CULTURE-HONDURAS: A visit to the Cultural Zone

By Thelma Mejía Reprint | | Print |

Thelma Mejia

TEGUCIGALPA, Feb 10 1998 (IPS) - One year ago, intellectuals, politicians and social groups began meeting in the capital to debate a wide-ranging list of issues on the culture of Honduras.

Today, the “Cultural Zone” as the group’s meeting place is called has become the principal center of debate in the country. Organized by the Honduran Pablo Neruda Foundation and the German Friederich Ebert Foundation, can point to the success of their gathering. They helped the Tawanka indigenous community group, from Mosquitia on the Atlantic Coast, to obtain a decree from Congress declaring the the Platano River region where they live as Honduras’ second ecological reserve.

For the Tawankas, the smallest ethnic group in Central America with just 800 members, the forest is their “natural hospital” and the knowledge of the forest inherited from their ancestors involves allowing the land to lie fallow after use for a period of six years. More than a decade ago, the Tawankas launched their struggle to conserve the biosphere of the Platano River as a reserve. After a discussion generated by the Cultural Zone, they decided to take up the project once again.

Ludguera Kemp, representative of the Friederich Ebert Foundation in Tegucigalpa, told IPS that the Cultural Zone is a place to express the thoughts, traditions, identities and criticisms that together constitute the “norms and ethical values of this country.”

“A living democracy depends on the development of culture, which in turn depends on the development of the political system, in other words, creating favorable conditions for the free development of culture on the basis of space, liberties and resources,” he said.

Based on this premise, the Ebert Foundation, together with the Pablo Neruda Foundation, decided to stir up cultural activities in Honduras, which are mostly targeted to elite sectors, by stimulating the participation of broad social groups.

Like the Tawankas, the demands of the Garifunas (blacks) have also been heard. They have been promoting their culture, and the Cultural Zone provides them with a space to promote their cuisine. Jorge Illescas, of the Pablo Neruda Foundation, noted that the Cultural Zone has also been promoting open forums about Latin American and European art, because “open dialogue and public participation are the best ways of enlightening people.”

Illescas said that one of the group’s most polemic sessions was in reference to the role of intellectuals in politics. Some members criticized a group of intellectuals who sent a letter to President Carlos Flores in which they describe him as the Honduras’ “best statesman.”

Juan Ramon Duran, one of the organizers of Cultural Zone, said that in the course of a year, the group has generated debates “rarely seen in Central America, where mutual support praise necessary in any given society have had no place here.”

“The Cultural Zone has created s a space that has never existed before in Honduras. Little by little, problems are being debated, but we also try to solve problems, like those of the indigenous and of poor children from the shantytowns who now enjoy new educational toys to help in their formation,” he said.