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This book is an important contribution tothe study of
nationalism in Puerto Rico.
Rodrguez Vzquez examines in detail the
written expressions of three figures
considered representative of Puerto Ricannationalism in a
specific historical period.
He focuses on the significant historical
moment that led to the creation of the
still existing colonial arrangement ofPuerto Rico with the
United States.
We find here well-developed arguments
in an interpretation of the thought of
Antonio Pedreira, Pedro Albizu Campos,
and Luis Muoz Marn. The first and lastare representatives of
what is called
moderate nationalism, while the second
figure represents radical nationalism.The significance of these
three persons
for nationalist discourse is examined.
Theres a certain degree of repetetiveness
in Rodrguez Vzquezs text, but thatresults from his exhaustive
analysis and it is
not a fundamental problem. On the other
hand, the main problem of the book is the
theoretical framework that is utilized to
place these three authors in one context asrepresentatives of
anticolonial nationalism.
Rodrguez Vzquez tries to follow very
closely the arguments made by Partha
Chatterjee (1986) in his bookNationalist
Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative
Discourse? Chatterjee talks about three
moments in the development of
anticolonial nationalism: departure,manoeuvre, and arrival. Each
moment
has its own particular characteristics and
contradictions. To carry out his analysis
Chatterjee chose to examine certain
nationalist texts from India. Like theauthor of the book under
review,
Chatterjee also examines three nationalist
thinkers; in his case, these are:Bankimchandra, Gandhi, and
Nehru.
But while Chatterjee analysis required less
than 200 pages Rodrguez Vzquez has
needed more than 500 pages to do the same.Chatterjees analytical
framework is
difficult to apply to Puerto Rico.
Chatterjees purpose was to study the
ideological history of the Indian state,with possible
applications to other
postcolonial states in Asia and Africa.
Much of his discussion is about the
civilizational clash with the West.
Anticolonial nationalism is contradictoryin that it challenges
colonial domination
while accepting the intellectual premises
of modernity, concepts that have aWestern cultural imprint. The
great
challenge for nationalism is then to create
an authentic non-Western modernity.
Chatterjee (1993) has objections toBenedict Andersons arguments
about
the modular character of nationalism.
In countries like India nationalism is not
a derived discourse because, in spite of
the aforementioned contradiction, non-Western forms of the
imagined national
community are considered a distinctive
ingredient in anticolonial struggles.An initial way of dealing
with the
contradiction is to combine a recognition
of the material superiority of Western
civilization with a claim of spiritual
superiority for the native culture.In its formative stage
anticolonial
nationalism struggles to culturally define
its own sovereign domain long before it
enters into open political confrontation
with the colonial power. But, even so,the contradiction does not
disappear,
and one of the most important problems
[ 246 ]
of postcolonial states is precisely an
inability to look beyond Western defined
forms of the modern state. The colonial
heritage weighs heavily upon the nowindependent states.
If the analysis of nationalism in Puerto
Rico is to be related theoretically to a
regional context, that should be Latin
America and the Caribbean and notSoutheast Asia. Latin
American
nationalism is not derived from Europe.
In its origins it coincides with the
emergence of nationalism in the Europeancontinent. In North and
South America
there were creole pioneers (to use
Benedict Andersons expression [1991]) at
the forefront in the origins of nationalistideology. Moreover,
the notion of a cultural
clash did not become a significant issue for
Latin American nationalism until the late
19th century, and this was in relationship
with American imperialism. Here, too,arguments were voiced
concerning Latin
American spiritual superiority over the
imposing material culture of the imperialpower. But still one
has to take into
account that this cultural clash resided
comfortably within Western defined forms,
a situation very different from India.Following Chatterjee,
Rodrguez
Vzquez develops his analysis examining
three moments or stages in the evolution of
anticolonial nationalist ideology. The stages
are not necessarily chronological but followa logical sequence.
In the case of Chatterjee,
one of the authors chosen for analysis
was from the nineteenth century, while
the other two were from the twentiethcentury. Rodrguez Vzquez,
on the other
hand, has chosen three authors coexisting
simultaneously in the same period:
19201940. Another difference is that thereis no example for the
moment of arrival.
Pedreira is an example of the moment of
departure, and Albizu and Muoz are both
examples of the moment of manoeuvre,
but of two different kinds of nationalism.In the case of India
the stages are, as
mentioned, a device to examine the
ideological history of the Indian state.
The moment of arrival began with the
establishment of the postcolonial nation
state. The logical sequence of thesestages point to similar
processes in other
countries. Has there been a moment of
arrival in the case of Puerto Rico?
Rodrguez Vzquez in several occasions
points toward the affirmative, but hedoes so without
elaboration, perhaps
because it lies outside of the historical
period he examines. This is very
problematic because to say the leastMuoz was no Nehru.
The stages in Chatterjee and
Rodrguez Vzquez are connected to an
analytical framework taken from AntonioGramsci, especially his
concept of passive
revolution. For Gramsci passive
revolution was a concept used to explain
the way the modern state advanced in the
many cases in Europe where bourgeoisrule could not be
established in the
French revolutionary way (1971).
In Italy the objective conditions and thecorrelation of
subjective forces made it
difficult for the bourgeoisie to achieve
hegemony. These conditions created the
need of another possible strategy for theformation of the
bourgeois state. In some
of his writings passive revolution is
related to the concept of war of position.
Military metaphors are commonly used
by Gramsci, perhaps due to the then-recent experience of the
First World War.
A war of position, politically, would be
trench warfare, while a war of manoeuvrewould be the frontal
assault of the enemy
fortress or, in the terminology of the
next war, aBlitzkrieg. A given historical
period can be characterized by passive
revolution or a war of position untilconditions change and a war
of
manoeuvre can be carried out.
Passive revolutions have among their
characteristics the notion that they are
achieved with less popular mobilization,with the state taking
the leadership role
that the bourgeoisie is unable to take and
[ 247 ]
El sueo que no cesa: la nacin deseada en el debate
intelectual y poltico puertorriqueo 19201940.By Jos Juan
Rodrguez Vzquez
San Juan, P.R.: Ediciones Callejn, 2004 523 pp.; $23.95
[paper]
REVIEWER: Juan Manuel Carrin, Universidad de Puerto RicoRo
Piedras
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BOOK
REVIEW
the incorporation of the former
dominant classes (that retain certain
spheres of power) in the new historical
block. Applying some of Gramscisconcepts, Chatterjee argues that
in
colonial societies the local bourgeoisie
finds it specially difficult to achieve
hegemony. Their economic and political
domination is always fragile, and theirlack of cohesion leads to
a fragmented
intellectual and moral leadership. Passive
revolution becomes in Chatterjees
estimation the typical form in which anew national state can be
established
under the conditions of advanced
capitalism. He does not mention Vietnam
and other cases that I suppose would beexceptions. In
Chatterjees account the
war of manoeuvre is a moment in the
passive revolution and not a different set
of revolutionary conditions.
Rodrguez Vzquez utilizes theconcept of passive revolution to
describe
the process that led to Muozs rise to
power and the dominance of his brandof moderate populist
nationalism.
The passive revolution in Puerto Rico
has a moment of arrival. Rodriguez
Vazquez mentions how different featuresof Pedreiras nationalism
of departure
were incorporated into Muozs
populism; when it became a nationalism
of arrival, features such as a geographical
fatalistic determinism [p.103] and anapology for nineteenth
century
autonomism [p.142] were offered. But,
ironically, moderate nationalism in its
moment of arrival became part of achorus orchestrated by the
Imperial
Other. If Muoz represents a moment
of arrival, it is of a different kind from
the passive revolution Gramsci andChatterjee had in mind. It
was, instead,
a passive revolution where it was the old
incorporating the new rather than the
other way around. Instead of becoming
a postcolonial nation state with thedeadweight of its colonial
past and the
problems that this implies, the colonial
state was rejuvenated, incorporating in a
subaltern manner the nationalist impetus
of the moment of manoeuvre. Perhaps it
was a passive revolution in terms of thesocial transformations
that went along
with the establi shment of the
Commonwealth of Puerto Rico,
but more precisely it could be described
as a passive counter-revolution thatblockaded the way out of
colonialism.
In Chatterjee we must mention that
there is no distinction between moderate
and radical nationalism. The three thinkershe chose for his
analysis do not represent
two different traditions with their own
particular evolution but three moments
in one same evolutionary process.One has to ask how the
moderates
under consideration are transformed
into nationalists. In Puerto Rico the
distinction between moderates and
radicals can be quite ideological.This is not an appreciation
of
Rodrguez Vzquezthe notion of
a moderate stance seems to speak ofa reasonable and correct
position,
while a rad ical stanc e can be i nter-
preted as fanatical and exaggerated.
Violence seems to be a differentiatingcriterion, with the
supposition that
violen ce is always inval id. Rod rgue z
Vzquez contributes also to this
possible interpretation when he seems
to equate Muozs peaceful revolu-tion with the passive
revolution.
One also has to be careful categorizing
historical figures with the nationalistlabel when they
themselves reject it,
as in the case of Pedreira. Muozs
case is special; he is the only one of
the three that once described himself
as a radical nationalist. Yet one canquestion what he meant by
that, and
anyway, after a brief period, he became
a ferocious opponent, politically and
ideologically, of nationalism.
Moderate nationalism seems to beshorthand for the autonomist
tradition in
Puerto Rico. Autonomist arguments can
[ 249 ][ 248 ]
be considered nationalistic if what is
involved is a national definition of the
political space even when sovereignty is
claimed only partially. But autonomismis not necessarily a
nationalistic posture,
it can also be (and Rodrguez Vzquez
is conscious of this) more or less a
regionalistic demand that being inclusive
does not reject aspirations of fullintegration with the
metropolis.
The history of the autonomist movement
in Puerto Rico shows both tendencies.
Autonomism in Puerto Rico has been anextremely contradictory and
ambivalent
movement, a movement where the
element that could be rightfully called
nationalistic has had a permanentprecarious existence.
Nationalism is in
the final analysis a question of loyalty,
and autonomists in Puerto Rico through-
out their history have been prone to
express with passion their loyalty to themetropolis, be it
Spanish or American.
Rodrguez Vzquezs very close and
detailed analysis of Pedreira, Albizu, andMuoz offers many
rewarding concepts
for the careful reader. The theoretical
framework that he uses gets in the way
of a more facile understanding of theauthors under
consideration, but that is
small change in comparison to what can
be learned from this book. Rodrguez
Vzquezs detailed reading of Muoz
provides the elements necessary to
understand how from the very beginnings
it provided a base for the subsequent
evolution that would lead him to
abandon the goal of independence.What perhaps could have
been
developed in more detail is the discursive
continuity of the moderate nationalism
of Muozs father and son. To what
extent was Muoz Marn in hisindependentista phase no more than
an
overheated version of the phoney
nationalist postures in the Unionist Party
that he once criticized? To what extentdid Muoz Marn, in his
moment of
arrival, return to the possibilist and
accomodating positions of his father
Luis Muoz Rivera?
REFERENC ES
Anderson, Benedict. 1991.Imagined
Communities: Reflections on the Origins
and Spread of Nationalism. London &New York: Verso.
Chatterjee, Partha. 1986. Nationalist
Thought and the Colonial World: A
Derivative Discourse?. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press.
________ 1993. The Nation and its Fragments:
Colonial and Postcolonial Histories.
Princeton, N.J: Princeton University
Press.
Gramsci, Antonio. 1971. Selections from the
Prison Notebooks. New York:
International Publishers.
In25/4 Jul io: conme morar, feste jar,
consumir en Puerto Rico, Maria MargaritaFlores Collazo presents
a historical
account of the changing symbolicsignificance of the 25th and 4th
of July
celebrations in Puerto Rico throughout
seven decades of U.S. and Puerto Rican
political relations. Flores Collazo seeksto address the
circumstances by which
these commemorations were createdand the people who were
directly and
indirectly involved in the emergence
25/4 Julio: conmemorar, festejar,
consumir en Puerto RicoBy Mara Margarita Flores Collazo
Historicas, 2004 217 pages; $16.95 [paper]
REVIEWER: Johana Londoo, New York University
