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  • Intellectuals and Left Politics in Uruguay, 1958–2006
  • Francisco Panizza
Intellectuals and Left Politics in Uruguay, 1958–2006. By Stephen Gregory. East Sussex: Sussex Academic Press, 2009. Pp. vii, 234. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $74.95 cloth.

This book maps the relations between progressive intellectuals and the left in Uruguay over the past half-century. Starting in the late 1950s, at a time when the left was an electorally marginal and politically divided force, it ends with the groundbreaking electoral victory of the country's main left-wing party, the Frente Amplio (Broad Front), in 2004. Appropriately enough, the story starts by quoting an essay written in 1952 by Juan Flo, a young intellectual, who after deriding fellow intellectuals for being hypercritical observers instead of active agents of social change raised a question of quasi-Leninist resonance: "What shall we do, then?" Flo's answer to his own question was not entirely clear at the time, but over the following two decades Uruguayan intellectuals became important players in the country's changing political landscape.

Progressive intellectuals, many of whom were contributors to the highly influential weekly periodical Marcha, played a significant role in the negotiations that led to the foundation of the Frente Amplio in 1971 and became part of a group of politically independent left-wing personalities that glued together the Frente's fractious constituencies. The political life of the Frente was put on hold by the 1973 military coup that initiated a long decade of brutal dictatorship. Leftist intellectuals, together with thousands of activists and sympathizers, were imprisoned, tortured, and exiled by the military and prevented from publishing in their own country. However, some of the exiles, like the novelist and poet Mario Benedetti who took residence in Spain, became well known throughout the Spanish-speaking world and beyond.

When Uruguay returned to democracy in 1985, many intellectuals returned to their former posts in the national university and other cultural institutions, but the country had changed irrevocably since the 1970s and with it the role of intellectuals as well. Uruguay was now a socially and culturally more fragmented society, making it difficult for intellectuals to recapture their role as guardians and arbiters of the nation's high culture. La movida, a new youth culture rooted in the subterranean counterculture of the dictatorship years, vindicated a new kind of "politics of anti-politics" that had less to do with taking over state institutions and more with liberating sexualities, experimenting with new forms of artist expression, and redefining identities (including the [End Page 577] country's image of itself). And while this new culture generated its own intellectuals, such as the sociologist Rafael Bayce, other left-wing intellectuals, such as Benedetti, failed to get it.

The relation between intellectuals and the Frente Amplio had also changed. With the return to democracy the Frente started a steady process of electoral growth and shift to the center that would lead to electoral victory almost 20 years later. But the political ascent of the Frente Amplio was marshalled by seasoned politicians and social activists, including leaders of the Tupamaro urban guerrilla movement of the 1970s such as current Uruguayan president José Mujica and new political leaders such as his predecessor Tabaré Vázquez, rather than by intellectuals. And while the Frente has maintained an impressive tradition of internal political pluralism and intellectual debate, professional experts such as social scientists, rather than artists and writers, are the ones in demand by the governing party as advisors and consultants.

This book will be appreciated mainly by those interested in Uruguay's cultural and political history. However, it can also be read as part of a broader narrative about the contribution of intellectuals to the rise of the left in Latin America and of the relations between politics and culture everywhere. It raises a key question that is global in its implications: Is there a role left for intellectuals in the traditional European sense of the term in the increasingly professionalized world of politics, including left-wing politics? In a globalized world the role of intellectuals continues to be to speak truth to power. The Frente Amplio has been in office for over half a...

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