resources, laid the foundations for the social injustice and violence which have afflicted the people of Colombia right into the twentieth century. This situation, together with the profound paternalism and formalism of the Leyes de Indias-which, as the saying of the time had it, were obeyed but not observed-led to an ambiguous situation in which the law was both acknowledged and rejected, forming a sort of no man’s land wherein the social relationships ceased to conform to the traditional pattern and

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degenerated into improvisation, anarchy and violence or, alternatively, into apathy, resignation and dissoluteness.

These social and legal contrasts and polarization appear, incidently, to correspond to, without actually being determined by, the diversity of our geography and climate, and the racial multiplicity and contrasts of the country. These physical and demographic factors, combined with the vicissi- tudes of our history, have given birth to a nation with a personality which, like that of any other nation in the world, is impossible to define in conceptual terms, though its cultural manifestations can be identified.

The intrusion of the Old World into the New gave rise, in both, to a previously unparalleled social tension and a social dynamism. While it has been said that the discovery of the New World is by far the most important event in the history of the Old, it would not be too much to say that it also gave rise to the most systematic exploitation in history and to a major demographic catastrophe, due not only to the violence of the conquest and the introduction of slave labour, but also to cultural differences and to the biological and ecological exchanges resulting from the contacts between the different races.

To understand the p,eculiar features of Colombian culture and, in particular, the historical context of a cultural policy which places the emphasis on problems no longer existing in the countries which exploited our wealth and grew rich on our economic surplus, it is essential to take a brief look back at the main landmarks of our history.

Aboriginal cultures

O n the basis of the most recent archaeological finds and the results of Carbon-14 tests, it is generally assumed that man has lived in what is now Colombia for approximately 12,400 years.

Five major natural regions (the Atlantic plain, the Pacific slopes, the Andes, Orinoquía and Amazonia) were the cradle of the cultures encountered by the first European conquerors. These cultures were by no means homogeneous, but were all marked by different social and cultural features influenced by the topography, climate, environment and geographical features which divided them. Thus, for example, the people of the Andean region had a higher social, economic and cultural level than those living on the shores of the Pacific and the eastern plains and in Amazonia.

Assessing the size of the indigenous population at the time of the conquest has been one of the most difficult problems of the social history of Colombia. The most likely figure seems to be between 1 and 3 million, of whom about 500,000 lived in the Chibcha region. More than 180 linguistic groups have been identified, which is an indication of the lack of cultural unity, due partly to the isolation of the various groups.

The Chibchas were not only the most numerous, they also left traces of a

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solid, unified culture and a degree of social and political organization regarded by many as comparable with that of the Incas and the Aztecs. Modern research, based on the chronicles of the conquest, has shown that the Chibchas possessed basic notions of justice and a system of rules governing the life of the community; they also had institutions such as collective ownership of the land, individual ownership of movable property, regional specialization of industry, division of labour by sex, a uterine kinship system, prohibition of incest, grouping by tribes and confederations, military chieftainship and a system of tribute. The basic social group was the clan, composed of the matrilineal descendants of a common stock and blood relatives. The union of various clans having a common language or dialect formed a tribe, governed by a military chief or cacique.

The archaeological excavations of the past few decades have led to the discovery of important vestiges of pre-Colombian cultures. An enormous number of objects found in tombs and now kept in museums and private collections bear witness to the profound aesthetic sense and refined artistic gifts of these peoples. These objects, in the form of ceramics, gold and silverwork, rock paintings, stone carvings, fabrics and articles made from bone, were essentially popular and utilitarian in character besides, as in the case of all primitive peoples, having magical and religious functions.

GRAPHIC ART

Graphic art, in the form of rock paintings and carvings, was found throughout the territory of the country. The same techniques and materials were used as for primitive cave art all over the world-paints made of vegetable dyes or carvings in the rock. According to the experts, Colom- bian cave paintings should be interpreted as ‘ideograms’, i.e. pictorial symbols used to suggest objects or convey abstract ideas.

CERAMICS

The Indians of Colombia were the first in the Americas to work in ceramics, this occupation flourishing particularly along the shores of the Atlantic and in the western zone. In Colombia, as elsewhere, pottery seems to have been an essentially female occupation. The ceramics of the Quimbayas, the Tayronas and the Tumacos are particularly noteworthy for their beauty of form and their variety of style and decoration as well as for the admirable techniques used in their manufacture. As regards techniques, it is known that they used various substances to render their clay workable. Objects were moulded or built up from rolled strips of clay. For decoration, they used vegetable dyes which were applied by a variety of methods, ranging from simple dipping to negative painting and polychrome.

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SPINNING A N D WEAVING

At the time of the arrival of the conquistadors, this was a craft industry of some importance. The great variety of natural fibres available (cotton, agave fibre, tree bark) combined with the demand for clothing led to the production of fabrics which were also important for purposes of barter exchanges between tribes. The main textile centres were in the eastern part of the country, among the Chibcha peoples and also in the western region, in what are now the Departments of Antioquia and Caldas. Archaeological collections contain a large number of objects and printing blocks in clay which were used in this industry.

SCULPTURE

The most important examples of sculpture are the stone statues made in the regions of the upper Magdalena, in the south of the country, particularly in Tierradentro and San Agustín. The large number of enormous monolithic statues found in these regions constitute a homogeneous whole and have aroused the interest of archaeologists and anthropologists all over the world. They stand close to necropolises, serving as caryatides in the shrines or actually inside the tombs as funerary decoration. They depict the origin of life, the attributes of death and the guardian gods; some of them appear to be related to the cult of the jaguar. In spite of the progress which has already been made towards the clarification of some problems related to this culture, others remain a mystery. Other forms of indigenous sculpture were the objects modelled from clay, which we have described under the general heading of ceramics.

GOLDSMITHERY

Since the territory of the Kingdom of New Granada was rich in gold, most of the tribes living there engaged in goldsmithery. The numerous articles contained today in the Gold Museum and in private collections are but the small fraction remaining after the looting of the conquistadors, who melted the precious objects down into bars bearing the Spanish seal, for transport to the peninsula and thence to other countries of Europe. The main centres of the gold industry, where gold was first extracted and worked, were in the main river valleys, Pacific slopes, the mountain chain between these slopes and the Magdalena River and certain parts of the Atlantic plain. The Quimbaya people and their neighbours developed, in the prehistoric era, the most important gold industry in the whole of Colombia and Latin America, in regard to metallurgical techniques, beauty of form and force of artistic expression. As regards metallurgical techniques, special mention should be made of the cold working of tumbaga (an alloy of copper with less than 30 per cent of gold), out of which the most splendid objects were fashioned.

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These people were also acquainted with other lesser decorative techniques such as molten wire, so-called ‘false filigree’, cutting, openwork, etc. The most common tools were needles, chisels, spatulas, knives, wooden or clay blowpipes, and moulds and crucibles made of stone or fire-clay.

MUSIC

Among the Colombian aborigines, as with all primitive peoples, music was an inseparable accompaniment to certain activities and had, in most cases, a magical and religious significance. They used a large number of musicd instruments, which have been classified in four categories (idiophonic, aerophonic, membranophonic and chordophonic). They included musical bows, conchs, wooden drums and drums with drumheads of skin, ‘rhythm sticks’, pan-pipes, maracas, rattles, tambourines, whistles, etc. Some of these instruments were designed to imitate the sounds of nature and in particular the sounds of the animals which were regarded as sacred (felines, frogs, certain birds), and were used to provide the accompaniment to rites and dances representing daily activities such as hunting and fishing. Some of these instruments have been preserved to this day among the tribes of Orinoquia and Amazonia.1

The foundation of cities and the demographic disaster

‘The most significant result of the conquest was the foundation of cities.’ This was the way in which the Europeans both protected themselves and at the same time, by building towns, re-established continuity with their Mediterranean urban tradition.

The occupation of the present territory of Colombia occurred almost simultaneously along two convergent lines: from the Atlantic coast, the centre of operations being San Domingo, and from Quito in the south where, after the discovery of the Pacific, the conquistadors had established a new centre. After the foundation, in 1510, of San Sebastian de Urabá and Santa María la Antigua del Darién (both of which have now ceased to exist), the process of occupation continued with the building of Santa Marta (1525) and Cartagena (1533), the legendary march to the heart of ‘El Dorado’ in the high Chibcha plateau, and the foundation of Santa Fé de Bogotá in 1538. In the south, the process of occupation was more thorough and more rapid: La Plata in 1531, Popayán in 1536, Cali in 1536, Anserma in 1538, Pasto in 1539. After the foundation of Santa Fé, this city became the centre for colonial expansion in the east of the country.

1. The description of the cultural and demographic aspects of pre-Colombian society is based mainly on the research done by Luis Duque Gómez and Jaime J a r d o Uribe, to whom we wish to express our thanks.

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By and large, the colonization of the Andean region and the Atlantic coast was completed by the end of the 1570s, a considerable exploit in view of the fact that, in 1547, ‘there were not more than 800 Spaniards living in the whole of the N e w Kingdom’.

But the driving force behind this process was not only the need of the newcomers to protect themselves-which led them to exterminate the warlike tribes in the north and south-west of the country-but also greed for gold to meet the pressing demands of the sponsors of the conquest.

On the other hand, the legal regime of the encomienda (grant of land, together with resident Indians, to the conquistadors) imposed on the indigenous population was specifically designed to uproot them from their natural environment and create a pool of labour to be used almost exclusively in the mines. The results of the systematic uprooting of the indigenous peoples, combined with acculturation and the spread of disease and epidemics, were such that one modern researcher declared that ‘the European occupation of the Americas led to a demographic catastrophe unprecedented in the whole of human history’.

This phenomenon, long associated with the leyenda negra, or chronicle of Spanish misdeeds, is now seen to be far more complex than usually represented in the moral arguments against a specific type of conquest. The very presence of the Europeans, quite apart from the actual physical violence and coercion to which the natives were subjected-sufficed to cause a profound split in the structure of the indigenous societies, both at the social and economic levels, and also as regards their relations with their environment, upsetting the balance not only of the family unit but even of the more complex hierarchical systems of societies which had reached an advanced stage of evolution. This process was completed by the systematic destruction of the specific values and physical environment, on which these societies were based.

Reliable studies, using the method devised by Borah and Cook for the study of the demographic situation in the central valley of Mexico, show the rate of decrease of the indigenous population during the sixteenth and seven- teenth centuries, the period when the process of annihilation was most active. This decrease, which in the case of some groups was as much as 9 per cent a year, reduced the demographic potential of native tribes and groups and subsequently hindered their recovery, even when the policy of the colonizing power changed. The plain truth is that the indigenous population in our country now numbers only about 300,000, and there are several groups which are in the process of dying 0ut.l

1. W e have taken our information on this subject from the Historia Económica y Social de Colombia, 1537-1719 by the historian Germen Colmenares, to w h o m we wish to express our thanks.

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The earliest cultural stirring13 in New Granada

The first cultural achievements in the new kingdom were the work of Spaniards who came to the New World with the conquistadors, such as Don Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada, to whom we owe the Antijorio and to whom the authorship of the Epitome de la Conquista del Nuevo Reino de Granada is also attributed, or as explorers of the new territories, such as Martin Fernández de Enciso, to whom we axe indebted for a Suma de Geografía which, in addition to a brief survey of the geographical and cosmographical knowledge of the time, contains useful and interesting information about the customs of the tribes living along the shores of the Caribbean and about the geographical features of that region.

However, the most important chroniclers of New Granada are perhaps Don Juan de Castellanos (1522-1606) and Don Juan Rodriguez Freile (1566- 1638). The former was the author of Elegías de Varones Ilustres de Indias, a work consisting of more than 140,000 lines of verse, written in eight-line stanzas, containing allusions to events occurring in New Granada in the sixteenth century, and descriptions of the customs of the Chibchas among whom he worked as a priest. El Carnero, by Rodriguez Freile, is a picar- esque account of life in Santa Fé de Bogotá and the customs of the Indians of the high plateau, which may be regarded as the predecessor of the nineteenth-century novel of manners.

A notable example of natural literary talent is to be found in the work of a nun, Francisca Josefa del Castillo, born at Tunja in 1671 who, on the advice of her spiritual directors, wrote her Vida and Sentimentos Espiri- tuales, both of which bear comparison with the religious works produced in Spain in the previous century, and represent the expression of a soul naturaliter Christiana soaring at times to the heights of mystical ecstasy.

Even more striking is the case of the Jesuit Hernando Domínguez Camargo, who in Santa Fé de Bogotá, his native town, composed his San Ignacio de Loyola, Poema Heróico, which was published posthumously in Madrid in 1666 and constitutes the supreme expression of gongorism in the New World. H e was a genuine poet, possessed of an extraordinary command of words and vivid imagery, and his work is outstanding for its originality and profound wisdom.

It is natural that the introduction of Spanish cultural values should have been based on missionary activity. For the greater part of the colonial period and until well into the eighteenth century, education and religion were closely linked. From 1554 onwards, the Spaniards set up monastic schools, whose purpose was to teach the natives to read and write. Sec- ondary education was instituted in 1563, under the supervision of the Dominican fathers of the Colegio de Nuestra Señora del Rosario, which later became the Colegio Mayor. Later, with the arrival of the Jesuits, many more secondary schools were established. The education given in these

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schools adhered closely to the traditional western European pattern, teaching mainly what were k n o w n as the liberal arts: logic, rhetoric, grammar, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music.

T h e Thomist (1580) and Xavierian (1623) Universities, and the short- lived University of San Nicolás (1694) gave instruction in theology, canon and civil law, philosophy and the arts, and were attended mainly by students from the upper classes, in particular the Creole aristocracy and the ‘American Spanish’. In addition to these universities situated in the capital of the territory of the Real Audiéncias, there was also the University of Popayán, founded by the Jesuits.

T h e arts-architecture, painting, sculpture and music-adhered closely to the patterns set by the h o m e country. In architecture, the Mudejar style predominated, the best extant examples being at Tunja and Cali. T h e Gothic style was evident in the earliest military edifices at Santa Marta and Cartagena. T h e decorative elements of church architecture in N e w Granada were strongly influenced by the Baroque, with little admixture of indigenous elements, unlike the situation in Mexico City and Quito.

T h e craftsmen engaged in painting and sculpture-they were not creative artists in the true sense of the world-provided the imagery for the celebration of the cult and popular devotion. T h e control exercised by the church over art cramped the style of artists and prevented the search for n e w means of expression, which explains the anonymity of almost all the art of the colonial era.

There were, however, some artists who managed to escape fiom the scholastic uniformity of the time: Angelino Medoro and Francisco del Pozo, Italians working in the Mannerist style, Bartolomé de Figueroa, who founded a school of painting for Indians, and who introduced an individual note into his pictures; Baltazar de Figueroa, Antonio Acero de la Cruz and Gregorio Vásquez Ceballos, a native of Santa Fé, whose work, showing complete mastery of technique, represents the culmination of N e w Granada painting.

T h e music of N e w Granada, which was likewise transplanted from Spain, is mainly liturgical and religious. It was composed by choir-masters, clerics and friars, and falls into four main categories: (a) the conventual music of religious communities; (b) missionary music for use in the teaching and evangelization of the Indians; (c) parochial music for the congregations of Creole and Indian churches; (d) ecclesiastical music proper, i.e. liturgical or ritual music, used for services held in the cathedrals of the principal cities.

No detailed technical knowledge of the music of N e w Granada was available until relatively recently, w h e n the musicologist Robert Stevenson carried out research in the archives of the cathedral of Bogotá. In addition there is the purely historical information supplied by the chroniclers of the colonial period, and for the modern period the great work done by the priest José Ignacio Perdomo Escobar.

T h e results of Stevenson’s research, confined unfortunately to the

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archives of the cathedral of Bogotá, are published in his book, L a Música Colonial en Colombia, which also gives a critical inventory of this invaluable storehouse of music, containing works by Gutiérrez Fernández, Juan de Herrera, Juan Jiménez, José Cascante, and by notable Spanish composers such as Sebastián Aguilera de Heredia, Rodrigo de Ceballos, Francisco Guerrero and Tomás Luis de Victoria.

Thanks to the transcription work done in the past few years by musicians and choir-masters, something is now known about some of these works, most of which are polyphonic (masses, motets, magnificats, carols) vocal duets and trios, sung a capella or to the accompaniment of an instrument.

Parallel with this ‘cultivated’ music in the European tradition, popular forms of music continued to be played at traditional festivals and family gatherings. Spanish, indigenous and black African strains combined to give birth to popular Colombian airs such as the bambuco, the cumbia, the joropo, the pasillo, and so on.

Ideological, scientific and revolutionary ferment

The cultural monopoly of the church lasted nearly three hundred years in Colombia. It was not until the middle of the eighteenth century, following the changes introduced at the Spanish court with the accession of the Bourbons, that the winds of change reached New Granada, wafting in new ideas which were to culminate in therevolutionaryindependence movement.

The last third of the eighteenth century and the first years of the nineteenth were marked by three events of the utmost importance: the educational reform carried out by the attorney-general Francisco Moreno y Escandón, the organization of the botanical expedition, and the revolution of the comuneros (‘commoners’).

The ideological climate of enlightened despotism, the most extreme manifestation of which was the expulsion of the Jesuits from the domain of Spain by royal decree of Carlos III, prepared the way for the adoption, in 1774, of the Plan de Estudios, which was marked by ideological trends contrary to the theological and scholastic spirit of colonial education.

This plan envisaged the setting up of a public university more in line with the country’s needs and turned towards practical subjects and the study, assessment and rational exploitation of the resources of the viceroyalty. It gave priority to such subjects as physics, chemistry and mathematics and repudiated metaphysics.

It was against this background of innovation that, in the year 1783, the Expedición Botánica del Nuevo Reino de Granada was organized, under the direction of José Celestino Mutis, whose magisterial authority contributed more than any other single factor to create the ideological climate of independence. The opening words of his speech on the inauguration of the Chair of Mathematics, the first to be set up on the continent, have become

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famous : ‘ W e are looking not towards our backward Spain, but towards learned Europe.’ Mutis gave practical effect to his intentions by his defence of the Copernican system and the physics of Newton, and by the introduction of the Linnaean system into natural science teaching.

Of the team of collaborators in the botanical expedition (probably the most successful scientific experiment the country ever made) special mention should be m a d e of Francisco José de Caldas, w h o built up an immense and very valuable herbarium of 5,000 plants and collected the material necessary for making a geographical map of the viceroyalty. T h e foundation of the Seminano del Nuevo Reino de Granada, which published scientific papers on geography, botany, zoology, medicine, political education and philosophy, constituted the first systematic attempt to present an ecological and anthropological picture of the country.

Don Antonio G ó m e z Restrepo, in his history of Colombian literature, gives this superlative description of the work and achievements of the botanical expedition:

Mutis and his group carried out a veritable intellectual revolution, which m a y be said to have paved the way for another revolution of wider scope. From science to politics was but a short step. Those who see a priest refuting the centuries-old wisdom of Ptolemy will breathe the air of freedom and begin to realize that the validity of the principles on which the colonial regime is based m a y also be open to challenge.

H e was helped in this gigantic task by a number of other Colombians, including Diego García, Eloy Valenzuela, Pedro Fermín de Vargas, Jorge Tadeo Lozano, Francisco Antonio Zea, José Manuel Restrepo, Salvador Rizo and Francisco Javier Matís.

It was in this intellectual atmosphere that the first stirrings of insur- rection began, a prelude to a series of moves towards emancipation which culminated in the Constitution of the first republic. T h e immediate cause of the revolt of the comuneros was the accumulation of taxes and restraints imposed on the craftsmen and merchants in eastern Colombia, at that time the most developed part of the country. This movement, initiated in 1781 in the town of Socorro, spread rapidly throughout the country, and the insurgents marched to the capital of the viceroyalty, where they succeeded in obtainiug the acceptance of certain concessions, which were later disallowed by the viceroy, A m a r y Borbón. Although unsuccessful as a revolution since the aim was not independence, the action of the comuneros did sow the seeds of emancipation and m a d e the people as a whole aware of their rights as citizens.

It is clear that the repercussions of this scientific, ideological and revolutionary unrest were m u c h wider than they would otherwise have been because of the introduction, in 1738, of the printing press, followed, naturally, by the appearance of newspapers. T h e most important newspapers published at that time included the Papel Periódico de Santa Fé de

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Bogotci, founded and directed by a Cuban, Manuel del Socorro Rodriguez, El Redactor Americano and the Alternativo del Redactor Americano, also directed by Rodriguez.

In some instances, these journalistic activities were closely connected with those of literary clubs, the most important of which were the Tertulia Eutropélica, the Buen Gusto and the Naturalistas, where many of the leaders of the future republic used to foregather, including the ‘precursor of independence’, Don Antonio Nariño, outstanding for his patriotic fervour.

In addition to spreading the word himself, Nariño translated and had printed at his own expense the Déclaration des Droits CEe l’Homme et du Citoyen, the synthesis of the philosophy of the Enlightenment and of the Encyclopaedists and the ideological basis of the French Revolution.

Other outstanding cultural events which occurred at the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth were the establishment of the National Library, the first of its kind in Latin America, in 1777; the construction of the Coliseo de Ramírez, the first theatre in the viceroyalty; and the creation of the Astronomical Observatory at Santa Fé, the first in the Americas.

The pre-revolutionary period, beginning in 1767 with the expulsion of the Jesuits from the territory of the viceroyalty and ending with the document of protest to the Spanish authorities entitled Representación hl Cabildo de Santa Fé a la Suprema Junta Central de España, drawn up by Don Camilo Torres in 1809 and known as the Memorial de Agravios (‘statement of complaints’), is one of the most fertile periods of Colombian national culture, during which science, literature and the arts developed within a broadideological and political context, thus acquiring the relevance and force to arouse national awareness and bring about a change in collective values and attitudes.

Political independence and the consolidation of education

In the twenty years between 1810 and 1830, Colombia devoted most of its energies to the armed struggle against the Spanish monarchy and the consolidation of its national identity. The early years of the First Republic, which collapsed in the blood-bath of 1819, were dominated by two outstanding personalities, Antonio Nariño and Camilo Torres. The list of the patriots executed under the reign of terror instituted by the ‘pacifier’ Pablo Mori110 includes the names of illustrious scholars, miters, politicians and soldiers who sacrificed their lives for their ideals.

Independence was finally attained thanks to the genius of Bolívar, whose skill as a strategist and whose political vision transcended national boundaries and made him a leader of continental stature. General Francisco de Paula Santander devoted his gifts as an administrator and his capacities to the reconstruction of the republic.

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It is thus understandable that, during these years, the efforts of the most outstanding individuals were concentrated on the struggle for emancipation rather than on scientific and cultural activities.

Despite this situation, understandable in a period of revolution, Bolívar, in his very first speeches and political statements, expressed concern about education and culture, the development of which, he was convinced, constituted the first step towards emancipation from Spain: ‘Popular education’, he said, ‘must be the first fruit of the paternal concern of the Congress. Morals and enlightenment are the two poles of a Republic; morals and enlightenment are our primary needs.’

It was not until about 1826, however, that there began a long period of educational reforms, which lasted until after 1850, with the leaders of both parties pressing for the establishment of an educational system appropriate to the situation and needs of the nascent republic. Plans were made for the democratization of education, and Bolívar promulgated decrees designed to improve the situation of the Indians and slaves. Santander encouraged tolerance and opened up the educational system to English teachers.

In this climate of reform, one of the first innovations was the establishment of schools organized according to Lancaster’s ‘monitorial system’ which was in vogue in Europe at the time, and Bolívar invited Joseph Lancaster himself to supervise this enterprise.

General Santander’s Plan de Estudios ordered the establishment, throughout the republic, of public education free of charge and adapted to the needs of all. This gave an impetus to the education and culture provided in centres outside of universities and schools. At the same time, special higher educational institutions such as the School of Mines, the School of Medicine and the Military Academy were established. In the Colegio del Rosario and the Colegio San Bartolomé, chairs of anatomy, surgery, and other medical subjects and chairs of philosophy were set up, and it was forbidden to practise medicine without first qualifying as a doctor.

In order to introduce a new outlook into public education, textbooks expressing positivist, materialist and utilitarian views were officially recommended and sponsored, and the curricula for science, politics, the arts, literature and philosophy were reformed. The use of Latin was prohibited in all domains of education, and it was replaced by Spanish and modern foreign languages such as French and English.

In short, the reforms of the Santander régime, which were based on the ideals of Mutis and Moreno y Escandón, radically changed the Colombian educational system, replacing scholasticism and abstractions by education of a practical, empirical type.

In 1842, Doctor Mariano Ospina Rodriguez put forward a curriculum comprising rigid disciplinary and organizational regulations, and concentrating on technical and experimental subjects. José Eusebio Caro, in the same period, had already spoken of the need for introducing new courses on

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technical subjects in universities, and had set a fourfold aim for education: to improve the industrial, political, moral and religious state of the nation, with a view to attaining the Anglo-Saxon ideal of the man versed in both the humanities and the sciences, a man of letters and a man of business combined.

Subsequently, as a consequence of the French Revolution of 1848, there was a radical reaction led by a liberal, José Hilario López, and extremely wide-ranging measures, the antithesis of those previously adopted, were taken. The Law of 1850 repealed all previous provisions relating to public education and established complete freedom of education. One measure that had far-reaching results was the abolition of diplomas, which were declared unnecessary for the exercise of any profession. This destroyed the educational hierarchy and paved the way for the establishment of non- formal education. At the same time, universities were abolished, and their buildings and funds were used for setting up national colleges.

To follow up the work of the Expedición Botánica del Nuevo Reino de Granada on geographical problems and investigations of the country’s natural and human resources, the foundation of the Chorographic Commission in 1851, under the direction of an engineer, Agustín Codazzi, was undoubtedly the most important date in the scientific and cultural history of Colombia in the nineteenth century.

In addition to its extensive work on the production of geographical maps of the country, the Chorographic Commission made an important contribution to culture, particularly in the fields of archaeology and anthropology.

The people who collaborated with Codazzi in this important undertaking included naturalists, writers and skilled artists, all of w h o m contributed to the knowledge of the country. Manuel Ancísar recorded his observations in La Peregrinación de Alpha, one of the most important travel books written in Colombia. This was followed by Santiago Pérez’s Apuntamientos de Viaje por Antioquia por las Provincias del Sur, which also contains some interesting descriptions.

These activities in the fields of education and science culminated in the foundation in Bogotá, in 1867, of the National University of Colombia, which was to become the most important educational centre in the country, teaching a wide range of subjects and training for the liberal and technical professions.

Education and literature in the nineteenth century

The history of the republic in the nineteenth century was troubled, and the great economic disparities led to an accentuation of the inequalities between the ruling classes and the rest of society. The historian Indalecio Liévano Aprre, to describe the situation, cites the words of Don Enrique

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Cortés, Secretary of the Senate of Plenipotentiaries that tried General T o m á s Cipriano de Mosquera, five times president of the republic:

The people of the Republic of Colombia are divided into two classes. The first comprises about 8 or at most 10 per cent of the population. It holds the monopoly of employment (public office), learning and wealth, and a certain degree of education and wealth is required to enter it. The second class is composed of the great mass of the people w h o till the fields, carry the burdens, work in the mines and live by their hands. The people in this class can neither read nor write, usually lack moral resources, and are opposed to progress. . . . It cannot be said that the minority, the educated class, holding the monopoly of riches and power, is either capable of or willing to use the means at their disposal, to counteract the evils of such complete and general ignorance.

Against this social background and in the political atmosphere of extreme antagonism between the various parties and factions into which the national leaders were divided, erupting frequently into revolutions, full- scale or limited civil wars or military insurrections, an intellectual and literary movement gradually came into being. It was thanks to the character of this movement, its cultivation of the classical humanities, its respect for language and the rules governing its proper usage and also, probably, to the alliance existing between the military caudillo and the writer or poet, between the statesman and the classicist, between the president of the nation and the rhetorician or grammarian, that Santa Fé de Bogotá carne to be known as the ‘Athens of South America’, though it was probably not realized that this title also perfectly fitted the situation described by D o n Enrique Cortés.

T h e population of the country grew very slowly after the end of the eighteenth century. T h e 1770 census gave the figure of 806,209, which was m u c h smaller than the estimated population at the time of the discovery. A century later, the tenth census gave the figure of 2,951,000, which makes an annual increase of 1.3 per cent. T h e population distribution and density were very low, indicating a generally low level of consumption and of economic and social development. There were certain regions, as there are today, that were practically uninhabited, and many parts of the country were extremely isolated due to geographical factors and poor communications. Luis Eduardo Nieto Arteta, in his Economía y CuZtura en la Historia de Colombia, said that the eastern part of the country was engaged in manufacture and trade while the western part had a mining and slave-owning economy. Against this background of unrest, isolation, inequality and poverty there developed in the eighteenth century, a cultural movement of some importance, characterized mainly by literary activities of various kinds-poetry, philosophy, history and journalism-and by the development of the physical and natural sciences, springing from the seed sown by the botanical expedition.

A m o n g those whose childhood and early youth was marked by the

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recurring bloodshed of the wars of independence and who may be classified as romantics should be mentioned the poets José Fernández and Luis Vargas Tejada, José Eusebio Caro, the Catholic ideologist and defender of traditionalism inspired by Anglo-Saxon models, and Julio Arboleda, an epic and lyric poet and a seasoned political fighter.

The poetic tradition was carried on until the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth by such eminent writers as Rafael Pombo, famous for his fables and stories for children; José Asunción Silva, the author of elegant lyrical and satirical poetry and the precursor of modernism in the Americas; Guillermo Valencia, the Parnassian poet, a consummate master of language and form; and Julio Florez, a late romantic, drawing his inspiration from popular sources.

Among the historians, philologists and thinkers, mention should be made of the following: José Joaquín Acosta, whose Descubrimiento y Conquista de Colombia contains a systematic summary of much of the information established by the chroniclers and the botanical expedition and drawn from his own researches in France and Great Britain: José Manuel Groot, the author of the Historia Eclesiástica y Civil de Nueva Granada, begun in 1856, a traditionalist defence of the church; Joaquín Posada Gutiérrez whose Memorias Histórico-políticas, though not entirely reliable, gives a vivid, colourful account of the events in which he took part or which he wit- nessed; José María Vergara y Vergara, founder of El Mosaico which popu- larized the writers who, from 1858 onwards, developed the genre style, which portrays scenes from ordinary life. Vergara y Vergara was also the author of the first Historia de la Literatura en la Nueva Granada, which subsequent historians of Colombian literature took as a model: José María Samper, a journalist, essayist and sociologist, was the author of an outstanding essay, Ensayo sobre las Revoluciones Políticas y la Condición Social de las Repúblicas Hispanoamericanas, a socio-political examination of the independence movement and a comparative study of the social situation in the new republics in relation to that of Spain and the English-speaking countries. Miguel Samper, Santiago Pérez Triana, Salvador Camacho Roldán, Manuel Ancízar and Carlos Arturo Torres were all outstanding writers on public affairs, who devoted their attention to examination of the political, moral and physical situation of the country, and helped to bring Colombia into the mainstream of world thought and out of the narrow Spanish sphere of influence.

There was also another writer who perhaps contributed even more to promoting the ideological and aesthetic movement in Colombia: Baldomero Sanh Cano (1861-1957), a native of Popayán, who influenced and inspired not only several generations of Colombians but also writers and thinkers all over the continent. His main works are: Letras Colombianas, La Civili- zación Manual y Otros Ensayos, Divagaciones Filológicas and De mi Vida y Otras Vidas.

The novel, in Colombia, developed on the basis of the cuadros de

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costumbres (sketches from daily life); the principal exponents of this genre in Spain were Mariano José de Larra and Mesonero Romanos and it was mainly represented, in Colombia, by El Mosaico, a periodical publication promoted by Vergara y Vergara. The novel was thus concerned with the depiction of local conditions and was little more than an extension of the chronicle or description of daily life.

In this genre, a writer who stands out from the rest is Tómas Carrasquilla, whose vivid use of language, irony and humour and pen- etrating analysis of character and situations give his work international status. His principal works are La Marquesa de Yolombó, Grandeza, Frutos de mi Tierra and a large number of well-written short stories.

Special mention should be made of María by Jorge Isaacs, a work of insipid romanticism, which fluttered many an adolescent heart in Latin America and which started a literary genre which was subsequently to occupy an important place in the country’s literature, the romantic novel.

There were numerous periodicals, some of them short-lived. Mention should be made of two which were of outstanding quality: El Papel Perio- dico Ilustrado, directed and organized by the versatile Alberto Urdaneta, and El Repertorio Colombiano, directed by Carlos Martinez Silva, an outstanding politician, jurist and sociologist.

Special mention should be made of Miguel Antonio Caro and Rufino José Cuervo, philologists, linguists and critics who produced works of outstanding quality, in addition to being the co-founders, with Marco Fidel Suárez, of a humanistic tradition of which the country is justly proud. Caro, who was president of the republic, was a very prolific writer, whose works included studies of literary and grammatical criticism, Latin poetry, Latin translations, and constitutional studies, besides numerous essays and poems. Cuervo was one of the great philologists of the last century, and his unfinished Diccionario de Construcción y Régimen de la Lengua Castellana was one of the great works of nineteenth-century philology and the first of its kind to be produced in Spanish. Suárez was a disciple of Cuervo and his essays, published under the title Sueños de Luciano Pulgar are outstanding for the purity of their language and the force of their ideas. Suárez, like Caro, was president of the republic.

This period of ideological unrest was not conducive to the flowering of the arts, and painting, like literature, concentrated on portraying scenes from ordinary life, the only outstanding figures being the caricaturist José María Espinosa, the portrait painter Epifanio Garay and the engraver Alberto Urdaneta. Drama dealt with personal and domestic themes and was of little significance. Of the composers, mention should be made of Julio Quevedo and José María Ponce de León.

The nineteenth century, to sum up, saw the consolidation of educational theory and practice and the establishment of a recognizable Colombian literary and scientific identity. In the political crucible, all ideologies merged, as was inevitable since Colombia, on attaining its independence

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from colonial rule, came under the influence of the countries which were in the vanguard of culture in that century: France, Great Britain and, to a lesser extent, the United States.

The social situation and literature in the twentieth century. The renaissance of the plastic arts

T h e coming of the twentieth century saw the end of the succession of great leaders, scholars and generals w h o were also humanists and fighters devoting their energy to defending the frontiers of civilization, building the republic, imposing the principles of equity and the rule of law on the accumulated inequalities reflected in the distribution of wealth and the deficiencies of a system of education which was still élitist, academic, idealist and ineffective in transforming the economy and bringing it into the twentieth century. T h e fact is that, during the first fifty years of the century, the upper classes of the country and m a n y of its leaders regarded culture simply as an ornament of their affluence, a luxury which might o n occasion be shared with the lower orders. This situation was at the time general throughout Latin America. Colombia could not and did not constitute an exception, since it was impossible to democratize culture so long as individual poverty and social deprivation presented insuperable obstacles even to those statesmen who were most concerned about the social welfare of their compatriots.

Even now, the disparities between the different strata of society and between urban and rural areas constitute an obstacle to the democratization of social development and culture, and the effective participation of the community in development projects.

Miguel Urritia and Albert Berry, in their book on the distribution of income in Colombia (La Distribución del Ingreso en Colombia), describe the situation as follows:

As will be seen, there is a considerable concentration of income in the urban areas. One and a half per cent of the labour force controls approximately 15 per cent of the total revenue, the top two-tenths of the population control 60 per cent of the total revenue, and 30 per cent of the labour force earn only about 4.5 per cent of the total revenue.

In the rural areas, it must be said, the position as regards distribution is even worse. . . . In these areas, the richest 1.5 per cent of the labour force control 27 per cent of the revenue, as against only 15 per cent in the towns, and the top two-tenths of the population possess 65 per cent of the revenue, as against 60 per cent in the urban areas. Nevertheless, since there is no real unemployment in the countryside, the bottom 30 per cent of the population earn about 8.5 per cent of the total rural income, whereas the bottom 30 per cent of the urban workers earn only 4.5 per cent of the total urban income.

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As to the situation in education, the most detailed account is perhaps that contained in the preamble to Decrees 102 and 088 of 1976, reforming the Colombian educational system. T h e Minister of Education, speaking on this occasion, said:

The structure of an educational system is such that, despite its complexity, it can be described simply in terms of levels of schooling.

Traditionally, the Colombian educational system has been organized on three levels: primary, secondary and higher, with corresponding elementary schools, secondary schools and universities. But this does not correspond to the structure of society. Education is so badly organized that only 77 per cent of the children reaching school age (7 years) are actually able to go to school: 230 children out of every 1,000 never go to school.

Statistics show that, of every 100 children who enter the 6rst grade of primary school, 46 reach the third grade and 28 complete the fifth grade. But these figures are deceptive. Closer examination shows that, in urban zones, 52 out of every 100 children reach the third grade, and 28 the fifth grade, whereas the corresponding figures for children in rural areas are 15 and 5. At primary level, the school attendance rate is low and there is a high drop-out rate.

Of every 100 children completing primary school (five grades) in State schools, only 36 go on to graduate from State secondary institutions. In the State education system, there is not merely a discontinuity between primary and secondary levels but a complete break.

Student flows at secondary level are very similar to those at primary level: out of every 100 pupils entering the first grade of secondary school, 50 reach the fourth grade, and 31 obtain their school-leaving certificate in the sixth grade. According to all the statistics, 300 out of every 1,000 of these certificate holders, each year, fail to obtain admission to the university; and of those who enter the university, 40 per cent drop out between the first and the third year.

The gap between secondary and higher level is at least as great as between primary and secondary level, while the distortion and ill effects are greater because the subjects taught at the university are more divorced from practical life than at the previous educational levels. It is extremely difficult to account for this 40 per cent drop-out rate in the first two years of university.

As regards the practical benefit of secondary schooling, neither those school- leavers who fail to obtain admission to the university nor those who leave the university during the first two years are qualified to exercise a profession or obtain useful or well-paid work. It is common knowledge that the level of secondary studies is low, that curricula are too general, too theoretical and not sufficiently practical, that there is not enough vocational guidance, that education is too bookish and not sufficiently relevant to national conditions, and that school- leaving certificates are awarded to students who are not able to make use of them even to continue their studies.

The social and economic situation described briefly above has, of course, influenced cultural development in the present century and determined the nature of cultural action and policy. T h e State has been constantly concerned with ‘closing the gap’ and eliminating disparities in the economic and social structures. Proof of this is to be found, for instance, in the Plan

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for Social, Economic and Regional Development 1975-78, and the educational reforms and integrated rural development programmes promulgated and promoted by the present government.

To complete the picture of the cultural development of the country that we have endeavoured to give by means of a brief historical survey, we shall now describe the development of literature, which is the most important form of expression in a country with a humanistic, literary tradition such as ours. But we must first mention a significant event in the cultural development: the renaissance of the creative spirit in the plastic arts which, as we have already said, have been subjected to the rigid colonial canons.

The pioneers of this movement, in the twentieth century, were Andrés da Santa Mariá, a sophisticated artist who worked in the Impressionist style; Ricardo Acevedo Bernal, a highly skilled portrait painter; and Francisco A. Cano, a painter and sculptor. Contact with European movements such as Impressionism and Expressionism and, in particular, with Mexican mural painting, led to the emergence of such important artists as Pedro Nel Gómez, Ignacio Gómez Jaramillo, Carlos Correa, Luis Alberto Acuña, Ramón Barba and Alipio Jaramillo, who did much to give ar^ a social significance which it had lacked at earlier times.

In literature, the work of Baldomero Sanin Cano, Guillermo Valencia and Tomás Carrasquilla continued to exercise an influence on Colombian literature until the middle of the twentieth century. The critical and universal spirit of the first of these writers, the sensitivity and elegant style of the second, together with attachment to the land, to traditional values and to the preservation of popular speech are constant features in our literature, appearing sometimes in isolation, or else combining, in the work of a very great writer such as Gabriel García Márquez, to produce new forms of literature.

It was largely due to the influence of Sanin Cano that the essay came to enjoy special favour in our country. The form of the essay somehow suited the expression of the country’s changing institutions and the development of secular, anti-religious spirit. Germán Arciniegas, Armando Solano, Alberto Lleras, Hernando Téllez, Jorge Zalamea, Jorge Gaitán and Hernando Valencia were outstanding essayists, and the last two were also the editors of the review, Mito, which played a decisive part in awakening national awareness and bringing the country to make the final break with the monopoly exercised by Spain over the whole of Colombian thought.

In poetry, despite the inthence of the French Symbolist and Parnassian movements and contact with British and North American trends, Spain continued to put its imprint on Colombian writers. At the beginning of the century, three outstanding figures dominated the poetical scene in Colombia Luis Carlos López, who broke away from traditional subjects and forms, and derided the parochial solemnity of South American political bosses; León de Greiff, whose versatile, contradictory talent, rich vocabulary and musical forms produced works of universal significance rooted, none the

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less, in typically national values; Porfirio Barba Jacob (Miguel Angel Osorio) who inherited the bohemian demonism of Baudelaire, Poe and Rimbaud, but whose work is more notable for its range of expression than its artistic form. A special place, in this century, was occupied by Rafael Maya, Aurelio Arturo, Fernando Charry Lara, Alvaro Mutis, Eduardo Cote Lamus and Jorge Gaitán, who embodied the best traditions of Spanish American poetry, and were in addition excellent critics.

As regards novel writing, there were two significant events which contributed greatly to changing Colombian narrative writing and putting an end to the stagnation which had lasted for centuries. José Eustasio Rivera, with La Vorhgine, struck a blow against literature of the ‘art-for- art’s-sake’ school, making way for the treatment of social problems in art. In his work landscape, treated hitherto as a purely external and decorative element, is intimately interwoven with the personalities of the characters, creating a dramatic, tense atmosphere transcending the passing interest of peripeteia. Rivera, like Carrasquilla, exercised a decisive influence on the development of the regionalist novel in Latin America. Subsequently, Gabriel García Márquez, with Cien Años de Soledad, El Coronel no Tiene Quien le Escriba, and El Otoño del Patriarca gave the Colombian novel a national character by writing about specifically Colombian problems. His works are admirable both for their narrative skill and their use of words, and the boundary between dream and reality is effaced, submerging the reader in a mythical, dream-like world in which time and space have no significance. The work of García Márquez is certainly the most important and coherent contribution made by Colombian literature to the knowledge of a very important facet of the national character; and El Otoño del Patriarca marks a final break with the traditional Western novel, eliminating the Kantian categories of space and time. The many translations of his works into various languages and the high regard in which they are held by critics all over the world have placed García Márquez in the forefront of Latin American fiction.

Historical, anthropological, economic and sociological research and publications have all contributed to establishing the identity of Colombian man, and mobilizing a society which has discarded its archaic structure and entered the mainstream of modern life, without thereby losing its true national identity.

Bibliography

BUENAVENTURA, Enrique; REYES, Carlos José. Teatro [The Theatre]. Bogotá, 1975.

COLMENARES, Germán. Historia Económica y Social de Colombia, 1532-1719 [Economic and

DUQUE GOMEZ, Luis. Historia Extensa de Colombia [Complete History of Colombia],

(Unpublished monograph.)

Social History of Colombia, 1532-17191. Cali, Universidad del Valle, 1973.

Part I, Vols. 1 and 2. Bogotá, Ediciones Lerner, 1965-67.

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FALS BORDA, Orlando. L a Educación Superior en Colombia, Bases Para su Interpretación Sociológica [Higher Education in Colombia: Towards a Sociological Interpretation]. Bogotá, Universidad Pedagógica, 1968. (Monograph.)

FRIEDE, Juan. Los Chibchas Bajo la Dominación Espaffola [The Chibchas Under Spanish Domination]. Medellín, Ediciones L a Carreta, 1974.

HERNANDEZ DE ALBA, Guillermo. Aspectos de la Cultura en Colombia [Aspects of Culture in Colombia]. Bogotá, Biblioteca Popular de Cultura Colombiana, 1947. - . Documentos para la Historia de la Educación en Colombia [Documents for the History of Education in Colombia]. 3 Vols. Bogotá, Patronato Colombiano de Artes y Ciencias, 1969,1973,1976.

JARAMILLO URIBE, Jaime. Ensayos Sobre Historia Social Colombiana [Essays on the Social History of Colombia]. Bogotá, Universidad Nacional, 1971. - . El Pensamiento Colombiano en el Siglo XIX [Colombian Thought in the Nineteenth Century]. Bogotá, Editorial Temis, 1974.

MCGREVEY, William P. Historia Económica de Colombia [Economic History of Colombia]. Bogotá, Editorial Tercer Mundo, 1975.

MOLANO, Alfredo. Economía y Educación en 1850 [Economy and Education in 18501. Eco, No. 172, Bogotá, 1975.

NIETO ARTETA, Luis Eduardo. Economfa y Cultura en la Historia de Colombia [Economy and Culture in the History of Colombia]. Bogotá, Editora Viento del Pueblo, 1975.

ORTfZ, Sergio Elías. Historia Extensa de Colombia [Complete History of Colombia], Part IV, Vol. 2. Bogotá, Ediciones Lerner, 1970.

PARDO TOVAR, Andrés. Historia Extensa de Colombia [Complete History of Colombia], Part XX, Vol. 6. Bogotá, Ediciones Lerner, 1966.

RODRIGUEZ, Agueda. Historia de las Universidades Hispanoamericanas [History of the Latin American Universities]. Bogotá, Instituto Caro y Cuervo, 1973.

VERGARA Y VERGARA, José María. Historia de la Literatura en la Nueva Granada [History of Literature in N e w Granada]. Bogotá, Banco Popular, 1974.

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The situation of culture

The organization and adminiatration of culture

T h e body responsible for the organization and administration of culture in Colombia and the planning of its development is the Colombian Institute of Culture (Colcultura), set up by Decree No. 3154 of 1968, and organized by Decree No. 994 of 1969.

The Colombian Institute of Culture (Colcultura) attached to the Ministry of National Education, is a public institution, i.e. a body corporate enjoying administrative autonomy and its own assets, organized in accordance with the standards laid down in Decree No. 3154, the regulations laid down in that decree and those contained in its own statutes.

T h e structure of the institute (see Appendix) comprises the governing board, the directorate with its central administrative and advisory bodies (general secretariat, planning bureau, Advisory Office for Communications), and its three Departments of the Cultural Heritage, Cultural Communi- cations and the Fine Arts respectively. Details of these departments and the development of the fields they cover will be given later.

T h e institute is responsible for:

preparing, drafting and implementing plans for the study and promotion of arts and letters, encouraging national folklore, setting up libraries, museums and cultural centres, and carrying out other cultural activities in line with the general policy formulated by the government through the Ministry of Education and in accordance with the decisions taken by the governing board of the institute.

T h e establishment in 1968 of a body for the supervision and administration of culture represented a decisive stage in the activities of the State in the field of cultural development and, thanks to the breadth of its objectives and the variety of its functions, constituted a marked advance

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by comparison with the previous ineffectuality of cultural administration. Nevertheless, certain important aspects of cultural development and activity remained under the control of other ministries and government organs, although Colcultura played a co-ordinating role. Thus, for instance, social communication, a vital factor in cultural development policy, comes under the Ministry of Communication, cultural tourism and handicrafts under the Colombian National Tourism and Handicrafts Corporation, attached to the Ministry of Development and the protection of the national heritage under the Ministry of Public Works.

This system, the result of a traditional distribution of functions among government departments, has proved workable thanks to close co-ordination by the central directorate and the elaboration of joint programmes designed to promote culture in areas administered by other bodies. Attention should, nevertheless, be drawn to the need for setting up more effective machinery so as to ensure that mass communication plays a more active and coherent part in social and cultural development, and that the Colombian Institute of Culture is given the administrative and financial means, at present lacking, for defending the rights of cultural workers.

Within the organic framework of the institute, the directorate has prepared certain strategic programmes, relating mainly to various aspects of the dissemination of information at the national and international levels, and to the training of the personnel in the direct employ of the institute in cultural management.

Special mention should be made of the organization of the exhibition ‘Colombian Art Through the Centuries’, containing over 800 works of art belonging to various periods, from the pre-Colombian epoch to the twentieth century. This exhibition was inaugurated on 15 November 1975 in the Petit Palais (Paris) and was subsequently taken to Madrid and Barcelona. It was also to be taken to Havana, Mexico City, São Paulo and Miami. The institute also contributed to International Women’s Year by presenting a report on ‘Cultural Production and Dissemination’ and, under direct supervision by the directorate, made arrangements for the dissemination of information about our cultural heritage by Colombian embassies abroad.

Since it possesses no broadcasting facilities of its own, the institute produces a radio programme Especiales de Colcultura (News from Colcultura), which is networked by the national broadcasting company; eighty such programmes have been broadcast to date. Similarly, by arrange- ment with the commercial radio organization, RTI, television Channel 7 shows a programme entitled Pciginas de Colcultura (Information from Colcultura) dealing with aspects of literature, archaeological excavations, art and outstanding events in cultural history.

The year 1975 saw the foundation of the Gazeta, a news-sheet giving information about the activities of the institute and national cultural events. The first number was published in December 1975.

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In collaboration with other bodies, Colcultura has organized training and refresher courses for its staff on different aspects of administration work, besides paying for some staff members to attend courses given by other bodies, both public and private. It has also contributed to the cost of full-time study courses for a considerable number of its staff members.

With a view to determining training needs, the institute also circulated a questionnaire to which 90 per cent of its staff replied, and which was then taken as a basis for establishing priorities when planning the courses for 1976.

The cultural and natural heritage

One of the aims of the State in regard to Colombia’s cultural and natural heritage is to ensure and preserve an environment which will keep people in touch both with nature and with the cultural monuments bequeathed by preceding generations, and will incorporate the cultural creations of the present generations in the heritage bequeathed to the future.

Colcultura develops and applies a policy of co-ordinating its research and technical facilities for the effective study, protection, conservation and exploitation of the cultural heritage. For this purpose, it uses various specialized bodies of its own, besides which it is responsible for co-ordinating the activities of other similar bodies attached to different ministries and institutes. Attached to Colcultura are the following organs responsible for research and documentation work: the Colombian Institute of Anthro- pology, the Colombian Centre for Documentation, Information and Research on the Musical Heritage, and the Division for the Inventory of the Cultural Heritage.

Responsibility for the preservation, restoration, enhancement and dissemination of cultural property lies with the National Library, the Museums Division, the National Archives and the Restoration Centre.

The work of the Colombian Institute of Anthropology is concerned with research on and the protection and preservation of the nation’s archaeological heritage, and takes the form of guarding, protecting and studying archaeological sites and monuments. There are in Colombia zones of incal- culable scientific and cultural importance, the site of pre-Colombian cultures now transformed into protected archaeological sites, such as San Agustín, Tierradentro and Tairona.

This institute has to take measures to prevent looting from archaeological sites and illicit export of cultural property. Work has begun on a programme for the identification, location and surveying of archaeological sites by means of modern infra-red aerial photography.

Groups of ethnologists are working at five anthropological centres in outlying parts of the country which are inhabited by groups still living in tribal societies, carrying out interdisciplinary research on various inter- ethnic links and also archaeological investigations.

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The anthropological institute publishes information about its work in La Revista Colombiana de Antropología and Revista Colombiana de Folklore which are of a very high standard and have promoted research in these two fields.

The Colombian Centre for Documentation, Information and Research on the Musical Heritage recently set up by Colcultura is responsible for making an inventory of and collecting the works of Colombian composers and compiling a collection of the music of the different regions of the country, for use by researchers and with a view to the dissemination of the musical heritage.

The task of the Division for the Inventory of the Cultural Heritage is to identify and make a list of the movable and immovable property forming the country’s cultural heritage. It works in collaboration with the art research institutes and centres attached to the universities of Colombia. The fields covered are archaeology and anthropology, painting and sculpture, movable property and miscellaneous objects and documents. A nation- wide survey is being prepared. The work of preparing the inventory has been going on for about six years, and a file of over 25,000 cards has been made. The information contained on these cards is published in the division’s quarterly bulletin.

The country’s literary heritage is preserved by the National Library, which also accessions, catalogues and disseminates works of national bibliography. Under Law No. 86 of 1946, Colombian authors and publishers are required to deposit one copy of their works with the library. The work on the reconstruction and architectural and technical restoration of the li-brary was scheduled to be completed in time for the celebration in 1977 of the 200th anniversary of its foundation.

Archivists claim that Colombia possesses documentation which is unequalled in its value and size by that of any other country in Latin America except Mexico. The National Archives and regional archives offices have kept almost all the records both of the Spanish colonial administration in the former New Granada and also of the life of the republic. As part of the country’s archives policy, studies are being made with a view to the establishment of a national archives system such that documents can be efficiently collected, filed and used for the needs of the administration and of historical research.

The archives services are equipped with microfilm units and document restoration laboratories manned by Colombian personnel trained in international archives centres. The National Archives also organize courses for the training of archivists, in collaboration with higher education centres.

Plans are being made to provide the National Archives with a building with technical facilities for the proper preservation of documents. At the same time, work is being done on the collection and classification of archives and documents stocks with a view to creating a standardized,

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up-to-date, reliable national archives system using modern data-processing methods.

Responsibility for co-ordinating, advising and organizing the museums throughout the country lies with the Museums Division of the Department of the Cultural Heritage. Its tasks include promoting, in collaboration with the Colombian Museums Association (ACOM), the training of personnel by means of seminars and meetings directed by international and national experts. For the dissemination of information, it organizes a permanent programme of travelling exhibitions on various subjects which go all over the country.

The work of the Restoration Centre is carried out in close collaboration with the Museums Division. This centre, set up on the basis of an agreement concluded between the Governments of Colombia and Italy through the intermediary of the Italo-Latin American Institute (IILA) in Rome, has modern laboratories equipped for physics and chemistry work, and for radiography and photography. A team of Italian technicians and restoration experts advised Colombian personnel on techniques for the protection and restoration of paintings. The centre has concentrated mainly on works contained in the museums attached to Colcultura and to various public bodies.

Other government agencies and academic and scientific associations besides the Colombian Institute of Culture also contribute to the study, protection, preservation and restoration of the country’s cultural heritage.

The Ministry of Public Works and the National Tourism Corporation, attached to the Ministry of Development also take part in this work. In accordance with the agreements drawn up at the Seventh Montevideo Conference, the Congress of the Republic promulgated Law No. 163 of 1959 on the protection and defence of the national heritage, setting up the National Monuments Council to take charge of monuments. This body does not, however, operate very efficiently since it lacks sufficient legal powers to carry out its functions. Furthermore, because the council is composed of representatives of various institutions, academies, architects’ associations and museums co-ordinated action is difficult and decision- making is hampered by bureaucratic complications. Attempts are now being made to improve the situation by standardizing legislation and making more effective use of available funds.

At the local level, the municipal authorities are responsible, both in law and in practice, for preserving and keeping guard over historical monuments. Reports on scientific expeditions and on the regular activities of anthropological stations are also submitted to these authorities.

The Instituto Caro y Cuervo, attached to the Ministry of Education, carries out research on Colombian linguistics and literature, and is at present preparing an ethnic and linguistic atlas of the country. Its work provides a model for philological research in Latin America and represents a continuation, in the form of collective activity, of the research initiated

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by much humanist scholars as Ezequiel Uricoechea, Rufino José Cuervo and Miguel Antonio Caro in the last century. Its scientific and literary publications and its specialized journal Thesaurus have won international recognition.

The Colombian Academy of History carries out research on documentary source material relating to the history of the country and published the Historia Extensa de Colombia (Complete History of Colombia), which is a serious attempt to classify and interpret Colombian documentary sources and paint a full picture of the country’s development.

During the past few decades, the State has paid special attention to the protection of the country’s natural heritage, the background to the cultural development of the Colombian people. The aim has been to carry out a cultural policy designed to promote the preservation, enhancement and restoration of the environment and renewable natural resources by various methods, teaching, through the media, etc. Responsibility for the application of this policy lies with the National Institute of Renewable Resources (Inderena) which comes under the Ministry of Agriculture.

The activities carried out by the various bodies with a view to the enhancement of the cultural heritage through research and conservation measures are not conhed only to monuments, immovable property and the natural environment. A country’s most important heritage ia its human resources, and it is on these that all cultural action should ultimately converge. A large part of the research done in Colombia and of its promotion and dissemination activities is devoted to the living manifestations of the national culture, its popular traditions, its music, handicrafts, etc. Pro- grammes for the encouragement of creative artists and the promotion of community development are dealt with in another section.

SPECIFIC ACTIVITIES OF COLCULTURA

Training of specialized staff in methods of research on, restoration and preservation of prehistoric, colonial, etc., cultural property, in the Latin American centres at Cuzco and Churubusco.

Promoting the activities of the Restoration Centre by provision of the requisite facilities and training for the staff.

In collaboration with specialized bodies, reviewing the proliferating legislation relating to the cultural heritage with a view to codifying it and bringing it up to date, and also, in particular, to ensuring that future legislation provides for enforcement machinery so as to guarantee the effective protection of archaeological and cultural monuments against looting, pilfering, destruction and illicit export. This also entails parallel measures both to secure the requisite funds and to put one body in charge of all normative action and operational activities.

Promoting the protection, preservation and supervision of cultural property in different parts of the country, operating through the community

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cultural centres, by information work designed to make the people conscious of the cultural and social value of such property.

Organizing campaigns for spreading information about the cultural heritage of the country and its protection. A start in this direction has already been made by bringing out posters about archaeological monuments.

Artistic creation

The Colombian Institute of Culture is fully aware that culture is not confined to the promotion of the arts’, which are only one of its aspects. Since the aim of the institute is to encourage culture as a factor of development-as opposed to consumer culture-it has adopted a policy designed to promote and establish conditions conducive to artistic creation in music, the plastic arts, the theatre, folklore, etc.

Colcultura implements this policy through the intermediary of the Department of Fine Arts, which is composed of the following divisions: Arts Education Division, Division for the Supervision of Cultural Centres, Plastic Arts Section, Festivals Section. For the presentation of theatrical and musical works, there is the Colón Theatre, the Colombian Symphony Orchestra and the National Band. This obviously does not exhaust the fields covered by the department.

The Arts Education Division operates through its own Arts Education Section, the National School of Dramatic Art and the Pilot Centre of Arts Education for Children. It covers three fundamental aspects of arts education: formal training within the education system, special further education programmes to develop individual and collective appreciation of the arts and special professional courses for artists provided in most of the universities throughout the country.

The aim of the Arts Education Section is to provide initial and refresher training for teachers in the various fields of art (plastic arts, music, theatre, puppet theatre, etc.), who will then, in their turn, teach the arts in schools, university and specialized centres.

The School of Dramatic Art gives professional training in various aspects of work in the theatre-acting, production and stage design;it also organizes research and seminars on theatre techniques, and takes measures to promote and extend theatrical activity. In 1975, for example, it had forty-two students who produced two plays.

The Pilot Centre of Arts Education for Children helps-albeit to a very limited extent, since its activities are confined for the moment to the city of Bogotá-to provide children and young people with facilities, hitherto non-existent, for developing their artistic gifts. By means of theoretical courses and workshops and by treating the fìne arts as a form of recreation and self-expression, they are being given an opportunity of developing their talents and learning to master materials and techniques.

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At the same time plans are being made for the creation of a National Modern Dance School which will also promote Colombian folk dancing. There are in Colombia active groups studying classical dancing and sometimes also modem dancing; and there is a rich variety of folk dances.

The Division for the Supervision of Cultural Centres is responsible for running the arts education centres, supervising their curricula and the qualifications of their teaching staff, etc. In future, in addition to exercising supervision, the division will be concerned with promoting artistic creation and providing artists with suitable conditions and incentives for their work.

The task of the Plastic Arts Section is to promote and disseminate national values in the field of the plastic arts, to organize contests within Colombia and to assist Colombian artists to take part in international exhibitions and competitions. As part of the institute’s policy of decentralization, it was decided, in 1975, to extend the Plastic Arts Exhibition, an extremely important event in the artistic life of Colombia, to the other parts of the country, by organizing six regional exhibitions, linked with the national exhibition, in other towns. These exhibitions, which were held in eleven towns, were visited by over 35,000 people.

The task of the Folklore and Festivals Section is to encourage, promote and publicize all aspects of Colombian folklore; to organize meetings, festivals and competitions in the fields of art and culture; and to collect and disseminate national traditions.

The Colón Theatre in Bogotá has for the past hundred years been the main centre for the presentation of cultural and artistic productions, both Colombian and foreign. Work on the complete reconstruction of the theatre, which had been going on since 1973, was completed in March 1976. It was in this theatre that, for many years, the concerts of the Colombian Symphony Orchestra were held; and a great many performances by soloists and opera and theatre companies, from both Colombia and abroad, took place in this building.

The Colombian Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1936 as the National State Orchestra. Until the establishment of Colcultura, it came under the Department of Cultural Activities of the Ministry of Education. During this period, it did a great deal to promote classical music in general and to stimulate the musical life of Colombia. It has recently extended its activities to broader sections of the population, by means of lecture- concerts, television programmes, etc. In 1975, it organized thirty concerts in the concert hall of the National University, each attended by about 2,000 people; and sixteen concerts in other towns in the country; it recorded seven programmes for television and gave twenty lecture-concerts for about 10,000 children. In addition to presenting the works of composers from all over the world, the policy of the orchestra is to encourage new Colombian composers by including their works in its regular programmes.

The National Band sets out to bring music to the people by giving open-air concerts and playing in squares, neighbourhood centres and

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schools, particularly in Bogotá and towns near by. One hundred such concerts were given in 1975. We shall now give a brief account of the present situation as regards

cultural activities in the field of artistic creation, not all of which are organized by Colcultura.

PLASTIC ARTS

Over the past few decades, the plastic arts have occupied an unusually important place in cultural activities, as evidenced not only by the emergence of a large number of new artists, but also by the increase in the number of galleries and museums and by the growing interest of the general public in this form of expression. Colombian artists work in a great variety of media (drawing, painting, engraving, sculpture, ceramics and textiles) and some of them have evolved a distinctly personal style, as in the case of Fernando Botero, Alejandro Obregón, Eduardo Ramírez Villamizar, Edgar Negret, Luis Caballero, Augusto Rivera, Pedro Alcántara, Lucy Tejada, Beatriz González and Felisa Burztyn and others.

At the same time, Colombian works displayed abroad at the Venice Biennial, the São Paulo Biennial and at exhibitions in various European cities have won recognition and been acclaimed for their serious approach and professional quality.

There are in Colombia some thirty plastic arts training centres, governmental and private; permanent exhibition halls such as those of the Modern Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art attached to the National University, the Museum of the Bank of the Republic and the Tertulia in Cali, in addition to the numerous art galleries existing in the principal towns of the country.

Since 1940, there has been an annual National Exhibition of Visual Arts which has now, as already said, been decentralized, with the establishment of regional exhibitions. An international biennial organized by Coltejer, a private &my has been held in Medellin, and the American Graphic Arts Biennial has been held in Cali.

The Colombian Government encourages and promotes the arts by the promulgation of various laws and decrees. Thus, for example, it has been compulsory since 1961 for the decoration of every public building to include a work of art.

Mention should also be made of the activities of private enterprises in purchasing individual works of art and collections, presenting prizes and sponsoring art competitions and exhibitions. An important contribution in this field has been made by the banks.

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Zoomorphic figure, Museo del Oro, Bogotá.

Indian face, mask, Museo del Oro, Bogot

4 Prel San v

iistoric statues, Agustín.

Carmelite church, reredos. Popayán (Cauca region).

Plaza de Mongui (Boyaca region).

C raft work.

Luis Angel Arrango Library, Bogoti.


ARCHITECTURE A N D T O W N PLANNING

As already remarked in the first chapter, both architecture and town planning, during the colonial period were based on European, and more particularly Spanish, models. The same was true of the republican era-for the whole of the nineteenth century the predominant style, for public buildings and monuments, was neo-classical, while domestic architecture was influenced by British and French building styles. It was not until the twentieth century that Colombian architecture began to develop a national style of its own. Until 1936, when the first schools of architecture were established, designing of buildings was done by engineers. During the past few years, Colombian architecture has been enriched by the influence of the currents prevailing in Europe and the United States, and curricula for the training of architects are modelled on the work of the main schools of architecture: German, Scandinavian, French, Italian and Brazilian.

Town planning in Colombia has been strongly influenced by visits of such specialists of world renown as Le Corbusier and José Luis Sert. It has been given fresh impetus in the past few years by the establishment of town-planning departments in the principal universities (National University, Antioquia, Andes), the foundation of institutes of urban development such as that in Bogotá, the work of the National Planning Department, and the activities of prívate bodies engaged in studying population movements within the country and the control of the urban habitat.

Outstanding among the architects who have been trained in Colombia or influenced by great modern architects such as Gropius, Le Corbusier, Mendelssohn, Nervi, Oud, etc., are Rogelio Salmona, Gabriel Serrano, Fernando Martínez, hturo Robledo, Hernán Vieco and others working in the field of town-planning such as Luis Raúl Rodriguez, Patricio Samper, Guillermo Mojica, Ramiro Cardona and Alberto Mendoza.

THEATRE

Since 1955 the theatre in Colombia has been influenced by the modern movement, breaking away from the domestic drama and drama of manners of the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, and from the romantic dramas and melodramas of Spain. It was in that year that the first school of dramatic art in Bogotá, attached to television and the Experimental Theatre School at Cali, under the Department of Fine Arts, were set up. Both the El Buho group, sponsored by the Bogotá Cultural Activities Organization and the Cali Experimental Theatre gave fresh impetus to the theatre, and presented, to a restricted but very enthusi- astic public, both classical and avant-garde plays. The 1970s were marked by the first experiments in collective authorship such as Nosotros los Comunes and La Ciudad Dorada produced by Santiago García, and La Denuncia by the Cali Experimental Theatre, directed by Enrique Buenaventura.

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Of the steps taken to consolidate the development of the theatre in Colombia and make it internationally known, special mention, according to Enrique Buenaventura, should be made of the part played by the national theatre festivals held in Bogotá between 1957 and 1968; the national university drama festivals held in various towns in the country; and the Latin American Theatre Festival held in Manizales from 1968 to 1973, which was originally a university drama festival and subsequently a festival of experimental theatre. These festivals provided an opportunity for comparing the Colombian theatre with that of other countries, to the benefit of all the national groups taking part.

The new theatre movement is growing rapidly.

Groups are being formed in colleges, schools, universities, cities, towns, villages and neighbourhoods. Independent groups with some years of experience are amalgamating; it was this process that, at the end of 1969, led to the foundation of the Colombian Theatre Corporation, which is now composed of eighty-five groups all over the country and five regional groups in the Bogotá region, the Western region (Cali), the Eastern region (Bucaramanga) and the Atlantic Coast region (Barranquilla).

The shortage of playwrights and the stresses of urban life and politics had the effect of stimulating the creative spirit of producers and actors and giving birth to collective authorship, a phenomenon of radical importance. This has promoted wide participation in playwriting, bringing a constant stream of fresh ideas, subjects and techniques into the theatre.

That the country now has more than one hundred theatrical companies and that the Colombian theatre has established an international reputation is due not only to the social, political and artistic factors listed above, but also to the work of such outstanding personalities as Enrique Buenaventura, Santiago García, Jorge Ali Triana, Carlos José Reyes and Jairo Aníbal Niño and to the contribution of the Colombian Institute of Culture, which has granted subsidies without restriction of artistic freedom and has encouraged the different regions to take part in theatrical activities.

At the last National New Theatre Festival, organized jointly by the institute and the Colombian Theatre Corporation, 98 groups and 1,113 actors took part, presenting dramatic works in five regional capitals to audiences totalling about 100,000. At the national festival held subsequently in Bogotá, 16 groups and 195 actors took part, performing in twelve theatres in the capital before a total audience of 43,800 people.

The success of the Colombian theatre in international festivals and competitions and the influence it has had on the attitude of the community towards cultural activities in general should be taken into account when planning the promotion of other cultural activities. At the same time, it should be pointed out that, while the talent is there and is used to good effect, funds present a problem and there is a shortage of suitable theatres.

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MUSIC

As stated above, it was not until the end of the nineteenth century that serious attention was given to Colombian music. This was due to the efforts of individual musicians, Antonio María Valencia in particular. In the present century, thanks to the establishment of conservatories of music, either independent or attached to the principal universities, and to the impact of the radio, music has developed considerably, &st among the educated and then among the general public, though not perhaps to the same extent as the plastic arts and the theatre. Such outstanding musicians as Guillermo Uribe Holguín, noted for his fine sensibility and grasp of the idiom of modern music, and Adolfo Mejía paved the way for the work of other composers who are now at the height of their powers. Outstanding among these are Fabio González Zutela, Blas Emilion AtheortGa, Luis Antonio Escobar (who also does research on music), Jesús Pinzón Urrea, Germán Borda and Francisco Zumaque who in various degrees combine modern techniques with the use of themes borrowed from traditional Colombian music.

Instrumentalists and conductors who have won international renown include the violinists Carlos Villa, Luis Biava and Frank Preuss; the harpsichordist Rafael Puyana; the pianists Blanca Uribe, Eduardo de Heredia and Mireya Arboleda; the conductors Sergio Acevedo and Jaime León and the organist Rodrigo Valencia.

Musical development in Colombia owes much to the work done by Olav Roots with the national Symphony Orchestra and the Bach Choir; also to the activities of the musicologists Otto de Greiff, Andrés Pardo Tovar, Manuel Drezner and Hernando Caro Mendoza as music critics and writers on music. Another factor which took music out of the conhes of the élite and made it accessible to the people as a whole was the emergence in the 1960s of university choirs, choral societies and choirs sponsored by official and private bodies.

There is now serious musical activity in Bogotá (Colombian Symphony Orchestra, Bach Choir, Bogotá Philharmonic Orchestra and a number of chamber music groups); Ibagué (Music Conservatory); Cali; Popayán (International Religious Music Festival); and Medellm (Conservatory of Music attached to the University of Antioquia, chamber orchestra). Most of the regional capitals have conservatories and specialized centres giving courses in music, and it is hoped that, as a result of the recent educational reforms and of the teaching and organizational activities of Colcultura, the musical culture of the country will be consolidated.

F O L K ARTS

Owing to the variety of ethnic groups and to climatic and regional differences, Colombian folklore is one of the richest and most varied in Latin America. Each of the five natural regions of Colombia has its own very

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specific folklore: there are, for instance, over one hundred different native dances, besides some fourteen mestizo, eighteen mulatto and six Chocoan, numerous songs, dramatic forms and traditions.

The rapid growth of the communication media over the past few years has been partly responsible for the decline or extinction of these traditional forms of expression, and their replacement by the standardized cultural patterns imposed by the radio, television, records, etc.

The government policy has been to endeavour to preserve and develop national folklore, and prevent it from dying out. The official school curricula include courses on folklore in all grades and all universities and specialized centres organize research in this field.

The Colombian Institute of Anthropology has done successful rescue work in this field; thanks to its qualified staff, its research equipment and its two important organs mentioned above, by means of which it has prepared an inventory of Colombian folklore and archives of literary, musical and choreographical works, it has become a pilot centre.

Special mention for their contribution to the study and dissemination of Colombian folklore should be made of Guillermo Abadía Morales, author of the Compendio General del Folklore Colombiano and La Música Folklórica Colombiana, and José Ignacio Perdomo Escobar, author of a Historia de la Música en Colombia.

The museums responsible for the preservation of the country’s heritage of folklore include the Museum of Popular Arts and Traditions and the Ethnological Museum.

Craftwork, which is also very rich and varied, producing both artistic objects and purely utilitarian ones, constitutes an important form of popular expression. For some years past, there has existed under the Ministry of Education a Colombian handicrafts organization (Artesanias de Columbia), whose purpose is to co-ordinate and promote the crafts of the country; encourage festivals, fairs and contests; market articles of craftwork and supervise their quality; and serve as intermediary between the producer and the seller.

Cultural communications and cultural development

The Department of Cultural Communications is responsible for mobilizing the cultural heritage of the country, and ensuring its development within the community and its dissemination at national and international levels. Its three main fields of activity are: (a) publications; (b) the cultural development of the community; (c) the preparation of policies and programmes with international advice mainly from Unesco, the Organization of American States (OAS) and those countries with which Colombia has signed cultural agreements.

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In accordance with its own statutes and with the Law on Books (Law No. 34 of 1973), the institute, immediately after its establishment, drew up an ambitious publications programme, which it has been carrying out with an increasingly encouraging response. This programme falls into two stages: the first stage to be devoted to the production of large, very cheap editions: 160 titles have been published in five years, on numerous subjects including literature, history, science and technology; the second stage, at present being carried out, concentrating on the dissemination of the literary, historical and scientific heritage of Colombia.

Under this programme, the institute publishes four different series: the ‘Popular’ series, priced at about U.S.$0.30; the ‘Colombian Authors’ series, $1.50; the ‘Colombian Basic Library’ series and the ‘Special Editions’ series.

The ‘Popular’ series publishes current literary works, with print runs of between 10,000 and 20,000. Between May 1976, when this series was started, and August 1976, seventeen titles were published.

The ‘Colombian Authors’ series publishes works of popular, well- established authors, also new editions of books which are out of print and for which there is known to be a demand. In August 1976, sixteen titles had been published in this collection, in printings of from 2,000 to 3,000 copies.

The purpose of the ‘Basic Library’ series is to provide Colombian and foreign students with a general picture of the physical characteristics of the country, and of the economic, social, political and cultural situation; it is published in ten volumes, 5,000 copies of each being printed.

The first series came out in April 1976 and was sold out almost immediately. The second series appeared in November 1976, and costs U.S.$lO.

The ‘Special Editions’ series has published four important works on history, sociological research and anthropological research for specialists and researchers.

Although the Colombian book market is not highly developed from a technical point of view, Colcultura has arranged for the efficient distribution of its publications, almost all of which are now sold out.

Another point to note is that the publishing industry has developed at increasing speed during the past few years, and that there exist private publishing houses such as Bedout y Carvajal and semi-official ones such as that attached to the Banco Popular, which assist in the dissemination of the literary production of the country.

One of the institute’s aims has been to work out a policy for reducing the price of books, improving book distribution, encouraging writers by the recognition of authors’ rights, setting up national literary prizes and sponsoring competitions for different categories of books.

Besides dealing with book distribution, Colcultura also sponsors the production of recordings of music by foreign composers, which are made by commercial firms and distributed under the Colcultura label at a third of the market price. In 1976, Colcultura also began issuing a series of recordings of music by Colombian composers.

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THE CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE COMMUNITY

The Division for the Cultural Development of the Community was created in 1974 by decision No. 003 of the governing board of the institute. Since going into operation in January 1975, its aim has been to enlist the participation of the various sections of the population and encourage communities to organize their o w n cultural development, following their own natural paths to attain that end.

For this purpose, the division has cultural centres and public libraries, an information and mobile equipment unit.

Through the Cultural Centres Section, the division makes studies of the cultural needs in various centres of population, motivates communities by pointing out how the creation of cultural centres contributes to the development of the region, and advises them how to set up such centres. It also supplies technical and financial assistance, trains staff to operate the centres, provides books, audio-visual equipment, furniture and fittings and helps them to organize activities designed to encourage the members of the community to participate in the organization of cultural activities.

The division has, through the Cultural Centres Section, taken over eighteen casas de cultura already established by the institute, given encouragement and information to over one hundred communities and promoted the establishment of seventeen new centres, which have already been fully equipped and received technical and economic assistance and help in the training of staff from Colcultura. The division is at present completing a survey of the situation in the various cultural centres operating in the country, drawing up an inventory of human resources and implementing the regionalization project proposed by the Unesco-Colcultura cultural policy plan.

Through its Libraries Section, the division organizes the activity of thirty public libraries and of the twenty-five libraries attached to the casas de cultura located in eighteen departments, two administrations and two commissaries, carries out studies of the book needs of these libraries and the categories of readers, and makes recommendations to the institute on the establishment of new libraries and the modernization of existing ones. It also gives them technical advice and organizes training courses for their staff.

The Libraries Section, in addition to carrying out the activities described above, supervises the application of the Book Law of 1973, organizes various studies concerning the situation of the country’s public libraries and concerning the formulation of a policy for the creation and operation of a national network of public libraries integrated in a national information system.

Since it was set up, the Division for the Cultural Development of the Community, through the intermediary of the Libraries Section, has pro-

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cessed 1,882 volumes and 3,436 reviews, making analytical entries of the articles contained therein, nxn off 5,599 stencils, reproduced 152,668 cards, issued 27,989 volumes to public libraries and organized two training courses for librarians working in these libraries.

The section has also received many requests for technical assistance and provided free of charge a total of 86,000 volumes to various institutions, colleges and bodies in various parts of the country.

Through the Information and Mobile Equipment Unit, the division had, during the first year and a half of its existence, shown 325 educational and entertainment films in educational centres and cultural institutions throughout the country, organized 92 musical and theatrical performances in parks and neighbourhood centres in various towns and arranged for 30 travelling pictorial exhibitions.

THE COMMUNICATION MEDIA

In regard to cultural development, the media of social communication constitute an all-important basis for exchanges designed to enhance and preserve a country’s identity. Thanks to the respect and protection which they are afforded by the Constitution and by legislation, the press, radio, television and cinema provide the most important vehicles for the exchange and dissemination of information existing in the modern world.

It is the tradition of Colombia for the press to play an important part in public life and, from the end of the eighteenth century to the present day, it has been noted for the excellent quality of its content and for its concern with the social and political problems of the country.

Colombia has forty newspapers with a total circulation of approximately 1.5 million and a potential readership of approximately 5 million. The eight papers with the largest circulation and the best technical, human and intellectual resources are published in Bogotá, Cali and Medellín, and are distributed throughout a large part of the country.

Of all the media, radio has expanded fastest. There are now 348 broadcasting stations, of which 140 are located in the towns of Bogotá, Medellín, Cali and Barranquilla. There are nine radio channels using 270 transmitters, which is an indication of the radio’s impact. The radio network covers the whole of the country, and it is estimated that 93 per cent of homes in the urban zones have at least one receiver. In the rural zones, on the other hand, barely 70 per cent of the population have receivers.

Of the three television channels in Colombia, all of them State-owned, one is used exclusively for educational programmes, covering the Department of Cundinamarca and adjacent areas, and the capital towns of six departments. The other two channels are leased to private programme companies, three of which account for more than half the broadcasting time of the two commercial channels.

According to reliable estimates, the number of television sets is between

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1.8 million and 2 million. Distribution is very uneven: 99 per cent of upper- class households in urban areas have television sets, whereas the figure for the rural zones-either because there is no electricity or because people cannot afford to buy sets-is less than 4 per cent.

Forty-five per cent of the programmes are foreign, and the most popular, at least a m o n g the lower classes, are serials.

As regards iilms, there are 395 cinemas in Colombia, over 40 per cent of them in the towns of Bogotá, Medellin, Cali and Barranquilla. T h e estimated number of spectators is 11,500 per cinema per week and all the films shown, except for shorts, are foreign.

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This description of long-term cultural development and the detailed consideration of the recent past provide a basis for making a critical assessment of the situation and defining medium- and long-term goals.

It is obvious, to the observer who is aware of the complexities and contradictions of social, economic and political life, that there are in the structure of the cultural system and its administration by the government certain fundamental weaknesses which to some extent affect the options proposed and determine the effectiveness of the results of specific projects.

These fundamental weaknesses, which have to be taken into account by planning experts and administrators at all levels and which the readers of this report must bear constantly in mind, are of two kinds. The first are political: whereas certain ruling circles adopt a paternalist attitude to culture, almost making a fetish of it, government authorities tend, for economic reasons, to give priority to formal education rather than to cultural activities as such. The other weaknesses are operational short- comings in the administrative structure, the result of which is that social analysis of institutions and activities can only be tentative for lack of reliable statistics and systematic research data.

These two types of weakness, which are analysed in detail below, are characteristic of developing systems and moreover reflect the ambiguity inherent in Colombian life throughout its history. This ambiguity gives rise, in many cases, to a contradictory, anarchical pluralism rendering all efforts ineffectual and producing a mood of impatience and anxiety in society which is reflected in all writing about the techniques of planning. Even the names given to the plans demonstrate a voluntarist approach and a pragmatic urge to eradicate inequalities and overcome discrepancies: ‘The Four Strategies’, ‘Closing the Gap’ and ‘Towards Full Employment’-aU of which are indicative of the attitude prevailing in Latin America in the face of a situation that has to be changed at any cost.

So as not to sacrifice coherence to unduly detailed analysis in cases where

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sources of information are available, as is the case with education as a whole and the demographic question, w e have decided, in the third part of this report, to give a general critical survey, without going into details which, though relevant, would in no w a y affect our summing up of the situation.

W e shall therefore try to give a systematic assessment of the social and cultural situation, as a basis for determining the goals and objectives, both implicit and explicit, of cultural policy in Colombia.

The position of culture in the official ideology

As already seen, culture in Colombia is an object of reverence, so m u c h so that the epithet ‘cultured’ applied to a person, town or region is a title of nobility which provides an excuse for poverty, inactivity, even intellectual sterility. Don Antonio G ó m e z Restrepo, in his Historia de la Literatura Colombiana, makes various statements which very well describe Colombians’ attitudes towards two facets of culture: literature and the law. Speaking of his own work, and comparing it with that of Vergara y Vergara, he writes:

This book is not in any sense either an apology or a confession of faith; but it will become clear to readers that Colombian culture as a whole, and literature in particular, are strongly marked by a Christian, purist imprint, as well as by the atavistic traditions of the Spanish race and the influences of other peoples, in particular France which, from the time of independence until the present day and ever since the end of the colonial era, have presided over the intellectual development of Latin America. Another feature of Colombian literature is that it has always served the ideals of freedrom and patriotism and has been a school of idealism and moral rectitude and remained in close touch with the life of the country. Its purism has been reflected in its concern to use language correctly, avoiding both slavish imitation and dogmatism, and to enrich the vocabulary. At the same time to regard this-as some foreign writers have done-as the predominant characteristic of Colombian literature would be wrong. The quality of language is important in art, but the significance of a literature including works of noble thought and profound sentiment by eminent writers does not lie in this alone. . . . What is true-and w e are proud of it-is that our culture bears a distinctly literary stamp.

And in order to emphasize the legalistic character of our cultural personality he affirms, with reference to Jiménez de Quesada,

although born in Spain, he belongs to Colombia, not only as the conqueror of New Granada, but because he put the indelible stamp of his personality on the nation he founded. H e was by profession a m a n of law; and this country has always been profoundly legalistic, attached to the formulae of written law and to civil rule in government.

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Letters, grammar, theology and law held pride of place in the universities in colonial times and since and, from the time of the Relación de Mundo (report) of the viceroy Caballero y Góngora, right d o w n to the present, far-sighted people have continued to demand that university teaching be m a d e more realistic and pragmatic, and concentrate less on canon law and Latin.

When, in the last century, under the governments of José Ignacio de Márquez and Pedro Alcántara Herrán (183842), a number of educational reforms were proposed, the provincial authorities were the first to protest against them. Dr Ospina Rodriguez, Minister of Interior, interpreted these protests as follows:

It is clear that public demand in the republic for the teaching of sciences applicable to industry is still outweighed by the desire to train more doctors, lawyers and theologians. . . . Nevertheless, since it is obviously desirable to spread the teaching of sciences applicable to industry, Congress and the administration should continue, as they have been doing, to steer public educational establishments in this direction.

A century later, President Alfonso López Pumarejo, the restorer of the National University of Colombia, said in his inaugural speech:

Our universities are academic institutions, divorced from the facts and problems of Colombian life. This obliges us with deplorable frequency to use the services of foreign experts in our drive for material and scientific progress, because w e have none of our o w n available for the purpose. The State, for its part, knows little about the country, those in authority are largely unaware of its potentialities, and all sorts of legends have grown up around it. W e politicians are also unfamiliar with the society on which w e are experimenting; and the result of this general ignorance about the life of our own people is that w e waste time on all manner of side issues and conjectures, working by rule of thumb in the absence of the statistics and the natural and social sciences which would facilitate our work, which is thus doomed to ineffectuality.

From this concept, which opposing parties will probably try to contest, since they always quote the exception to refute Colombian facts, I formed the idea that the next government should fulfil mainly a function of national education.

O n the basis of this brief summary of the past, our culture m a y be described as ‘literary, formalistic, legalistic’ and divorced from the material and social problems of a deprived and dispossessed people, with the result that Colombia is still a country which is feeling its way towards sustained and balanced development. There is however a positive aspect to the situation, which, with appropriate policies and strategies, could give birth to a strong feeling of national identity and to the enlistment of the people as a whole in support of social and cultural values more in keeping with our historical situation. It is the priority given to literary values and the respect shown for laws and forms, w h e n these are permeated with a spirit of humanism, justice and equity, that has enabled the country to win the continual battle

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between ‘civilization and barbarism’ of which Sarmiento spoke in the last century, and which has been a constant factor in the history of most of our societies. It will not be possible to establish a sound social order, rooted in the conscious choice of rationally accepted goals, until the emotional, the irrational and the mystical are banished from established social behaviour.

Continuing our analysis, we see that until only a few decades ago, culture was regarded by the ruling classes as the prerogative of the élite, the offspring of affluence and creative leisure, leisure that was available only to those who had achieved a certain standard of formal education which was closely bound up with a similarly high level of income. To a certain extent, culture could be subdivided into ‘higher’ culture, or the culture of the ‘cultured’, and ‘popular’ culture or the unsophisticated forms of expression of the lower classes and the indigenous communities. This dichotomy was frequently made in anthropology at the end of the last century and was clearly expressed in the division into ‘inferior tribes’ and ‘superior nations’ of which Edward B. Taylor spoke in 1871.

In certain ruling circles, the concept of culture is thus distorted by archaic connotations and is regarded as something superfluous, inessential or unproductive. Only when it is regarded as a by-product of formal educational activity or as an addition to normal study programmes, does culture succeed in finding a place, alongside sport, in school activities. This is because there has not been as yet any clear explanation, even in conceptual terms, of the role played by cultural activities in the expressive and productive life of societies.

This conceptual and existential ambiguity, which is deeply rooted in the structure of the country’s economic and social life, reflects a dichotomy that can only be overcome if culture is viewed as an organic whole comprising all the forms of a society’s creative expression, in the same way as the infrastructure of assets, activities and attitudes that make up the face of a nation. It is only in the last few years that there has been a gradual movement towards such a conception, thanks to the expansion of social research and the greater possibilities of dissemination afforded to the different social and regional groups in their cultural expression. But despite these efforts, it is very likely that both now and in the future w e shall be obliged to endorse the words of Baldomero Sanín Cano: ‘There are no longer any truly national cultures other than those of savage peoples having no communication with other civilizations.’

But, leaving these general considerations behind and basing ourselves on the official statements of governmental and political leaders, we find that the inclusion of culture in the overall planning process is a vital need that is being increasingly acknowledged by those responsible for national policy making.

When the first National Congress of Colombian Culture was held in 1966, the recommendations made by participants included the following:

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3. to submit for consideration by the national government and, through it, Parliament, the proposal that development plans should not be limited to economic concepts, since cultural ideas have more significance and importance in determining the level of the nation’s progress, and accordingly to request that the highest aims of national culture and the assistance that can be rendered to the nation’s progress by the m e n and women in Colombian cultural life and by the factors of Colombian culture should be taken into account in such plans.

Later, in 1968, wh e n the Colombian Institute of Culture was established as a public institution, with administrative autonomy and independent assets, its aims were set out as follows:

Colcultura shall be responsible for preparing, drafting and implementing plans for the study and promotion of arts and letters, encouraging national folklore, the conservation, enhancement and protection of the country’s cultural heritage in all its forms, the establishment and encouragement of libraries, museums and cultural centres and the dissemination of national culture, particularly in the rural sector and among the working class urban population.

In the series of development plans adopted by the government since 1961, wh e n the first Regional Development Plan was approved under the Alliance for Progress, the government has been devoting increasing attention to aspects relating to social development. In the 1971 plan entitled ‘The Four Strategies’, for example, stress was laid on integral development, particular importance being attached to health, education and housing as the basic factors of welfare, which is the underlying goal in the conception of integral development. But it was in 1975, with the social, economic and regional development plan (1975-78) entitled ‘Closing the Gap’, and, more especially, through laws and decrees on educational reform enacted in 1976 that the idea was accepted of culture as a basic part of action designed to ‘change the quality of [economic] growth so as to ensure that this will transform the w a y of life . . . of the poorer half of Colombian society’ and achieve ‘more balanced regional development which will have far-seaching effects on the quality of life of future generations’.

In its analysis of the educational sector, this plan mentions the main problems affecting the education system, i.e.

social and economic inequalities among the Colombian population, with the cultural differences to which these give rise. . . lack of basic and applied research, particularly socio-educational and curricular research, resulting in ignorance of cultural characteristics . . . lack of co-ordination in the functional education of adults and formal and non-formal education programmes provided through the mass media . . . low academic and professional standards of teaching staff. . . unfair distribution of State services between urban and rural zones . . . the incomplete and inadequate statistical data concerning the sector hamper proper planning and the formulation of solutions.

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All these imbalances will be tackled through co-ordinated action in which provision is made for a considerable increase in public expenditure on education, the decentralization of educational administration and the nationalization of primary and secondary education. These policies have been implemented through Law No. 43 of 1975, and Decrees Nos. 088 and 102 of 1976, providing for the administrative decentralization of national educational institutions and the reorganization of the educational system. We have ensured, then, that culture is given considerable attention at

the social and political level, in so far as the national Constitution states, in Article 41, that ‘The State shall have . . . the supreme inspection and supervision of institutions of learning, public and private, in order to ensure the fulfilment of the social purposes of culture and the best intellectual, moral and physical development of students’. This emphasis will be reflected in plans and programmes at the national, regional and local levels, so that the government’s aim of providing ‘the opportunity of access to culture to all young Colombians’ may be achieved1.

The administration of culture and the opportunities of access to and participation in cultural activities by the various classes, regions and age-groups

Until 1968, the promotion and administration of culture at national level was the concern of a subsidiary branch of the Ministry of Education. During that year, Colcultura was set up by Decree No. 3154, issued under the special powers conferred on the government by Congress.

The step taken at that time was a serious attempt to equip the country with an administrative agency with sufficient autonomy and resources to carry out cultural administration on a national scale.

This legislative measure has had extremely positive results, but it is obvious that there is still a need to strengthen cultural administration and promotion machinery further and an even more urgent need to create channels for co-ordination between cultural administration at the national and at the regional and local levels.

Although it is a fact that the administrative management structure of education, science and culture varies from one country to another, it is equally true that during the last five years or so, through the co-ordinated action of Unesco and its Member States, there has been a growing tendency to give high status to cultural administration within the State administrative structure. At the present time, over thirty countries have minis-

1. Statement made to Congress by the Minister of Education in moving Draft No. 43 of 1975.

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tries of culture and in others, such as Belgium and Iraq, a single ministry deals with education and culture, or education and information, but the traditional practice has hitherto been to place cultural management in the hands of educational agencies, as in the case of Colombia.

Despite the political decision to give cultural administration high status within the State’s fields of competence, neither the Ministry of Education nor the Colombian Institute of Culture covers all aspects that are directly related to the promotion and dissemination of culture; for example, radio, television and theatre come under the Ministry of Communications, handicrafts and cultural tourism are the concern of the Ministry of Development, while the supervision of monuments is the responsibility of the Ministry of Public Works. This means that greater co-ordination between the various agencies is required, which reduces the effectiveness of budgetary allocations.

At the regional (department) and local (municipal authority) levels, cultural management is the responsibility of organizations which come under the education departments, reflecting the same hierarchical pattern as at the national level.

The tradition has thus grown up of a heavily centralized cultural administration (the position in regard to education has, we have seen, been corrected), a centralism that is not due to a deliberate policy but to the lack of resources to extend action to the marginal classes, regions and communities. This latter fact is obvious for, although Article 3 of Colcultura’s statutes authorizes the establishment of ‘subsidiary bodies in other localities in the country’ (other, that is, than the capital), so far only the first steps are being taken to implement decentralization of cultural administration and planning.

This raises problems of access to culture of widely differing kinds. First, access varies between urban and rural zones. Secondly, there are considerable inequalities of opportunity between those towns where urbanization has been proceeding at a rapid rate and those where growth has been less explosive; it is in the former that the marginal quarters proliferate, veritable micro-cultures where deteriorating standards of conduct, social anomy and the lack of infrastructural services nullify efforts to improve the quality of life. Thirdly, administrative weakness and centralism prevent communities from acting as the agents and administrators of cultural activity, thier action being confined to the consumption of cultural goods exported from the centres of production, which are usually the capital or the towns with the greatest economic and population resources.

Thus, despite the country’s socio-cdtural diversity and many and varied expressions of folk or simply popular culture, there exists a fictitious uniformity in taste and way of life, manipulated and encouraged by the powerful centres of mass communication and countered only to a very small extent by folk arts festivals, the regional visual arts exhibitions or drama festivals which during recent years have represented the greatest sources

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of community creativity and experiments in the arts. If we bear in mind that the average length of schooling among Colombians is 2.4 years and that the illiteracy rate exceeds 30 per cent, we have to face the fact that almost half the Colombian population has no access to literary culture (which, as we have seen, is the most important form of national culture) and that an even greater number, for geographical or economic reasons, are denied access to exhibitions or concerts, apart from those debased spectacles arranged by the national and international record companies. A further fact that has to be taken into consideration if access by the

population to culture is to be improved is that at the present time over 25 per cent of the Colombian population is between 5 and 14 years of age and virtually no cultural goods are produced for this age group in the country. As regards films, Colombia is totally dependent on foreign production; cultural television programmes for children and adolescents are not sufficiently developed or they depend to a great extent OR international sources, while children’s theatre and puppet theatres are only just beginning to be organized and only in the more important urban centres such as Bogotá, Medellín and Cali.

The demographic situation and the urbanization process

As noted in the second part of this study, the Colombian population’s age pyramid is that of a country in which the stage of demographic transition has not yet been reached. Mortality rates are relatively low, in keeping with a country where rapid and manifest progress in medicine and public health has been made (although infant mortality is still high), while natality exceeds 40 per cent, producing an annual population growth rate of about 3 per cent at the present time, higher than the average for Latin America (2.8 per cent) and much higher than the world average, which stands at 2 per cent.

The impact of rapid population growth on the demand for services-education, health, housing, employment-is well known. What has to be stressed is the fact that this demographic phenomenon gives rise to specific conditions which must be taken into account in the formulation of cultural policies, since the social, political and ethical factors affecting the behaviour and attitude of communities and individuals are otherwise likely to be overlooked.

At the same time Latin American population movements have, especially in Colombia, a particular characteristic that distinguishes them from the traditional evolution of urbanization in the developed countries. This phenomenon, already described in some detail in the second part, is of such magnitude that, while the rural population grew between 1938 and 1973 by a factor of 1.35, the urban population increased by a factor

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of 4.77. In absolute terms, the population in chief towns rose during the same period from 2,692,117 to 12,847,461 inhabitants. Today the rural- urban composition of the Colombian population has practically been reversed in comparison with 1938 and according to the relevant census data is as follows: rural population 36.9 per cent, urban population 63.1 per cent.

Accelerated urban population growth has been most marked in the large cities such as Bogotá, Medellíí and Cali, whose populations exceed one million, and, again, in the medium-size towns such as Bucaramanga, Pereira or Armenia, where the growth rate exceeds 7 per cent per annum, and, during certain periods between censuses, has reached 9 per cent per annum.

This situation which has been analysed in detail during recent years (cf. First Working Meeting on Migration and Population Distribution Policies in Latin America) has social and psychological results that have to be taken into account by the planner and the cultural administrator in order to gear policy and action to the population growth pattern. Some of the effects that have been firmly established by social researchers are as follows: Urbanization in Latin America differs from that in Europe, North America

and the Soviet Union since it is not accompanied by a parallel increase in industrialization.

The internal migration from rural to urban zones, the most obvious cause of urbanization, tends to be selective, i.e. migrants are usually younger, have a higher degree of initiative and education and a greater capacity for adaptation to modernization.

Urbanization causes acute problems in relation to the demand for services (health, education, housing, employment, etc.), a demand that can only be partially satisfied because of its concentration and accelerated growth rate.

The above situation gives rise to conflict and social anomy leading, in many cases, to the deterioration of the urban environment and even to its ‘ruralization’. Indeed, marginal conditions (urban ghettos, shanty towns, etc.) in and around cities such as Bogotá or Cali represent a challenge not only to the town-planner but to the administrator and the policy- maker.

Migration from the country to the towns is responsible for considerable variations in the composition of the population by age and sex, which has to be taken into account in the formulation of development plans and programmes.

Similarly, internal migration increases the differences in cultural status between inhabitants of the same town and even the same neighbourhood and hampers the understanding of cultural messages.

Urbanization, in view of the lack of employment openings, gives rise to greater social and individual spare time which has to be employed in economically ‘non-productive’ activities.

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This complex set of circumstances and characteristics requires special attention by the State, in regard not only to economic and social planning but also to the qualitative aspects of education, recreation, sport and culture in general. It also makes it necessary to give attention to a process in which cultural activities are fundamental factors in changing individual and social attitudes and practices.

Only to the extent that cultural values are recognized and channelled and that the State takes the necessary measures to improve access by the rural and urban population to culture can migratory movements be regulated and present imbalances be corrected, failing which they will continue to get worse.

Socio-economic regions and the micro-cultural tendency

As we saw in the first part of this study, the territory of New Granada at the time of its discovery and colonization was peopled by various tribes and ‘nations’ differing in their historical and cultural development. The uneven distribution of the indigenous population, the varying impact of processes of acculturation (at times involving the extermination of the population), the variations in the flow of whites and blacks that came to the recently discovered territory and the variety of geographical and climatic zones meant that, for more than four centuries, Colombia has been a patchwork of regional ethnic, economic, social and cultural differences.

As is obvious, this diversity has been the underlying factor in attempts made by the various political regimes throughout its history to organize the country into political and administrative divisions reflecting to a greater or lesser extent the material and social conditions of the area that they cover. It is a well-known fact, however, that the division into departments is governed more by political and administrative criteria than by socio- economic and cultural factors as such; this is reflected, at times, in the political separation of regions which are in fact apparently homogeneous or, on the other hand, the grouping together into a single administrative unit of physical and human elements of a dissimilar nature.

Since colonial times, history has left its mark on the territory of present-day Colombia, creating a tendency towards constant change, not only in nomenclature (with capitanias, audiencias, provincias, departa- mentos, etc. succeeding each other) but also in spatial distribution and the division of authority, and in the greater or lesser degree of autonomy granted to political and administrative units.

Since the foundation of the republic, very near to thirty decrees, laws or constitutions have changed the country’s political and administrative structure. These provisions, involving changes in territorial divisions, have been governed by ideological and political criteria rather than technical

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considerations. T h e laissez-faire policy led, as William P. McGreevey has shown in his Historia Económica de Colombia, 1845-1930, to constant ambiguity concerning the role to be played by the central government. This situation was the direct legacy of the t w o tendencies that marked Bourbon policy-on the one hand, the desire to guide the economic growth of the colonies so that this might better serve the interests of the Crown and, on the other, the realization that a certain degree of local autonomy was essential for the achievement of any development. T h e same author affirms that Colombia had no political leader, after Santander in the 1830s, capable of establishing centralism until Rafael Núñez managed to force through the adoption of the 1886 Constitution. Experiments with feder- alism-particularly in the years 1863-80-left the central government weakened and powerless as far as any attempt at planning economic development was concerned. Even the functions of the maintenance of public order were largely transferred to regional governments.

A wide range of factors operating through the political process, affected the country’s administrative structure: the degree of importance of regional leaders, the vested interests of groups or parties, interference by the church, the arbitrary criteria adopted by regional administrators who sought revenue increases in a region or province, bureaucratic quotas and the rejection of excessive centralism were and continue to be factors that affect the country’s present political and administrative structure.

Research specialists Miguel Fornaguera and Ernesto Guhl, in a study entitled Colombia, Ordenación del Territorio en Base del Epicentro Regional, describe this regionalization process as follows:

There are clearly two types of regionalization: in some cases it is based on politico- administrative criteria . . . demographic phenomena are very closely linked with the organization, functioning and historical evolution of society, factors specific to cultural anthropology and the economy. These have all left a deep imprint on the country and have contributed to the establishment of structural inter- relations in an area representing something less than 50 per cent of the whole country, which is highly cultivated and densely populated in national terms. As demographic problems, from the point of view of their magnitude, are concentrated in these areas, regionalization based on physical and biological criteria proves to have little or no relevance in actual practice. Nor, at the same time, is the politico-administrative division of the country-involving, in general terms, a two-level form of regionalization with departments, intendencies and commissaries on the one hand, and municipal authorities on the other-suited to our needs (understanding of demographic phenomena), although for the purpose of statistical data, it has had to be taken into consideration. The politico- administrative division of Colombia is clearly the outcome of human phenomena, but many of these belong to the past and have lost most or all their significance today. The rapid social and economic changes of recent years have meant, in some instances, that these old territorial units have acquired a very hetero- geneous character while in other cases new and more homogeneous units have come into being along their borders; these are still not clearly defined, are not

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widely known and have not been officially recognized or established. In short, the politico-administrative division is obsolete for the purpose of analysing and describing the human phenomena occurring today in our country. Clear evidence of this is found in the recent creation of several new departments, the tendency to change, by legal procedures, the municipal and departmental system, the creation of regional corporations, etc.

The facts recorded by these researchers are important for analysis of cultural phenomena within the present political and administrative context. Researchers such as Vergara y Vergara (who, over a century ago, established an ‘impressionist’ typology of the inhabitants of the country’s various regions), Nieto Arteta, López de Mesa, Segundo Berna1 and Virginia Gutiérrez de Pineda all characterize Colombia, from their different stand- points, as a pluricultural country with identifiable regional subcultures which geographical barriers tend to perpetrate; but the impact of the mass media on provincial life of course tends to encourage exchanges and to disseminate values and attitudes outside the regions where they originate. All these factors affect the implementation of cultural policy and require

special attention on the part of the planner and the administrator. A policy which seeks to strengthen the country’s cultural identity cannot overlook the diversity of its features, neither can it impose a superficial uniformity which is out of keeping with expressions of distinct ways of authentic feeling. Again, the encouragement of creative artists, the subsidies that are granted for infrastructural facilities and the policy governing the dissemination of cultural works should allow for this plurality in feeling and form so as to provide a suitable background for the expression of individual and collective creativity.

Similarly, the following factors should be taken into account in policy formulation and development: That both the Constitution and national legislation authorize, for edu-

cational and cultural purposes, the establishment of territorial units that differ from existing politico-administrative units.

That regionalization for the purpose of cultural administration is not only expedient as regards the more advantageous use of resources, but fosters the effective participation of the community in cultural action and in the planning of activities designed for the various rural or urban areas, marginal areas, areas with different development levels, etc.

That encouragement should be given, in line with previous practice, to exchanges of cultural goods between different regions, between the centre and outlying parts and vice versa, so as to improve mutual acquaintanceship between the regions. These exchanges should include mobile exhibitions, theatre and folk art festivals, and radio and television programmes.

That basic research into cultural phenomena is vital to a scientific knowledge of the real nature of cultural identity and in strengthening it.

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Production and consumption

and the protection of their producers of cultural goods

The structure of the production of cultural goods corresponds to that of a country in a state of transition. The concept of ‘fine arts’ still dominates the view of cultural expression, and only recently has a broader notion of culture, expressing the creative capacities of individuals and communities as reflected in attitudes, practices and finished products and representing ‘a vast force affecting all human beings, socially and individually’, gained ground.

The second part of this study contained a quantitative description of the production, distribution and consumption of cultural goods of greatest social importance. Here we shall attempt to assess supply in conceptual terms and campare it with potential demand since, as we have already pointed out, the state of cultural research does not allow comparisons and empirical deductions to be made on the basis of more reliable statistics. W e shall thus not refer to culture as a whole but to certain of the more important aspects of the country’s cultural activities.

The first fact that claims the sociologist’s attention is the enormous inequality in consumption as regards education, culture, recreation and similar concepts, between the rural and the urban areas. Data obtained during the National Household Survey conducted by the National Admin- istrative Department of Statistics (DANE) in 1971, show that 42 per cent of the population representing the rural areas accounted for only 8.5 per cent of the expenditure on this type of goods, whereas the remaining 58 per cent of the population accounted for 91.5 per cent of the total expenditure, which amounted to some 6,873,980.5 pesos, representing 6.2 per cent of total consumption. This considerable inequality is practically the same as the imbalance in the public health sector. This means that the government’s basic projects in the 1975-78 development plan are hardly logical if a more egalitarian society is to be achieved in which opportunities are more fairly distributed.

This restricted and unevenly distributed purchasing power is matched by a similarly limited supply, which is concentrated in urban areas, and, more especially, in the capitals of the departments and the national capital.

W e shall briefly analyse the following aspects: the book trade and libraries, theatre, plastic arts, radio, film and television. This partial analysis will reflect a general tendency which can justifiably be extrapo- lated so as to show the emphasis that should be given to cultural development policy and the importance that is, in fact, being attached to it now.

Data contained in the Unesco Statistical Yearbook 1973 and other information collected directly by CERLAL show that Colombia published 848 titles in 1972, whereas Argentina published 4,578 and Brazil 8,579. In 1975 the number of published titles passed the 1,000 mark. Normal

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print runs in Colombia, apart from school textbooks, do not exceed 3,000 copies and in most cases range from 1,000 to 2,000. Book and maga- zine imports rose steadily between 1973 and 1975, during which period their value rose from U.S.$456 million to $705 million, an increase that hardly keeps pace with population growth and the greater cost of books and printed matter. During the period under review, the Colombian Institute of Culture made a considerable impact on the book market with large weekly editions in its ‘Popular Series’, exceeding 50,000 copies in some cases and in no case dropping below 10,000. The most important aspect of this publishing venture, however, was that it sought to ensure that books reached all sectors of the population and the geographical regions away from the traditional centres of consumption. A similar effort is being made by the Banco Popular with its ‘Biblioteca’ collection and the Bedout publishing firm with its pocket editions. It is still too early to assess the impact of the Law on Books (Law No. 34 of 1973) which provides incentives for book production, fosters the free circulation of printed matter of every kind and encourages and protects those involved in creative work. At all events it has to be noted that: (a) the book market is small in relation to the country’s population and its literary tradition; (b) distribution circuits-magazines require a highly developed marketing system- are precarious and only cater for the larger urban centres; (c) book costs are excessive and do not compare with those of other countries with similar development conditions; (d) comics and low-grade magazines with an alienating content are proliferating.

In regard to the country’s library system, the time is ripe for planning, development and modernization and, although resources are still not sufficient, if the policy set out in Decree No. 2733 of 1973 and Decree No. 102 of 1976 is continued, the balanced development of school, public, university and specialized libraries can be achieved on a medium-term basis within the framework of a National Information System.

Responsibilities within this system have been assigned as follows: (a) the Ministry of Education is responsible for the development of school libraries (3,600 approximately); (b) the Colombian Institute of Culture promotes the development of the public library network (370 public libraries at the present time); (c) the Colombian Institute for the Pro- motion of Higher Education co-ordinates the university library network (83 libraries); and (d) the Francisco José de Caldas Colombian Fund for Scientific Research and Special Projects (Colciencias) is devoting its efforts and resources to the promotion of research and projects which will assist the creation and functioning of the network of specialized libraries and documentation centres.

In view of the process followed in the establishment of the National Information Service, the technical co-ordination links established and the proper distribution of functions and responsibilities achieved, we can look forward to the better provision on a medium-term basis, of library and

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information services and, thus, a considerable improvement in research facilities.

As regards the theatre, the history of its evolution summarized in the preceding part shows how it has developed steadily from the time of the stimulus it received at the end of the 1950s. Various factors of a political, social and specifically artistic kind have influenced this development, particularly the active participation of the university in the theatre movement and the existence of individuals with great ability for leadership, including Enrique Buenaventura, Santiago García, Jorge Ali Triana and Carlos José Reyes. The trend towards collective authorship and the apt choice of themes and works which correspond to the preoccupations of the man in the street have made the theatre one of Colombia’s most successful cultural enterprises and have won it considerable recognition on the international scene.

The National New Theatre Festival inaugurated in 1975 by the joint efforts of the Colombian Institute of Culture and the Colombian Theatre Corporation is an excellent example of what can be done through the combining of public and private initiative. The five regional festivals in Bogotá, Medellín, Cali, Bucaramanga and Barranquilla, which brought together ninety-eight theatre groups with over 1,100 actors, established a remarkable precedent in showing what can be achieved by the decentralization of activities and the effective participation of independent groups with official support and economic aid from the State.

In the same way as the theatre, the plastic arts-painting in particular-have achieved considerable importance not only at the national level but in international terms as well. National exhibitions, the creation of museums such as the Museum of Modern h t , the opening of many private or public galleries such as the galleries of the Luis Angel Arango Library and the Bank of the Republic, the gradual building up of a more coherent and scientific basis of criticism, and the international break- through achieved by a group of artists, of whom Alejandro Obregón, Fernando Botero, Edgar Negret, Eduardo Ramírez Villamizar and Enrique Grau are the most notable, are the culmination of an artistic movement that in the first part of the twentieth century had several brilliant, but isolated, representatives. Today the visual arts have won wide recognition not only in the capital but throughout the country and there is an established market for the works of national artists.

Another successful event, encouraged by Colcultura, is the National Exhibition of Visual Arts. This competition, like the theatre festival, takes place in towns in various parts of the country and is organized by the local authorities. The national exhibition is composed of works selected from the regional exhibitions in Cartagena, Bucaramanga, Tunja, Ibagué, Medellín and Cali. In this way artists and the public in different parts of the country have access to the plastic arts, the impact of which would otherwise be limited to the traditional élite.

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The mobile exhibitions sponsored by Colcultura, children’s painting competitions and education programmes in the arts merit special mention because of their in0uence in regard not only to knowledge and aesthetic training, but to the training of personnel for cultural action in this specific sector.

In a society in transition the impact of the media of social communication is much greater than in societies where a high level of modernization has been reached. In such societies, values, attitudes and behaviour patterns have been formed over the centuries and social communications have socialized or reinforced them in accordance with pre-established processes. Neither cultural identity nor the socio-political personality of the developed nations have been menaced by the onslaught of the mass media. There was, in these countries, nothing that could be termed an ‘invasion’ but rather the gradual encroachment and extension of instruments which were already a rudimentary part of their technological and social structure.

In the developing countries, dependent on the centres of international power, films, radio and television are instruments for the possession and control of which a political and power struggle is being waged and not simply at the international level. For this reason there is general agreement concerning the importance of the use of the media and the messages they transmit, within any cultural process.

In Colombia, development of the radio has been more rapid than in any other country in the region and the whole national territory is now covered. As at 31 December 1975, it has been calculated that there were 348 transmitters in the country and approximately 5 million receivers. Most transmitters belong to one or other of the nine channels operating in the country.

Despite the fact that the Broadcasting Regulations, consisting of various laws and decrees enacted over twenty-one years, contain norms designed to foster culture and education through the radio, that the State ‘grants licences for the use of frequencies’, reserving the right to supervise programmes and encourage certain aspects thereof-music by national composers, for example-there is no doubt that cultural and educational stations in the proper sense of the term are very few-some six in the whole country-and the State has only one national broadcasting station.

At the same time, research carried out in the field shows that programme companies are interested in improving the quality of programmes and in replacing second-rate products-international ‘POP’ music, serials, crime and violence-by programmes of greater artistic and technical quality providing culture, entertainment and information. This sets a real challenge to the programme producers, particularly as the country already has the necessary infrastructure to support a change in this direction.

The Ministry of Communications, which is responsible for the supervision and promotion of radio, television and films, has drawn up an immediately applicable programme for the control of such aspects as use of the language, radio serials, cultural and educational programmes, news and

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information, humorous programmes, advertising and the qualifications of radio broadcasting staff.

Television has developed very rapidly and at the present time the three existing channels cover about 60 per cent of the country’s most heavily populated areas. There are approximately 2 million receivers, unevenly distributed among the various sectors of the population and between town and country. Ninety-nine per cent of upper class homes are covered, whereas in rural areas only 3.8 per cent of households are reached.

This inequality in coverage, the high proportion (45 per cent) of foreign programmes and the paucity of cultural programmes, raise problems that the State is tackling by means of changes in the terms of the contracts granting broadcasting time to the different programme companies.

National film production is extremely small and quality is very uneven. Production is concentrated on shorts, of which some 160 have been produced during the last three years; some of these have won awards at international festivals.

There are only 395 cinemas in the country, 49 per cent of which are located in Bogotá, Medellín, Cali and Barranquilla, the country’s four principal cities. The average weekly cinema audience numbers 11,500 per cinema, giving an annual total of 238 million spectators in the country. Here there is an even greater concentration of facilities in the towns and major population centres. It should also be noted that the cinemas rely entirely on foreign produced films, mainly from the United States, France, Italy and Mexico, a situation that gives rise to serious problems of cultural penetration and alienation.

This brief analysis of the supply of certain cultural goods for which there is the greatest demand shows that the State should create appropriate organizations and machinery for the production and distribution of cultural goods and for the protection of their producers. The alienation process and the consequent loss of cultural identity may otherwise become irreversible, jeopardizing the success of national efforts for the protection, not only of the country’s artistic and natural assets, but its moral and economic heritage as well.

Human re~ource~ for cultural administration and promotion

The greatest difficulty encountered in the less-developed countries in regard to the implementation of economic and social development programmes is the shortage of personnel and their lack of adequate qualifications. W e have already seen the scale and persistence of the efforts made by the country during the last twenty years in education and technical training in the various sectors, mainly health, agriculture and industry. These efforts answered real needs and helped to lower mortality rates and improve standards of hygiene, introduce technology into agriculture and improve

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productivity and promote a plan for the replacement of imports and the increase of non-traditional exports.

The recruitment of senior staff for cultural administration and production within the public administration sector has been a recent development, at least in its institutionalized form, and coincides roughly with the establishment of the Colombian Institute of Culture.

Although the effective demand for personnel for these activities dates back only to 1968, it is already obvious that they are in short supply and that, if there were enough of them, they could not be appointed for full-time cultural activities but would have to combine these with employment in other sectors such as education, health or agricultural extension work.

Working from the general hypothesis that an administrator or promoter cannot be given a full course of academic training on similar lines to that of an architect or agronomist, but that special in-service training should be given to those ‘cult~r~logist~~ with an official or unofficial role in society, it is necessary, in order to take the fullest advantage of the opportunities for the transmission of cultural messages, to design specific in-service training programmes for those promoters of social activities (community action, extension work in agriculture, health and nutrition, the environment and communications) who are working among the grass-roots communities.

Colcultura recently held in-service training courses for its administrative staff and for librarians and organizers in the casas de cultura located up and down the country.

In view of the fact that there are, at the present time, thirty-four public libraries under the direct responsibility of the institute and that the network is to be extended until it covers the 380 existing public libraries and that there are 120 casus de cultura at different stages of development, unqualified staff have to be provided with the technical knowledge to enable them to work constructively on the basis of a general policy that is sufficiently flexible to allow for adjustment to the regional and local milieu where they are working.

The same procedure should be applied in the case of the 234 executive and technical staff at present working in cultural administration and those required for the decentralization operation which is now under way and is to be extended in the near future until the whole country has been covered.

There are, at the same time, institutional weaknesses in the specific sectors of education and promotion of the arts, which have a long tradition but require strengthening and a change of direction so as to rid them of their academic and formalist legacy of the old individualist and élitist concepts of the ‘fine arts’.

Although pilot training schemes exist at the national and international levels, we consider that these should be placed on a permanent, institutional basis which would make it possible to give cultural workers professional status.

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Colcultura is aware that its action in this sector is of the highest importance, a fact that is reflected in the percentage of its budget assigned to promotion, dissemination and training, which exceeds 25 per cent of the current appropriations.

The situation as regards cultural documentation, information and research

Despite the fact that Colombia, as far back as the time of the viceroyalty of N e w Granada at the end of the eighteenth century, already had a pronounced leaning towards science and research, it provides no exception to the general rule as concerns the situation in specifically cultural research. Although there is constructive, long-term research in various sectors of the vast field of culture such as linguistics, through the Instituto Caro y Cuervo, anthropology and archaeology, through the National Anthropo- logical Institute, and the arts in their many manifestations, it is none the less true that culture-not in its human aspect, the subject of cultural anthropology, but as a social activity that can be directed, guided and encouraged and which, in turn, can bring about changes in the attitudes and practices of individuals and societies-has only recently become the subject of specific attention by culturologists.

N o more than forty years ago, the idea of science policy was a bold innovation. Various factors (the war being not the least effective of them) opened up the way for a practice which today claims the attention and the highest budgetary allocations of the most advanced nations. The concept of ‘cultural policy’ is even more of a novelty and it has, then, to bide its . time before it can make headway, coin its terminology, devise its instruments and prove its effectiveness.

Colombia is one of the countries that is attempting to give culture the place that it merits among the factors of progress and human well-being. Those responsible for cultural administration are convinced, however, that, if their efforts are to be successful, they must be carefully planned. To do this they must have the support of thorough and reliable research on the basis of which a correct analysis of the situation can be made and, in turn, programmes designed that will encourage, change or bring about more constructive and emancipating attitudes, practices or forms of expression.

Within the officially established National Information Service, Col- cultura has a vitally important role to play in regard to the conservation of the archives heritage, the technical development of public libraries and the enrichment and modernization of the National Library. But its action is not confined to this since it is well aware of the weaknesses in the cultural documentation and information system. An initial step has been taken in this direction with the creation of a specialized centre for music which,

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while compiling and preserving the country’s musical heritage, provides a basis for specialists carrying out research in this sector of the arts.

Efforts made during recent years by the National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE) in educational statistics have served to strengthen educational planning and assess the impact of the expansion of education on the development of society. The specialized documentation centres of certain universities such as the Universidad de los Andes and the Universidad del Valle have provided an incentive for research studies in demography and health. It is to be hoped, similarly, that the availability of cultural statistics and the compilation and systematization of documentation on cultural policy and development will foster wider and more detailed knowledge of our present situation. The ultimate result of this will be the consolidation of the country’s cultural identity and greater liberty and more favourable conditions for creative expression.

The state of the country’s cultural and natural heritage

Special importance has been attached, within the structure of the Colombian Institute of Culture, to the administrative and technical departments responsible for the supervision, utilization and enhancement of the country’s heritage of works of art and monuments.

The Anthropological Institute has also been equipped with the basic instruments for identification and preservation of not merely the archaeological heritage but the human heritage as well, as represented by the indigenous groups which have survived the demographic disaster suffered by the native peoples during the conquest and the colonization process.

Despite these efforts, it has to be recognized that much still needs to be done as regards identification of the cultural heritage while the task is even greater with respect to preservation of cultural riches which have been systematically despoiled and plundered by Colombians and foreigners alike. Legislative and technical measures have therefore been taken with regard to the inventory of the national heritage and to preservation of the country’s heritage of monuments and works of art.

New ideas are, however, gaining ground in this sector and these new ideas also need new instruments to ensure their application. This is exemp- lified by the preparation of an inventory of existing human resources for the promotion of arts, letters and crafts. The human resources of creative artists and cultural workers are receiving at least as much attention as the woxks of the past.

Similarly, groups of town-planners and ecologists are concentrating their efforts on the preservation of human settlements, in town and country alike.

The preservation of the human environment, both natural and man-

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made, must be understood and dealt with as an entity, as a system in which the relationships and interdependence give value to the whole.

The deterioration of the environment-the poverty of the urban slums, the pollution in the great cities, the destruction or irrational use of national resources-constitutes a permanent blight that lowers living conditions and nullifies the efforts being made in health, recreation, sport and culture. Co-ordinated action is accordingly called for between the Urban Devel- opment Institutes in the big cities, the Institute for the Development of Renewable Natural Resources (Inderena) and the Colombian Institute of Culture. This action should aim at both education and preservation and should be systematically directed towards the economic sectors of production and consumption.

These subjects of concern, implicit in the activities of the various State agencies, have been given explicit expression at various times, but the present situation is perhaps reflected most clearly in the Declaration by the First National Congress of Cultural Property held in Bucaramanga, the relevant part of which states: 1. In Colombia there are a number of official and private bodies whose

programmes envisage the conservation and restoration of cultural property. These bodies include: Ministry of Public Works, Colombian Institute of Culture, National Tourist Corporation, Inderena, Crafts of Colombia, Bank of the Republic, municipal authorities, academies of history and other associations of a religious or secular nature.

2. Within their fields of interest there are frequently opposing views among these organizations, associations and individuals as regards the problem of the conservation of cultural property. Similarly, there is a marked difference in aims that sometimes conflict with the accepted policy in this field and with modern technical processes.

3. There is an obvious lack of adequate legal and administrative instruments for the proper supervision of the work that the organizations, associations and individuals are carrying out throughout the country.

4. There is also an obvious lack of really effective supervision of the protection of the cultural heritage. The use made of the necessary technical resources and of the services of those with professional training is also inadequate.

Since then, the situation has changed for the better with the creation of the Restoration Centre and the establishment of machinery for co-ordination between the various institutions carrying out conservation and protection work. Nevertheless, it is clear that Colcultura must continue its efforts to ensure the adoption of a suitable legal instrument for the protection of the country’s cultural heritage and the provision of the necessary technical and administrative instruments to carry out its task.

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Cultural development

Action by the State in the cultural sector is carried out through the Colombian Institute of Culture which has responsibility, according to law, for ‘preparing, drafting and implementing plans’ concerning the various aspects of cultural activity and for their co-ordination, through the Sectoral Planning Bureau of the Ministry of Education, with the General Develop- ment Plan.

Although it is true that Colombia was the first Latin American country to draw up a development plan (in 1961), it is also true that cultural planning at that time was limited to those quantitative aspects of education which could be quickly translated into budgetary allocations, such as the construction of classrooms, the filling of teaching posts or the initial and further training of teachers.

Since then the social aspects of planning, and particularly those relating to education and changes in attitudes and behaviour patterns so as to ensure more effective control over the eco-social environment, have been given greater attention and there has been a steady improvement in the corresponding instruments. This is the result of a radical change in the conception of development, which is no longer regarded simply as the growth of certain economic variables measurable through gross national product growth, but as the achievement, in balanced form, of the social, economic, political and moral conditions that ensure the well-being of the community and the individual.

As this conception continues to gain ground in the human sciences and in the life of the community, greater importance will be given to cultural values as the sine qua non for the progress of the nations. For this reason Colombia has unhesitatingly joined the world-wide movement that seeks to integrate culture as an organic part of the development plans of every country or geo-political region, as in the case of the Andean zone where the Andrés Bello Convention is playing an extremely important role.

Taking advantage of this favourable context, the Colombian Institute

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of Culture has drawn up a cultural development plan in which due regard has been paid to the physical, human, historical, social and economic features that shape the Colombian national character. Its aims, objectives and programmes are summarized below:

Aims

The implicit aims of cultural action follow logically from the central theme of the 1975-78 Social, Economic and Regional Development Plan entitled ‘Closing the Gap’, adopted by the present government, which seeks to ‘change the quality of growth . . . so that this m a y change ways of life’. These aims, which are consistent with the government’s action in other sectors of activity, are, as the Colombian head of State has stated in the introduction to the development plan,

to close the gaps that the traditional development model has created. It is intended to narrow the gap between country and town, between the wealthy districts and the poor neighbourhoods, between those who have access to health and education services and the illiterate and undernourished.

In order to dovetail its activities with those of all the other social sectors, the Colombian Institute of Culture will proceed with its medium- and long-term programmes on the basis of the following principles: (a) lessening of the cultural inequalities existing in society; (b) fostering of the activity of the productive forces; and (a) enhancement of the Colombian cultural heritage.

These operational aims, which seek the effective democratization of culture, its integration in the worker’s everyday life and the development of its potential for transformation and change have been translated into medium- and long-term targets; work on these has been proceeding since 1974 when the establishment of a cultural development plan was begun in co-operation with Unesco and with the participation of other international bodies such as the Organization of American States (OAS).

Objectives

Creation in the country, and particularly among State decision-making bodies, of an awareness of the need to incorporate cultural plans in general development plans.

Since the Unesco-sponsored Round Table on Cultural Policies held in Monaco in 1967, it has become increasingly obvious that economic and social development and cultural development must go hand-in-hand and

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that culture is not something added to or a by-product of other such essential activities as the promotion of education or the protection of health. Cultural action is the social activity par excellence, since it combines and enhances all the values and concentrates all the creative resources of a people.

Just as development plans are one-sided and unbalanced in the absence of the social component, so, it has now been realized, they must include, if they are to have a truly human dimension, the cultural component as an integral part. W h e n the country becomes aware of this need, study of culture as an ‘object’ or an ‘extra’ will be superseded by study of culture as ‘expression’ and ‘awareness’.

Decentralization of cultural plans to ensure participation by the regions and by communities, particularly by marginal communities, both in programme execution and in the identijication of their specijic needs.

Decentralization rates high priority in ongoing governmental programmes. In the case of culture, however, the directing body (Colcultura) must strengthen its administrative machinery so that the process of decentralization can be achieved without adversely affecting the consistency of

Decentralization does not merely encourage participation but demands it. Decentralization will foster democratization only in so far as cultural agents in zones and classes hitherto excluded from decision-making processes play a leading role in the formulation and application of policies.

policy.

Protection and encouragement of creative artists and fostering of the production of cultural goods to meet the needs of society.

It has been recognized that protection of the country’s historic and monumental heritage is indispensable in strengthening national awareness and achieving cultural identity.

No less important is the establishment of favourable social and economic conditions to enable creative artists to develop their activities and ensure that they receive the recognition that society gives to other workers.

At the same time the demand for certain cultural goods-at present in insufficient supply, expensive or of poor quality-must be satisfactorily met. This is the case of books, records, radio and television programmes, puppet theatre and teaching aids for formal and non-formal education.

T o bring all the dispersed resources together in a single legal and operational entity and channel them towards priority areas of cultural activity (for example, in the social media, the production of high-quality radio and television programmes to replace second-rate productions) or

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unsatisfied consumer demands (books, magazines, records) will have a decisive effect on all social activities which seek the preservation and enhancement of the environment and the quality of life.

Inclusion of children and young people in cultural activities.

Our country is a young nation. Its population structure shows a high percentage (about 60 per cent) of under-25s. This situation demands special handling as it represents an unusual state of affairs in the history of mankind. The population tide and the speed at which it flows and enters social life generates moral, political and economic problems which have to be solved by new attitudes and programmes.

Creation of the necessary instruments for the planning and technical administration of culture.

Although the country has a notable tradition of social research, the same cannot be said of cultural research proper. Cultural statistics, research into social behaviour patterns and motivation are, therefore, not always available to the planner and cultural administrator. For this reason, and because of the effect of these studies on other scientific research, the State is to give them its systematic support.

The training of personnel for the planning, direction and administration of culture.

Participation, with the Ministry of Education and other organizations involved, in the drawing up of programmes and the training of teachers in arts education.

The technical conversion and modernization of instruments for the conservation of the cultural heritage such as the National Library, the National Archives, the National Museum and the Division for the Inventory of the Cultural Heritage.

Encouragement of anthropological and historical research.

These last mentioned objectives are designed to make State and private activities in the cultural sector more efficient and productive. It is obvious that its citizens constitute the nation’s greatest heritage and their value increases with the growth of their knowledge and of their command over the environment in which they live.

The promotion of culture is a task that requires many different skills

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and talents, and it is, accordingly, almost impossible to speak of the training of cultural leaders. Such leaders are active in society but society does not confer any official title on them. Their action will, however, be all the more effective if they are skilled in certain modern promotion, communication or administration techniques, compatible with the role they are performing on an informal basis or to which the State has appointed them. The aim is not only to provide in-service training for those doing work specifically relating to culture but to involve those working in any social promotion sector in cultural promotion. The plan is to give a cultural dimension to the work of all personnel engaged in development operations, social workers, agricultural extension specialists, health workers, or teachers, etc. Only if culture is dealt with as an infrastructural operation will it become an integral part of everyday life and productive activity, instead of being regarded as a costly luxury which can be relegated until such time as resources are available or there is a need to create employment openings.

Similarly, creative potential in the arts must not be encouraged solely among those who are or intend to be professional musicians, painters or dancers. Cultivation and appreciation of the arts are features of human sensibility and as such should be linked with the formative process of education, mainly in the education of children and adolescents. Arts education was in the past confined to schools of music and fine arts. The educational reform now being implemented and the activities of the Colombian Institute of Culture seek to link primary and secondary instruction with development of aesthetic sense; it is for this reason that so much importance should be attached to the training of teachers in the various aspects of the arts.

Despite these considerations it has to be borne in mind, if w e are to avoid past errors, that arts education includes not only the h e arts but embraces crafts, the graphic arts, film, television, industrial design and even those disciplines that seek to bring out aesthetic values in the environment.

School education, the moulding of the public’s feeling for the arts, and the training of artists (professional or amateur) should accordingly be approached on the basis of a common concept that will make them more interdependent and productive.

Special attention has been given to the improvement of the physical plant and the modernization of the organization and administration of those institutions whose aim is the preservation of the national cultural heritage, such as the National Library and the National Archives. But this task can only be carried out successfully if the nation’s heritage of monuments, works of art and documents has been scientifically established and assessed. Preferential attention has accordingly been and continues to be given to research that seeks reliably to establish the nature of our origins, our inheritance and our cultural heritage.

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Towards a cultural strategy

The objectives defined above correspond exactly with the priority action being undertaken by the State in the various cultural sectors, which has at various times been explicitly defined in the programmes which the Colombian Institute of Culture submits annually to the Ministry of Education and the central planning bodies. In some instances these objectives stem from theoretical bases implicit in normal activities, the aim of this cultural action being to express them in coherent form.

Although it is true that there is no comprehensive formulation of cultural policy as there is in the economic and education sectors, for example, it is equally true that this situation reflects a stage in the development of our country comparable with that of other countries in the region.

The effort that the State is now making through Colcultura is in line with a current of world opinion that has succeeded, through the work of international organizations such as Unesco and its Member States, in defining the role to be assigned to culture within the overall development of a specific community.

If w e recognize, as is only obvious, the existence of endogenous and exogenous factors that prevent the participation of society on a democratic basis in cultural processes, and if such processes are often obstructed or distorted through internal weaknesses or imbalances in the social and economic structure or interference by alien forms of culture, then it is only natural that priority should be assigned, in the promotion of culture, to those aspects that will have the greatest multiplier effect on cultural expression. If the State seeks through its development plan to foster participation by citizens in development operations, it is because of its stated conviction that private activity should be channelled, directed and encouraged so as to achieve results that will be consistent with a general policy of participation and commitment. It follows from these theoretical assumptions that programmes intended to meet priority needs must fulfil the following requirements: (a) they must correspond to a political need on the part of the State and of the community; (b) they must represent a prolongation of a course of action that it is desired to strengthen, or change, if found incompatible with other aspects of social development; (c) they must seek to ensure that the technical and human efforts exerted have an impact on the marginal areas of society or on the underprivileged sectors of cultural activity and that this impact leads, indirectly, to favourable changes in other sectors; and (d) they must achieve continuity of action, even if the orientation or emphasis of programmes has to be changed.

The five programmes which the Colombian Institute of Culture is currently engaged in launching and developing are consonant with the

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analysis of the situation made in the third part of this study and reflect the objectives listed above.

Some of them imply mere legal and administrative action, as in the case of the strengthening of the central administrative machinery for culture, and its decentralization; others involve economic and technical requirements, as instanced by the programme for meeting the increased demand for cultural goods; the purpose of others, again, is to supply the human and scientific resources needed to achieve technical progress in the administration and promotion of culture.

These programmes are being implemented simultaneously and on a co-ordinated basis, since they represent activities normally undertaken by the institute to which a more coherent and effective theoretical framework is now being given.

It should not be inferred from the above remarks, that activities of such importance as the protection of the country’s cultural and natural heritage, encouragement of traditional forms of artistic expression, or interest in the international circulation of cultural goods, are being neglected or abandoned. The aim is in every case to ensure that these activities continue at their normal rhythm until, the conditions that should result from the proposed priority activities having been achieved, they can be developed more actively on a medium-term basis.

Lastly, it should be emphasized once again that since operations are being carried out with limited resources, an attempt is being made to harness for cultural action the human and technical resources of other sectors, i.e. the country’s existing infrastructure in other areas of social activity such as health, communications, agriculture and, obviously, education.

Since w e have found that there are, in practice, ‘two Colombias’, it is only natural that cultural policies should be aligned with those national policies that are designed ‘to close the gap’, reflected mainly in the integrated rural development programme and the programme for the integration of services and community participation in urban marginal zones.

The effort that is to be made during the coming years by the Colombian Institute of Culture, with the support of international organizations such as Unesco and OAS, and through the development of community action, will ensure a ‘take-off’ in the direction of integrated cultural development. The aim is to concentrate financial, technical and human resources in five key sectors with considerable multiplier-effect potential so as to create a favourable climate for cultural activity. If this plan succeeds, the country will have taken a íirm step forward towards achievement of a balanced, productive society.

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Programmes

P R O G R A M M E ONE: STRENGTHENING OF T H E ORGANIZATIONS RESPONSIBLE FOR T H E DIRECTION A N D ADMINISTRATION OF CULTURE

Objectives

1. To provide the Colombian Institute of Culture with the necessary legal powers for the direction and co-ordination of all activities relating to the conservation and defence of the cultural heritage, the protection of creative artists and the dissemination and promotion of culture.

2. To strengthen the institute’s administrative and technical staff. 3. To promote the setting up regionally and locally of bodies responsible,

within their field of competence, for the administration and promotion of culture.

4. To integrate cultural development plans with the country’s overall development plans.

Activities

Drawing up cultural development plans phased in accordance with general

Expediting the draft law on the protection of the cultural heritage. Promoting and providing technical advice on the drawing up of an instru-

ment on the status of creative artists. Co-ordinating, at the institutional level, its action with organizations

responsible for social communication. Increasing the number of personnel for cultural research, promotion and

dissemination. Providing technical assistance to departments and municipalities which

propose to create or modernize regional or local organizations for cultural promotion and administration.

plans.

P R O G R A M M E TWO: DECENTRALIZATION OF CULTURAL ACTIVITIES

Objectives

1. To achieve the effective participation of the community, especially marginal urban communities and those in rural zones, in cultural activities.

2. To encourage community participation in the drawing up of programmes and their administration and implementation.

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3. T o design suitable cultural programmes for the various socio-cultural

4. T o give an impetus to interregional communication and make the

5. T o encourage vertical and horizontal communication.

zones into which the country is divided.

cultural values of each region known throughout the country.

Activities

Identifying, through socio-cutural studies, the country’s different cultural regions (see Appendix 3).

Creating, in each of the eight regions identified, a regional cultural centre and a network of cultural centres attached to it, with varying structures and activities according to their location-urban, marginal urban areas, indigenous and rural zones.

Providing the regional centres with the promotional and administrative capacity to equip them for the role of agents for the institute in the region in question.

Entrusting these centres and the casas de cultura with supervision of the artistic and natural heritage within their jurisdiction.

Organizing basic training courses in the different regions for cultural promoters, the content of which should be in keeping with regional characteristics and needs.

Structure

Each regional centre will have an official headquarters provided by the regional or local authorities. The equipment (furniture, libraries, audio- visual aids, communications equipment) will be provided by Colcultura.

The directors and administrative staff will be appointed by the institute, preferably from among qualified personnel in the region. Auxiliary staff and services will be provided by the regional or local authorities, or by the community.

Functions of the regional centre

To act as a link between the region and the Colombian Institute of Culture. T o study the region’s cultural problems and needs. T o promote a positive attitude in the community and among individuals

towards their immediate needs and encourage their participation in the solution of their problems.

T o contribute to the protection and use of the region’s archaeological, artistic and historical heritage.

T o assist the conservation, dissemination and development of folk arts, crafts and traditional forms of artistic expression in the region.

T o provide technical assistance for, and promote the training of personnel, and to supervise the use of State subventions and grants for culture.

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To encourage the dissemination of cultural works. To co-ordinate and promote the cultural activities of the casas de cultura

operating in the region.

PROGRAMME THREE: ESTABLISHMENT OF A CORPORATE B O D Y FOR THE PRODUCTION, DISTRIBUTION A N D MARKETING OF CULTURAL GOODS (PROCULTURA)

Objectives

1. To combine the financial resources of the Colombian Institute of Culture and other government organizations at different levels and those of private institutions for the purpose of producing every type of cultural goods that the country needs for its development.

2. To provide the body thus established with sufhcient financial, administrative, technical and operational capacity to meet the demand in all regions of the country and mainly in those which have hitherto been excluded from access to cultural goods.

3. To establish appropriate distribution and marketing channels for these goods and subsidize indirectly the consumers of products the demand for which has been distorted by an unsuitable supply.

4. To provide technical assistance to other producers of cultural goods and the regional bodies that support Colcultura’s policy.

Activities

Determining the amounts that the various public and private institutions put into the production of cultural goods.

Determining the legal form (mixed enterprise, revolving fund, etc.) of the body that is to be responsible at the national level for the production of the cultural goods.

Promoting share subscriptions or contributions for the creation of the company.

Carrying out basic studies on marketing and on the supply of and demand for basic products such as books, records, cassettes, art reproductions, comics, radio and television programmes, posters, etc.

Establishing differentiated production systems to cover regional markets, mainly within the context of the Andrés Bello Convention drawn up by countries parties to the Andean Pact.

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Structure

The structure of Procultura, the Centre for the Production of Cultural Goods, will be that of a mixed enterprise in which the Colombian Institute of Culture will retain the control of policy, with a view to furthering the general cultural development objectives adopted by the government.

Basically, Procultura will have three main areas of activity: production, marketing and research.

The production aspects that require immediate attention are as follows: (a) production of books and printed matter; (b) production of records and cassettes; (c) reproduction of paintings and of works of visual art in general by Colombian artists; (d) production of radio and television programmes.

Procultura’s functions

T o act as the production organization of the Colombian Institute of Culture for those cultural goods which it is currently distributing and of others for which there is a market demand or which are requested by the organizations working in co-operation.

To involve private industry in joint programmes aimed at the more effective use of the country’s productive capacity.

T o act to regulate the cultural goods market through the supply of high- quality products at a price commensurate with the purchasing power of the people at large.

T o raise, through a gradual process, the quality of cultural and entertainment programmes provided by the media of social communication.

PROGRAMME FOUR: TRAINING OF H U M A N RESOURCES

The conviction that human resources are the most important factor in the implementation of the cultural policy plan has prompted the institute to draw up an in-service training programme for cultural promoters.

The training programme fits into the general context of the cultural development plan drawn up by the institute with advice from Unesco.

Objectives

1. T o contribute to the building up of a human infrastructure on a nation- wide basis to support and liaise with the institute’s cultural action, as part ofa policy of decentralization, to act as a stimulus to creativity, to arouse critical awareness and to seek the active participation of the greatest number of Colombians in the cultural life of the community.

2. T o provide actual and potential cultural workers in the grass-roots communities with the necessary instruments and training, in line with

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the needs and socio-cultural conditions of their region or locality, which will equip them to carry out genuine and effective cultural promotion and development work.

3. T o produce a multiplier effect in promotional activity by using trained cultural promoters to give instruction to new cultural workers.

4. To formulate and test methodological models for the training of personnel in the various sectors of cultural management such as administrators, promoters, directors of centres, etc.

5. To design and try out audio-visual materials and other teaching aids for the information and further training of personnel who have completed courses.

6. To develop an evaluation system. 7. T o create institutional machinery, in co-ordination with educational

establishments, so that trained cultural workers m a y obtain professional qualifications.

T o achieve these objectives, the institute plans to establish a training centre attached to the Division for the Cultural Development of the Community, a unit under the authority of the Department of Cultural Communications.

The centre’s functions

To survey existing human resources in the country and identify their initial and further training deeds.

T o draw up national plans for the provision of training and refresher courses for cultural promoters whether or not they are serving at the various centres and casas de cultura operating in the country.

T o organize courses and seminars in line with the programmes formulated. T o draw up the corresponding curricula. T o supervise and evaluate training plans and programmes. To prepare textbooks, audio-visual aids and other teaching materials for the

various programmes. T o maintain liaison between organizers, instructors and the Division for the

Cultural Development of the Community in regard to technical and teaching questions.

Structure and operation

In order to fulfil its functions, the training centre will be organized as follows: (a) directorate; (b) co-ordinating unit for promoters; (c) co-ordinating unit for instructors and technical assistance.

The directorate and the co-ordinating units will be provided with the necessary supporting staff and services.

The directorate will plan, co-ordinate, supervise and evaluate the centre’s activities and maintain liaison between promoters, instructors and the Division for the Cultural Development of the Community.

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The co-ordinating unit for promoters will carry out, in conjunction with the directorate, surveys on existing human resources; it will identify training and qualification needs, maintain a record of all trained promoters and of the progress of their work; it will keep in regular touch with them and provide them with all the promotional material they r e w e for their activities.

The co-ordinating unit for instructors and technical assistance will co-ordinate, in conjunction with the directorate, the education and training of the instructors responsible for training promoters; it will propose, on the basis of experience, the most appropriate systems for the training of cultural workers and for following the progress of their work; it will evaluate the different programmes being implemented and design the teaching material and audio-visual aids that they require.

Short- and medium-term aims and activities

Short-term: organization of intensive in-service training courses for cultural promoters, in line with the objectives set out above.

Medium-term: diversification and specialization of training programmes in specific areas of cultural activity, such as administration, the direction of centres, libraries, etc.

The setting up of machinery to enable cultural workers who have received refresher and further training to obtain professional qualification through appropriate co-ordination with educational organizations such as ICFES, preferably with its ‘open university’ programme.

Short-term activities under the head, ‘Organization of Intensive In- service Training Courses for Cultural Promoters’ will be of three years’ duration and cover the following: Organization of the centre. Completion of the register of cultural promoters in service and of the

Selection of instructors. Organization of a training seminar for instructors responsible for training

cultural promoters. Selection of participants, preference being given to those promoters who

have undertaken activities, who have had experience in promotional work and who show interest in and a genuine vocation for community cultural promotion and development.

Organization of the first national in-service training course for cultural promoters, which will be of three months’ duration.

Supervision of and the provision of practical advice to trained promoters for an eight-month period following the course.

A seminar to evaluate the course. Organization, during the second year, offour regional seminars in four of the

critical analysis of their training needs.

eight regions into which the country has been divided.

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Organization, during the third year, of four regional seminars in the

A seminar for programme evaluation. Surveys forecast that the national seminar will be attended by 40 serving cultural promoters, and the eight regional seminars by 240, so that when the programme is completed, the institute will have trained 280 promoters throughout the country.

The courses provided are basic in their level and require full-time attendance; in addition to undertaking to return to work in the region, participants must be Colombian citizens, they must be natives of the region or have resided in it for over five years, hold the baccalaureate or teacher’s certificate and be between 20 and 35 years of age.

remaining four regions.

Model curricula

Structure of the first training course for cultural promoters. First phase: Discussion-exchange of ideas and assessment of experience so that par-

Second phase: Cultural anthropology; cultural action and integrated development; the

national situation: study of the Colombian environment-physical, social, economic, political and cultural; Colombian culture: a historical survey, present state, analysis of the situation; State cultural policy and its executing agency (Colcultura).

ticipants get to know each other and realize their training needs.

Third phase: The community; critical analysis of the actual situation as the point of

departure for the formulation of a local cultural policy; research methodology; the process of formulating a local cultural policy; the cultural promoter: (a) main aims of promotion; (b) promotion methodology and techniques; (c) group work methods; (d) social psychology; (e) social communication techniques; (f) human relations and public relations techniques.

Fourth phase: The cultural centre as the operational headquarters for promotion activities

and community cultural development; the cultural centre and its activities: (a) the cultural heritage; (b) promotion of community participation in cultural development; (c) encouragement of creativity, the stimulation of critical awareness and the development of national consciousness; (d) traditional and typical regional activities, regional folklore and handicrafts; (e) the creative artist, life-long education and arts education; (f) cultural development and specialization.

Fifth phase: The process of creating the cultural centre; cultural centre installations as

supporting facilities for cultural action (museum, library, archives,

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exhibition hall, auditorium, classrooms, workshops, cafeteria, production of cultural goods, bookshop, handicrafts store, etc.); administration of culture; legislation in regard to culture.

P R O G R A M M E FIVE: CULTURAL DOCUMENTATION, INFORMATION A N D RESEARCH CENTRE

Objectives

1. To extend the knowledge of cultural development by searching for

2. To rationalize cultural planning on the basis of the studies and practical

3. To evaluate ongoing cultural activities. 4. To produce methodological instruments.

acquiring and processing of cultural documentation.

research carried out on request.

Functions

Documentation: (a) collection of documentation on cultural policy already produced or being prepared nationally and internationally (for the establishment of a specialized collection on cultural policy); (b) centralization of the register of information and documentation in the cultural sector (by its component units: music, anthropology, arts education, etc.).

Information: (a) making the documentation mentioned above available to the public administration and, subsequently, to users in the country who request it; (b) preparing, drafting and disseminating bibliographical instruments (catalogues, abstracts, specialized bibliographies, information bulletins, etc.) which will facilitate access to documents and to the information they contain concerning the country’s cultural policy; (c) adapting, in line with national needs, standards for the technical processing of documents and for the handling of information contained in the centre, on the basis of the specialized documentation experience of national bodies such as Colciencias, ICFES, etc. and international organizations such as Unesco, OAS, etc.; (d) ensuring the adequate dissemination and use of cultural information and of the results of research in this sector.

Statistics: contributing, in conjunction with D A N E , to the compilation and publication of cultural statistics in support of research and of cultural development itself.

Structure and functioning of the centre

In order to carry out the proposed functions and achieve the aims in view, the centre will be placed under the direct responsibility of the directorate of the Colombian Institute of Culture so that its co-ordinating action may


cover all aspects of the cultural heritage and the dissemination and promotion of culture.

In its initial stage, the centre will be staffed as follows: A director in charge of the centre’s general organization, with responsibility

for interinstitutional liaison so that work m a y be co-ordinated with the national and international organizations, for definition of the approach the centre should adopt and for the establishment, accordingly, of the type of basic bibliographical material the centre should acquire. It is recommended that this person should be a specialized documentalist or possess social science qualifications at the post-graduate level, with knowledge of librarianship and languages.

A librarian responsible for the technical processing of the documentation and the necessary operations for the handling, retrieval and dissemination of information. In conjunction with the director, the librarian will prepare information classification, cataloguing and indexing systems. Qualifications: degree in library science and good knowledge of languages.

Researchers who will ensure the continuity of research work initiated in connection with preparation of the Cultural Development Project and who will collaborate with the director and the librarian in defining the specialized areas to be covered by the centre’s documentary material.

Auxiliary staff (secretary, messenger) to assist in the work of collecting documentation, disseminating and exchanging information, etc.

For the second stage it is recommended that a documentalist specialized in the treatment and dissemination of information should be attached to the centre. At the same time the multidisciplinary research team should be expanded.

The first stage (the first two years or so) can be regarded as a trial period during which the centre will operate in part of the Ministry of Education building along with the units attached to the Department of Cultural Communications. Subsequently, and in accordance with the services which are being provided and being planned and the general work being done by the centre, its possible transfer will be studied.

Short-, medium- and long-term activities Short term: Study of documentary resources concerning culture in the public and

private sectors and establishment of the corresponding inventory. Determination of actual and potential users on the basis of cultural infor-

mation needs identified in the present analytical study. Selection and acquisition of national and international primary and

secondary documents and their processing, evaluation and discarding of existing documentary material.

Formulation or determination of classification, coding, and indexing systems for documents and information.

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Definition of the main research themes and their development, including: the impact of the communication media on cultural development; cultural centres and libraries; national inventory of institutional and human resources in culture; arts education; permanent register of ongoing research; cultural legislation.

Medium term: Wide dissemination of the information services that the centre will be

able to provide: publication of specialized bibliographies in the cultural sector; publication of indexes of specialized journals and periodicals; selective dissemination of information; digest of press and sectoral reports; provision of reprography services.

Public access to the centre (should conditions allow access during the initial stage, this should be done).

Provision of advisory services to documentation centres specializing in music, anthropology, arts education, art teaching, etc.

Preparation of tools for evaluation of the services provided by the centre. Extension of the scope of research and of the research group-coverage of

the following topics might be initiated, on the basis of existing research in these areas: cultural statistics; reading habits; book production and distribution; participation by private enterprise in cultural management.

Long term: Further work on the development of concepts in the cultural sector, by

means of analysis of the documentary material compiled and the tools and methodological instruments prepared.

Facilitating the rationalization of the country’s cultural planning by means of the centre’s publications and research.

Extension of the centre’s co-ordinating function to countries in the Latin American region.

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Appendixes

1 Colombian Institute of Culture (Colcultura)

Division for the Inventory of the Cultural Heritane

I Auditor's Office I

-

I Governing 7- I

Public Relations

I I I I I

Department of the C u

PhotosraDhv and Microfilm Laboratorv I

Documents Restoration Laboratorv I

Public Services Section

- Department of Cultural C

I

Sales Division

I I I I I l I l I

Committee

W

General r -- - Co-ordination I I I I O Committee

Pilot Centre of Arts Education for Children Division for the Supervision of Cultural and

1 1 \ . L’

l

-

General Secretariat --------- --------J I l

# In I

I

rsonnel Budget and iision II Accounts Division

Commission

lunications 1 ~ - ction )ment t I I

Department of Fine A I I - Arts Education Division I

’ I - Arts Education Section , ! - National School of Dramatic Art

51 = I I

I I I I I I I I I I

I Artistic Centres I I Plastic Arts Section I Festivals S e c t i i

t Colón Theatre - Colombian SvmDhonv Orchestra -

I . . . I

National Band

n Oaerational

Committee

1. National Museum Colonial Art Museum Jorge E. GaitAn Museum 20 de Julio Museum Juan del Corral Museum

2 Political and administrative divisions

3 Cultural regions

I l I I I I I I I I I I I I l I

U

EC

.- mu

.z E

$

U

O

al v1 ._ u

m n

m

L

I

5 Fourteenth national population census. Distribution of the population by age and ses as estimated for 1975

-%?e group Men Women Total

0-4 5-9 10-14 15-1 9 20-24 25-29 30-34 35-39 40-44 45-49 50-54 55-59 60-64 65-69 70-74 75-79 80-84 85 and above TOTAL

1,665,752 1,904,823 1,762,279 1,236,698 979,305 759,461 633,668 573,711 505,524 397,365 355,042 246,884 223,371 137,550 112,861 49,377 31,742 24,689

1,624,185 1,860,325 1,745,843 1,503,192 1,159,747 874,788 695,600 666,979 541,298 444,238 369,576 253,850 236,429 143,102 126,925 60,974 42,308 37,331

3,408,145 3,733,148 3,508,622 2,839,890 2,139,052 1,634,249 1,329,268 1,240,690 1,046,822 841,603 724,618 500,734 459,800 280,652 239,786 110,351 74,050 62,020

11,756,360 12,443,640 24,200,000

Source: Information based on the 1973 census (advance sampling).

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[B.14] CC.76/XIX.41/A