Jeremy Cronin is my favorite Communist. Astute, intellectual and a poet. Cronin is a former political prisoner and now ANC member of Parliament in South Africa. “Even the Dead” is still my favorite poem. I recently chanced upon a 2009 interview he did with the academic Andrew van der Vlies (featured on this blog here) in Contemporary Literature. (You need a subscription or access to an academic database to read it.) Much of it is about Cronin’s poetry (more for diehard literature types), but in-between the interview contain some great insights about political life and political art in South Africa now. I’m going to cut and paste a few of them here.
For starters:
… [I]n the present South African situation, it is particularly important to reconsider many things in the light of the new reality. The ANC-led movement is no longer a persecuted formation; it is in power, at least in political power. Walter Benjamin writes somewhere that fascism systematically introduces aesthetics into political life. It marshals art into what he describes as “the production of ritual values.” He suggests that we should respond to fascism’s rendering politics aesthetic by politicizing aesthetics. I certainly do not think that we are on the brink of fascism, not even remotely. But the dangers of the aesthetic, including poetry, now being pressed into the service of a lulling complacency, a ritualistic sentimentalism that loses the zip and edge of the collective self-emancipatory struggles of the previous period, are very real. The aesthetic runs the danger of becoming anesthetic …
Thanks for the recommendation of the van der Vliet interview.
Yeah, Cronin is quite the Rennaissance man. You described him perfectly The only thing to add is to note his unaffected manner and contagious charm. Also, he now is the deputy minister of transport I believe.
Charm and humility. Perhaps it is his humility to which we are attracted, as well as his flowing ability with language, and astute reading of culture/events/symbols. Why do fascist systems introduce/utilise aesthetics though – what’s behind the coupling, or the realisation of the usefulness the coupling?
@Neelika:
Fascism relies heavily on emotional and other non-logical appeal. As much as possible fascist systems attempt to circumvent the logical and engage the subject(s) in a more visceral manner. Aesthetics makes an ideal vehicle for this process. It’s usually most evident in architecture, but it pervades other forms as well. Think of the monumental Nazi, Soviet, and Fascist Spain architecture, or on a minor scale, the Voortrekker monument in Pretoria. In other areas Leni Riefenstal’s films come to mind.
Ultimately this is an attempt to co-opt the imagination, that part of us which usually remains relatively free even after all other faculties have been made to submit. Once the imagination is captured Fascism gets to almost completely attain its goal of total control.
@Neelika watch this space. That or the J of Commonwealth Lit ask me to take the post down.