The impact of linguistic imperialism on Third World Countries. Does it affect English Teaching? The role of Non-native Teachers...

Lets share t h e l a s t ENELL´s conclusionsAll toghether we keep on cronstructing the ENELL...

Border Writers

Cassandra's dream

A philosophical criticism of Woody

Allen´s last production.

Is Spanglish a language?

Two positions contributing to the debate of the status of Spanglish

as part of both English and Spanish languages.

English and ImperialismISSN 1852-0766

Border Writers

Index03---> Editorial + Publications

04---> Debate: Is Spanglish a Language?.

07---> Arts & Minds: Border Poetry08---> News & Activities

09---> Specials: ENELL 200810---> Dossier:English and Imperialism

14---> Who wants to Participate?15---> New Projects: The Social and

Cultural Center Olga Vázquez 17---> Movie Review: Cassandra's

dream18---> Literary Critique: The Buddha of

Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi19---> Just Because…

La Plata, year 1, Nº 2. Price: $2

Borders always try to separate us, languages treat to isolate us, languages

compartmentalize our lives… what we are looking for is to find us; we long to be writing

all from the border, sharing.

Ask for your cd with this Border Writer´s edition, it includes two translation programmes and an English Dictionary.

Price: $3

Staff + Index

StaffBelen MatschkeClara CondenanzaIgnacio GelsoJulia “Betty” CentenoManuel López

DesignerSoledad “Puppy Girl” Godoy

Collaborators Belén AlonsoLeda Comiso

Contactborderwriters@gmail.com

aulelenguas.blogspot.com

Editor pro tem:Manuel LópezAULE48 e 6 y 7 CP 1900 Facultad de Humanidades UNLP La Plata Buenos Aires Argentina

ISSN 1852-0766

Publication of the Notebook of Languages

The Department of Languages and Modern literatures has published the number 6 of his

magazine: Hospitable visits. The poetry of Philip Larkin. Preliminary

study, notes and translations. By the teachers Miguel A. Montezanti, Cecilia Chiacchio and Amanda

Zamuner. The copies of this notebook, as well as the previous

notebooks, are in sale in the Department (4th floor).

Publication: Reflexes. Sonnets of a wordThe book finds to the sale in the Department of Modern languages Reflexes. Sonnets of a word, of the Canadian writer Seymour Mayne, who assembles the translation of three collections of sonnets of a word: Hail, Ricochet and Overhead (2005). The teams of translators (more than 130 persons) belong to the chair Literary Translation I (English) periods 2005-06-07 and they were coordinated by the Prof. Mgr. Maria Laura Spoturno

EditorialBorder Writers

This is Border Writer's second number, after so much work here it is. The first was a kind of test, because we did not know if it was going to be well-received and whether it really worth so much effort. We confirmed that it did worth it, as many students approached Aule's table to ask for the magazine and we crossed over to some colleagues reading it through the corridors (or in some boring class!). This fulfilled us with enthusiasm, it was like a shot to write and publish again, because in the end we realized how valuable it was the time invested in meetings, the writing and the edition.So, the magazine comes out into the streets and we have it in our hands, this is something that causes pride and infinite happiness to us. This, our second number comes with many articles, spaces of production, literature and other things. Our north, or rather what guides us in the construction and complexion of the magazine, is to create a space to meet and participate with English students. We see, as we mentioned in B.W's last number, that sometimes the spaces of production and free expression are scarce in the career and we bet on generating them. That's one of the things that, as Aule we believe, is our work to do, together with the rest of the students. To generate participation is not something impossible, in fact we are doing it right now creating an activity that (we think) rules! This is our obligation, not as students in Aule but as students in general. We hope you enjoy the magazine, as much as we do. And we also hope you help us continuing this project, because it is always worth valuable to go on with collective experiences. Our adventure is from now and on in your hands! We hope to see you1!

Editorial +Publications

Spanglish, the language that consist on Spanish and English that emerged from the street and got into interviews programs and advertizing campaigns, raises a serious danger to the Hispanic culture and to the progress of the Hispanics inside the North American majority current. Those who tolerate it and even promote it like an innocuous miscellany do not realize that this is not a relation based on the equality. Spanglish is an invasion of Spanish for English. The fact is that spanglish is basically the language of poor people which are almost illiterate in any of two languages. They incorporate words and English constructions into his every day speech because they lack of vocabulary and education in Spanish to adapt themselves to the changeable culture that surrounds them. The polite Hispanics who do the same have a different motivation: some of them are ashamed of his origin and try to look alike to the rest using English words and translating straight the English idiomatic expressions. Doing it, they think, is to claim the member's quality of the majority current. Politically, nevertheless, spanglish is a capitulation; it indicates marginalization, not liberation. Spanglish treats the Spanish as if the language of Cervantes, Lorca, García Márquez, Borges and Peace did not have a proper extract and a dignity. It is not possible to speak about physics or metaphysics in spanglish, while Spanish has a vocabulary more than adapted for both disciplines. Renouncement For the preeminence of English in fields as technology, some terms, like "biper" for "beeper", must be incorporated into Spanish. But why to give up when there are words and Spanish phrases perfectly correct? If, since it has happened with many of the tendencies of North American Hispanics, spanglish had to extend Latin America, it would constitute the last capture of imperialist power, the final imposition of a way of life that is economically domineering but not culturally top in no sense. Latin America is rich in many not measurable aspects with a calculator. Nevertheless, I get alarmed whenever I hear transmissions of broadcasting stations of television with base in the United States that are radiated across the whole hemisphere. The weather forecasts sound as if it was Spanish, but if one listens with attention, one treats the Spanish as English transposed, not even translated. In Mexico City or in San Juan do they listen or laugh? The same type of renouncement observes in North American companies that hope to obtain profit on the Hispanic market. A cold covers my back when I hear a clerk asking: "¿Cómo puedo ayudarlo?" (literal transposition of English "How can I help you?"), instead of the most proper: "¿Qué desea?” Incomprehensible language In a recent flight to Mexico, a Hispanic stewardess read a text that had been incomprehensible for a Mexican, a Spanish or a North American Hispanic of a region different from his. Television and street ads in Spanish in New York are full of mistakes. I wonder if the recent Latin-American immigrants can at least understand them. I s uppose that my medievalists colleagues will say that without the contamination of Latin

by the local languages there would not have existed Spanish (or French or Italian). But we are already not in the Middle Age and it is ingenuous to think that we might create a new

Border WritersDebate-Is spanglish a language?

By Roberto González-Echeverría

To speak spanglish is to devaluate Spanish

Who is R. G-E.? For Roberto González-Echeverría, teacher of Hispanic and compared literatures at Yale University, the miscellany of Spanish and English, far from being innocuous, it harms the proper speakers

RAY SUAREZ: What is Spanglish? ILAN STAVANS: Spanglish is the encounter, perhaps the word is marriage or divorce of English and Spanish, but also of Anglo and Hispanic civilizations not only in the United States, but in the entire continent and perhaps also in Spain. It is the way of communication where one starts in one language, switches to the other back and forth or perhaps coins a few new words or thinks in one language and reacts in another one. It is a very creative jazzy way of being Latino in the U.S. today. RS: But is it really a language? IS: Not yet, not quite. Perhaps we're in the process of becoming one. We are closer to being a dialect. There is really not one Spanglish. There are varieties of Spanglish. There's Spanglish spoken by Cuban Americans in Miami called cubonics different from Mexican American

Spanglish, but thanks to the Internet, thanks to radio and television, thanks to what is happening in the classrooms, in the streets,in the restaurants, we are finding a middle ground. RS: Well, is one language crashing into the other in an equal kind of way, or is this something that's really happening to the way Spanish is spoken without much movement in the other direction? IS: Well, it really depends where you are based and the type of Spanglish that you're listening to. If you are in Puerto Rico, you will hear one type of Spanglish where English and Spanish really get intertwined. It also depends on the social class. If you are in the U.S.-Mexican border, a variety of Spanglish will be sensible to you. But if you go down to Buenos Aires, there are words that are borrowed from English and incorporated into Spanish. And if you go into certain parts of the U.S., where the Latino population is not the predominant one, you will hear more English and less Spanish. So it really depends on the location of the listener or the speaker, the frequency with which one language will mix or clash or become intertwined with the other.

RS: But haven't there been defenders of Spanish, fans of the language, people who want to maintain a kind of uniqueness in the United States who've decried Spanglish saying “ that's terrible. That's not Spanglish. That's bad Spanish. IS: That's right, by all means, and the critics or the accusers or attackers are strong and need to be heard as much as those that are supporting Spanglish should be heard. One has to keep in mind, Ray, that at any given point, languages are in constant change. In order to survive, Spanish had to become what it became, what it is today by incorporating words

Border Writers Is spanglish a language?-Debate

language that was functional and culturally rich. The literature in spanglish can only aspire to a luck of ingenuity based on a rebellious gesture, which becomes exhausted quickly. Those who practise it are convicted to write not a literature of minorities but a minor literature. I do not apologize for my professional prejudices: I believe that people should learn languages well and that learning English should be the first priority for Hispanics if it is what they aspire, as they should, take influential vacancies. But we must remember that we are a special immigration group. While the mother culture of other ethnic groups is far away geographically. The immigration originated in Latin America supports our community in the state of continuous renewal. Spanish is our strongest bond, and it is vital that we preserve it.

The symptom of an altogether new mestizo civilization

Who is I. S.? Ilan Stavans was born in Mexico in 1961 to an Eastern European Jewish family. In 1985, after a sojourn in Spain, he moved to the United States and began writing while taking a doctorate from Columbia University. The p a s t d e c a d e h a s established him as a distinguished Latino critic, e d i t o r a n d a u t h o r . Currently he is a professor of Latin American and Latino Cultures at Amherst College.

from French, from Italian, from English; 400 years ago, when Miguel de Cervantes was writing his masterpiece Don Quixote, the Spanish that was spoken in Spain was very different from the one that we speak today,. Same with English, 500 years ago English was very different than what it is today. I think that being able to appreciate Spanglish enables us to see the process of language formation. It is like an astronomer discovering a new galaxy. It is not only an opportunity to see how galaxies are created, but to see how our own galaxy was formed. I think Spanglish enables us to think how Spanish and English became what they are, how they at one point became colonial languages, imperial languages, Spanish as much as English, and how they became the status quo. All other languages that are formed, that are shaped tend to come from the sides and eventually come to the center. And that is what is happening I think with Spanglish. RS: But with Spanglish, will you ever have a grammar, a form, rules? I mean this seems to be a language that's formed by breaking the rules. IS: And that is exactly the way it happened to Yiddish 700 years ago. Yiddish originally in Eastern Europe was considered the language of children, of the illiterate, of women. And 500 years later, by the 18th century, writers realized that, in order to communicate with the masses, they could no longer write in Hebrew.The future is already here. Spanglish is already a diverse, influential way of communication." Corporations have discovered it. It is on television, it is in radio. Novels are being written in Spanglish. Rap, rock -- this is kind of a utopian dream or an anti-utopian dream.

Border WritersDebate-Is spanglish a language?

6

Who is H.C.? Héctor Carbajal is an El Paso born poet and Ronald E. McNair scholar studying at New Mexico State University. He has been published in El Ocotillo and Our Lady of the Lake University's The Thing Itself. He is also a former writer for the El Paso Times. He hopes to pursue studies in ethnic literature, film theory and queer studies in graduate school.

Border Writers

Upon Roaming the Borderlands by Héctor Carbajal

Upon roaming the Borderlands,I step out of my body

and walk onan herida, where blood

runs a river-the glorious Llorona's sanctuary.Every step I take, I turn my head-

fences, barbed wire, walls-I don't know where to go:

out of place, lost and forgotten.I cry my anger.

I pose with arms outstretched-hung against a grey, turbulent portrait sky:

"Please forgive them Father.They know not how

they have conquered us."I resume my journey

through the different lenguas, speaking tongues

praising la Virgencita and Coatlicuefrom humble servants growing

floresitas del corazón.My feet are blisters and

My heels will soon wear out.I fear falling into the abyss

of assimilation, of forgetting-into a pocho well.I climb mountains

in search for God-divider of lands,waters, nights and days-instead,at the top, I see a preacher manfrom my street: "Cristo te salvará."Christ does not come, nor any

other celestial healer-alone, among conquered spaces:

"Go Back to WhereYou Belong.”

My hometown streetsare walls sprayed

with guns from cholos.Solamente fotos en paredes

of children searching sanctuary.Punished-castigados-

for being queers, la jotería dwellsin alien spaces:

"You don't belong here.Go back to where you came from."

South of the BorderI see the mojaditos crossing

el Rio Bravo-just missinglife by swerving highway cars

rushing to 8-to-5 jobs.The binocular gods watch,

ready to attack. Perros desgraciadosbabosos out for a preying good time

while this little lamb watching out for them, endangered to be sacrificed in deep waters.

In the deserts, spirits of young girls roam-dejadas muertas, olvidadas-

solamente caras de inocencia,pictures of memories.

Stop.Quiero agua bendita.

Quiero una purga, una limpia, una ceremonia,

un ritual. I wantthis knife pulled out.

Ehécatl, Coatlicue,Malintzin, Virgen,

Quiero ser Despojado.

Arts & Minds

7

Programme for languages assistantsThe calls are opened for universities of the United States and the United Kingdom. Description:P r o g r a m f o r l a n g u a g e a s s i s t a n t s i n t h e U n i t e d S t a t e s - C a l l2007/2008. Scholarships program Department of Education - Commission Fulbright for Argentine teachers of English to work as language assistants in Universities public and deprived of the United StatesMore information: http://www.me.gov.ar/dnci/becas06.html. Closing: November 10, 2008Program for language assistants in the United Kingdom - Call 2008/2009. Scholarships program Department of Education - British Council for Argentine teachers of English to work as language

a s s i s t a n t s i n t h e U n i t e d K i n g d o m . More information: http://www.me.gov.ar/dnci/becas06.html,Closing: On November 28, 2008

Border Writers

V Teachers' meeting of the Department of Languages and

Modern literatures It will be carried out on November 14 from 9 to 16 hs. in the faculty. Mail of the person in charge: deptolm@fahce.unlp.edu.ar Description of the activity:The purpose of the meeting is to present projects or advances of research projects and activities extension and transference, carried out by teachers, assigned and advanced pupils of the careers of the department in order to extend his diffusion. Those who are employed at investigation, extension and transference inside or out of the Department with subject-matter related to the interests of the same one they will be able to take part like exhibitors. The p r e s e n t a t i o n f o r m s w i l l b e a communications of 10 minutes or exhibition of posters. The inscription will be able to be realized until November 10, 2008 in the Department of Languages and Modern literatures.Tariffs: Teachers and graduated $ 20. Pupils: free

Elections for Advisory MeetingsSeen the need to proceed to the renewal of the Departmental Advisory Meetings, the faculty of Humanities and Educational sciences has fixed on the 26th, 27th and 28th November 2008 to develop the corresponding elections.

News + Activities

Teaching selection - English Introductory Course

From October 14 until October 27 the inscription will be opened for the select ion of qual i f ied assistants (complementary list)Description: The Department calls to teaching selection of qualified assistants to shape a complementary list for the Introductory Course to the English careers. The interested parties will have to present the following papers:-Two CV copies in role and one in digital format-A copy of convincing in the order in which it appears in the CV-Analytical certificate-Chart of Inscription-Lesson plan To present the papers in on enclosure in the Department of Languages and Modern literatures from Monday until Friday from 9 to 12 hs. and On Monday, Wednesday and Friday of 13:00 to 16:30 hs.

opened for participation those that congregated the enthusiasm and the desire of debating that we have. We take the word and feel (creative) makers of our way (formation). It eliminated the drowsiness (fatigue) and renewed the interest and the curiosity that should never disappear, but that sometimes the academic life wears out. One of these activities consisted in what we name “epistemological break”, an informal space of debate and collective construction. In this occasion we have worked in groups on a hilarious Fontanarrosa conference about the bad words. Playing in commissions the role of an “academicians' circle” constructing a dictionary, we have debated the use and the legitimacy of some polemic words, his history and his implications, discussing what makes the use of a word questionable boarding situations of discrimination and a subject-matter of genre. This linguistic and cultural debate was realized across these dynamic slogans on which we could listen to our opinions and present them in a common plenary, analysing questions which are deeply rooted in our formation. Also there arises with all this the need to multiply these exchange experiences, to provide us with hardware of popular education also.

Another highly valued space was the papers exhibition, where we could listen to students' works, value them and even surprise with the debate they generated. Like singular experience, also emphasized a field trip that we did the first day, to the primary school Nº 46. This school in the outskirts of the city confronts the challenge of having a group of pupils about whom many of them speak Aymará or Quechuan. The problematic of education and language policies will mix up with the cultures of original peoples and with the phenomena of immigration. To recognize these questions as a part of our field of study and to approach the practices of these main enterprising were a part of a surprising experience.

Finally, the closing of the meeting where we share together what we have done those three days highlighted the need to reinforce this space, without losing the contact, joining to construct it from our faculties, to come back next year.With all this we conceive the ENELL, apart from being a meeting, as an opportunity. It is an experience where we can share and plan among students, to get the impression away of that, in one hand there is the career and on the other hand, the profession and the “exterior world”. We believe it and that's why we extend this invitation to add you, waiting and working so that bridges are more and more warm and nearby.

Border Writers

In a recent weekend, between Friday 10th and Sunday 12th, students of the careers of Languages and Literature from diverse Argentinian Universities shared a new edition of our meeting. The place: the faculty of Humanities of the National University of Mar del Plata. The conclusions: to keep on constructing the meeting we want, with students' full participation, criticizing and proposing on our formation, rethinking our roll like professionals, and getting to know each other in a climate of happiness and motivating brotherhood. The meeting developed with two types of different activities: conferences with disputants and participative workshops.

Nevertheless, and this has been the outstanding point of the Enell, there were the workshops

Between all we keep on constructing the Enell!

By Jeremías Córcico

Specials

This assignment will first address the issue of the impact of linguistic imperialism in Córdoba , Argentina , by providing some theoretical background to this phenomenon while illustrating it with reference to the situation in Córdoba. Secondly, the role and status of the non-native English speaker teacher (non-NEST) will be discussed in the context of linguistic dominion.

Tellefson (1991), in turn, relates English language teaching with modernization, especially in Third World countries in Asia and Africa, where "English is seen as an essential tool for importing Western technologies and building economic ties with Europe and North America " (ibid.: 80). This statement also seems to apply to developing countries such as Argentina .

In any case, Tollefson's contention that one of the major justifications for people's learning English is that it will "benefit them economically by helping them find work" (ibid. 80) holds true in the context of Argentinian labour market.

Spolsky (1998) points to the importance of the general worldwide desire to learn the language, and to the fact that language diffusion efforts of English-speaking countries are aimed at exploiting this desire.

Linguistic Imperialism around the World.

In an effort to organize the landscape where English is a dominant language, Kachru (1985) presents a three-layered linguistic model of English- and non-English-speaking nations. Nations such as the UK , the USA an Australia belong in the inner circle, where English is the main and official language. Countries such as India , where English has spread historically, often by colonization, constitute the Outer Circle. The Expanding Circle encompasses those nations which have welcomed English as the main international language of communication, such as Scandinavia and Argentina .

The situation in the Nordic countries is very similar to the one here in Córdoba and throughout the whole of Argentina , particularly in big cosmopolitan cities. Here,

English may be a key element to educational and career prospects, many textbooks written in English are used in degree programmes, and English is the chosen language, sometimes and-in-hand with Spanish, in many

Border Writers

The impact of linguistic imperialism on Third World Countries

English and ImperialismBy Dolores Orta González

Dossier- Imperialism English and

conferences held in Argentina .

The promotion of English.

In Britain and USA there are various organizations whose aim is to promote and expand ELT locally and overseas. Of all these, the British Council stands out since it was one of the first bodies to pursue the promotion of English Language (Phillipson, 1992), and its work is remarkable in the city of Córdoba and across Argentina . The original aims of this organization, created in 1940, were to promote a winder knowledge of the United Kingdom and of English and to develop closer cultural relationships between other countries and the UK in order to benefit the Commonwealth (ibid.). It also sought to encourage, through schools and universities, the knowledge of the English language. Phillipson describes this original attitude, which was later to become less language-based in its discourse, as the dissemination of an "elitist, idealist notion of culture" (ibid. 139), through which English was to be practically imposed to secure cultural understanding.

Since 1940, and via its overseas offices, the British Council has spread throughout the world.

The origins of linguistic imperialism.

A milestone in the development of ELT around the world was The Commonwealth Conference on the Teaching of English as a Second Language held in Makerere , Uganda in 1961. Here, decisions were made as to priorities for ELT in the newly independent countries, and although it brought together representatives of twenty-three countries, the doctrine that was to shape ELT work around the world materialized in Makerere. The tenets that underlie many of the methodological principles enunciated in the conference report represent influential ideas and beliefs in ELT and have had "a decisive influence on the nature and content of ELT aid activity in periphery-English countries" (Ibid.184). Although these tenets were upheld long ago, some of them are still controversial.

Phillipson warns against the risk that the status of these tenets could lead to their becoming a dogma, and he formulates the key ones as follows: English is best taught monolingually. The ideal teacher of English is a native speaker. The earlier English is taught, the better the results.

Border Writers English and Imperialism-Dossier

The more English is taught, the better result. If other language are used much, standards of English will drop. (ibid.185).

He then states that these tenets can be scrutinised individually and questioned, in the light of current theory and knowledge among other aspects, and can so be redesignated as "fallacies" (ibid.185). The next sections of this paper will concentrate on the position of the non-native English speaker teacher (non-NEST) in the light of the native speaker fallacy.

The popularity of English has virtually spawned a "factory" of teachers, many of which do not have it as a first language. This troop of non-NESTs struggle and try to make their way in a market where NESTs are seemingly still favoured and where the former still bear a stigma or are at least considered suspicious.

In any case, the fuzzy nature of term "native speaker" renders a comparison between NESTs and non-NESTs awkward and fruitless. According to some authors, such as Rampton (1990), new terminology needs to be coined in ELT to define models. He tentatively suggests the terms "expertise", "affiliation" and "inheritance" as yardsticks to be used when describing models. He thus displaces the native speaker as a point of reference by refuting certain common assumptions, such as the fact that "Inheriting a language means being able to speak it well" or that "Being a native speaker involves the comprehensive grasp of a language" (ibid.97). Medgyes (1992), although incurring comparison between NESTs and non-NESTS, acknowledges the inefficacy of drawing a dividing line between these two terms. Edge (1988) also seeks to achieve an internationalist perspective as opposed to the "…essentially nationalistic view of native speaker/non-native speaker…" (ibid.156). His words strongly echo, once again, the presence and influence of linguistic imperialism.

Border WritersDossier- Imperialism English and

The following advantages of non-NESTs correspond to those put forth by Medgyes (1992).

Only non-NESTs can serve as imitable models of the successful learner of English. Non-NESTs provide better learner models since they "learned" English as opposed to "acquiring" it (Krashen, 1988), although, to be good models, they should be successful learners themselves and be proficient as user of English.

.Non-NESTs can teach learning strategies more effectively. Since they have adopted and used learning strategies successfully during their own learning process, "they are supposed to be conscious strategy users" (Medgyes, 2001), and they can thus make their students aware of these strategies and guide them as to which are the most suitable for them.

.Non-NESTs can provide learners with more information about the English language. While learning the language, they have "gained abundant knowledge about and insight into how English language works" (Medgyes, 1992), and are therefore very well informed. They possess abundant explicit knowledge about the language, which they have amassed during their own learning process.

.Non-NESTs are more able to anticipate language difficulties. They possess an anticipatory skill which becomes more sophisticated as they gain experience. They are highly perceptive about language difficulties and they are able to identify "trouble spots" (Medgyes, 2001) easily. By means of this anticipatory skill, they can predict what is likely to go wrong and thus prevent the materialization of problems in the form of error.

.Non-NESTs can be more empathetic to the needs and problems of their learners. As they are constant learners of English, they face difficulties which may coincide with their students', and this makes them more "sensitive and understanding" (Medgyes, 1992). From a pedagogical point of view, non-NESTs can respond more easily to their students' needs, set realistic aims for them and also gauge their level of motivation more accurately.

.Only Non-NESTs can benefit from sharing the learner's mother tongue. In a monolingual classroom, the use of the mother tongue becomes an effective tool for communication which can in many ways facilitate the teaching-learning process.

Border Writers Dossier-Non NEST pros

Non NEST pros

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From AULE we conceive culture as a carrier of the many cultural forms of expression that produce the identity of a people in relation to its values and constant resistance against the dominant imposition. Film-making is

probably the paradigm in art as it has internalized itself in the conscience of the masses producing knowledge that is set in a s h a r e d s u b j e c t i v i t y ,

adopting mechanisms of sporadic resistance through the culture of image. It is not possible to elaborate a finished plan of an individual against the constant struggle of suppression of regional identities and systematic exclusion of a group of people, if it is not through participation and knowledge about what this system needs as a priority for its own reproduction. Through its prices, the “commercial” side of films provokes a systematic eliminatio n of this necessary confront ation. We propose to break away from this practice and share the phenomenon to r e t h i n k their values that might be useful to undermine their basis and create our own images with all the possible tools. Join us every Friday at 8pm to enjoy, in a symbolic appropriation, some movies for free.

Border WritersWho wants to participate?-Cultural AULE

borderwriters@gmail.com

Whooo...wants to participate?

aulelenguas.blogspot.com14

served itself as a good business that had his corollary with the failure and the closing of the educational unit. Four years ago, a group of social organizations occupied the godforsaken place, to begin to resignify it and to give a place, in the city enter, to the peripheral quarters and outsiders of our city. That's why the idea of baptizing it with the name of Olga, a partner who was employed at a dining room of the area of Romero, and died from Hantavirus...

The “Olga” began to receive more life and more youth, with capoeira workshops , Tha i -ch í , ceramics, literature, band of street musicians style Uruguayan and from the River Plate region. There secondary and university students assemble, also diverse groups of work quagmire, the Frente

Popular Darío Santillán, the Movimiento Intersindical Clasista, the CORREPI, and the group HIJOS, among others that enter and go out of the beehive that simulates to be the cultural center in rush hours. Periodically there are handmade fairs, movies cycles and debate workshops. Also, recorded by the characteristics of the Movimiento de Trabajadores Desocupados, the self-management and the co l lec t i ve construction, the work without boss occupies a central roll in the “Olga”. In it's classrooms works a Cooperative of Textile Work, a Workshop of Textile and Loom, a Pizzeria, a printing, a blacksmiths' Cooperative, a place of the Network

Border Writers New projects

Welder salt a yellow cable of the machine and in his trip it surrounds a big drum, it goes under someone who works with a spade, very close to them someone reads and other realizes a daring capoeira movement. The cable merges with the street where there's a motorbike that deliver pizzas, and a few small houses and ranches are part of the way. There returns to his form of cable to feed on electrons the tool of a girl farrier, who works trying to weld a moon of sheet that stands out in the front of the Social and Cultural Center Olga Vázquez. The group of muralists “Sien Volando”, with the mural that they d e s i g n e d f r o m o u r practices, and that we paint all together, help us a hand to tell who we are, what we do, and of how we do it. In the street 60 between 10 and 11 of the city of La Plata, the C.S. and C. “Olga Vázquez“ emerges as a place opened to diverse cultural expressions, to di f ferent groups meet ings ' , socia l organizations and Human rights ones, and the development of automanaged and cooperative works. This confluence generates a new cosmos; it tries to show another way of thinking and doing the work, other possible way for social relations, of inhabiting the world. The space was abandoned, it used to be a school (“Centro Pedagógico La Plata”), which was founded with the aspiration of an educational quality similar to Colegio Nacional quality, imposing high prices. Far from achieving that aspiration, the school

“The Struggle is not finished, it is reinvented”Paulo Freire

of Just Commerce (that allows to commercialize and gather the production of many automanaged workers/experts of the different neighbourhoods of La Plata and Berisso), and a School of Office of smithy, electricity and building. Each of these activities is shaping and recreating this alternative space, which impels new relations in the production, in the education, and in the culture. It tries to construct a counterhegemonic pedagogic proposal, an alternative that tends to generate different ways of questioning and resisting, constructing new social relations. This way, from the diverse workshops it's practised a form of organization that invites to participate. And from there it addresses to the society demonstrating that another way of being related is possible. Last year arrived an auction notification that put in risk again the life of the "Olga". The street 60 between 10 and 11 is a strategic place for the real estate business, which produces more and more buildings in our city devastating the few community spaces that we have left. This accelerated the time of the cause for broke, which was “sleeping” at court, because of the ambition of particular interests without minding in destroying work sources, neither spaces of meeting nor educational experiences. The city is overflow of buildings, these cement elephants represent the business of few ones and the flexibilization of the life of many: spaces of 2x2 with the highest rents usurers against the students; they remove the water pressure to the rest of the quarter, and work like walls that blocked the sun from coming to the window of the lowest houses. Despite the eviction threats, the sun in the C.S. and C. Olga Vázquez kept on illuminating, because it had a proper engine. From the beehive went out all the artistic, political and labor expressions that inhabit it. Innumerable quantity of meetings, fairs, artistic numbers, coloring marches; in the neighbourhood, in the squares and in the streets it gives place to the expression of struggle that, on December 7th 2008, ended temporally when we get the signature of Felipe Solá in the last days of his order like governor and obtain the Law of expropriation that affirms that the “Olga” belongs to all. Opposite to a commercialized culture, of the individualism, of the passive acceptance of reality, which appears like the only and winning and that does not have another project for the subjects that being consumers or dying in the attempt, in the “Olga” we live together different organizations and cultural events generating a culture of resistance, of rebelliousness, of the freedom. It is the space where we can be together, to promote us and to value the roll of the happiness, of the creation, of the body, of being played, in the construction of a new culture, inclusive, diverse, revolutionary. This victory of December 7th, forces us to multiply our initiative, along with other efforts, in the contribution to the collective invention of an antagonistic culture of domination, to the question of the set of values that reproduce the capitalism, to the creation of a new type of ties between the militants who today are a part of the resistance, of the creation of a culture of solidarity. The experience of the “Olga” shows us very clearly that “The work, the culture and the human rights are not negotiable”. The collective property involves new challenges in the construction of new pedagogic relations, new forms of production and new politically active bonds that join us in the resistance. These challenges quiz us, and turned into electrons that hasten, they get excited and mix inside the yellow cable that covers all the expressions, culminate helping the girl farrier of the mural, to construct our own stars as guide. We have four more years of struggle so that the state makes the expropriation effective with the payment of the owed debt. Four years to keep on reinventing the struggle and constructing the house of all, join from what you know/want to do: we are waiting for you.

Border Writers

by Julia “Betty” Centeno Through Woody Allen's “Cassandra's Dream” it is possible to bring out to light several reflections that transcend the production of this film and the long trajectory of this brilliant New York native director. It submerges us into the macro theme of films, on the movie-phenomenon experience and the here and now that transforms into an exclusive good of those who watch it. In this film, Allen appeals to some aspects already dealt with on some of his previous movies, such as the lack of absolute and conclusive values of criminality, definitive actions as part of an ample sphere where existential contradictions remain supreme and unique and where relationships originate the identification of the self. These complex affectionate relation, like the one these two brothers have, touch conflictive points that allow individuality to intertwine with what is shared and to generate a brotherly bond. Competition, jealousy, oppressive similitude and the necessity to suppress the other who is resented for being an obstacle of the ghostly personal development. It is not by chance that the sequence opens in relation to a common goal that will be the launching point to generate interactive variables and that it will be on the ship they share where they will allow themselves to be honest to each other during their conversations. The main conflict begins with a demand and the guilt of the family relations that they share, and quickly goes inside their mutual union, growing from the origin and past of their story which comes back to haunt them. This proposal turns out to be very appealing as it allows us to go through the basis of some universal questions, reflect and experience the contradiction that makes us human beings on modern societies, that through individuality and indifference proposes a constant threat. It also licenses the ones that enthusiastically follow Allen's creations to identify new moves and subtleties in the making of, sequence by sequence, the internal and external profile of every character, their anguish and desires and the oppressive lightness of chance, which is willing to jeopardize the constructed defences and the ironic self-sufficiency of the adult/rational world in tension with the savage/instinctive/childish. It is interesting to complement this production with the dilemmas posed in “Interiors” where he also focuses on the family as an institutionalised membership and in “Crimes and Misdemeanours” or “Match Point” where impunity and destiny are exceeded dialectically by constructing one view, together with social hypocrisy and inequality as a search for power and desire of recognition. Anyway, it is highly recommended.

Border Writers Movie review

Cassandra's dream,

a Philosophical Criticism.

The Buddha of Suburbia (1990), written by Hanif Kureishi, won the Whitbread Award for the best first novel. It has been translated into 20 languages and was also made into a four-part drama series by the BBC in 1993, with a soundtrack by David Bowie. Due to the orality in The Buddha, the historical events, and the many dialogues full of colloquialism, the reader gets the impression of realism. The novel is highly episodical; juxtaposition and collage are the techniques that Kureishi uses. The Buddha of Suburbia is said to be very autobiographical. It is about Karim, a hybrid teenager, who is desperate to escape suburban South London and make new experiences in London in the 1970s. Gladly he takes the unlikely opportunity when a life in the theatre announces itself. When there is nothing left for him to do in London anymore, he stays in New York for ten months. Returned to London, he takes on the offer of a part in a TV soap opera and the book leaves its reader on the verge of Thatcherism. In The Buddha the move (in)to the city (and later on through the city) seems to be like an odyssey, or even a pilgrimage. On the first page Karim introduces himself as follows: "Englishman I am (though not proud of it), from the South London suburbs and going somewhere". This motif is reinforced throughout the novel. Pop music is an important theme in Kureishi's novels. One could even say that his novels have a soundtrack. London itself is associated by Karim to a sound. "There was a sound that London had. It was, I'm afraid, people in Hyde Park playing bongos with their hands; there was also the keyboard on The Doors' "Light My Fire". There were kids in velvet cloaks who lived free lives". Through his work with two theatre companies, Karim gets to know new people from completely different backgrounds, like the working-class Welshman Terry who is an active Trotskyist and wants him to join the party, or Karim's lover Eleanor who is upper middle-class but pretends to be working-class. Through the latter group of people, surrounding Eleanor or Pyke, he realises that these people are speaking a different language, because they received a good education, which was not valuable in the suburbs. Within the problems of prejudice and racism lies one of the themes of initiation novels: the question of identity. Furthermore, London seems to be the perfect setting for the protagonists' "often painful growth towards maturity through a range of conflicts and dilemmas, social, sexual and political.” Even though the Buddha is set in the seventies and ends just before the Thatcher era begins, Kureishi was writing it under the direct influence of the outcome of Thatcherism. It is not surprising then, looking back, that he can see the roots of conservatism already in the seventies.

Border WritersNew projectsLiterary critique

By Ignacio Gelso

19

Border Writers Just because...

La Plata, year 1, #2. Price: $2.-

Drawing done on pasteboard with aerosol and acrylic, of Lali Varveri