Paulo Freire and the Cold War Politics of Literacy

Epilogue: Legacies of a Cold War Intellectual in a Post–Cold War World

Since his death on 2 May 1997, Paulo Freire’s writings, ideas, and techniques have had a life of their own. They may, at times and in turn, create their own historical contexts. His influence remains strong, particularly among those involved in what is known as popular education and among those in the academic world who practice what they call critical pedagogy.1 As the second decade of the twenty-first century begins, literacy campaigns as part of state projects are still often associated with the Left, whether in Húgo Chávez’s Venezuela (where the teachers are often Cuban) or in Maoist Nepal. unesco, still given to naming years and even decades of literacy, has not given up hope that by 2015, “education for all” will be attained and the adult illiteracy rate will be cut in half.2 Illiteracy remains a global problem, with an estimated one in five adults (774 million people) illiterate. But the illiteracy of the present is both more and less of a problem in a world in which the majority of the population lives in cities than it was in the rural societies of the past. Urbanites may have more opportunities to become literate, and urban life often makes reading and writing skills more necessary, which can create a greater incentive to learn to read and write. In any case, literacy is no longer the urgent issue that it was during the Cold War. The global reach of the Cold War meant that all corners of the world could be perceived as being at risk of falling into the opposing group; superpowers had more reasons to compete for loyalty and to provide support for development. As we have seen, it was that perceived sense of urgency that helped make Freire’s work even more important than it Epilogue / Legacies of a Cold WarIntellectual in a Post–Cold War World 166 epilogue would have been otherwise.3 As the Cold War ended, complacency settled in, and much of the world could safely be ignored. Or so it seemed. Paulo Freire was not only a significant figure in intellectual and educational circles in his time but also an important political actor. It is a tribute to the power of his ideas that they could be employed in countries with formal democratic systems, as well as in countries recently emerging from colonial status or dictatorships. If his language often now seems time-bound, it is in part because we are living in a post–Cold War world. The Cold War shaped his career, and both limited and expanded his horizons. If the Cold War provided an impetus at times for a deepening and consolidation of democracy in parts of South America, in particular, and at least temporarily, it also distorted these political processes, often halting significant progress and reversing it at critical moments. The failure of the United States to stay true to its democratic principles undoubtedly had an impact on the thinking of many on the democratic Left in Latin America. In 1993, thirty years after the literacy campaign in Angicos, Rio Grande do Norte, which made Freire nationally renowned, a local public school honored Freire. He is pictured here with his students from the campaign. Photo courtesy of Lutgardes Costa Freire. epilogue 167 But the Latin American Left, as personified by Freire, had its own illusions , its own impatience, and its own inability to stay true to its democratic beliefs. And it is striking how some segments of the Latin American Left became more rigid even as their options narrowed and the chances of achieving power became extremely remote. It was the pluralism of the Brazil of the early 1960s and of Chile before 11 September 1973 that increased the democratic potential of Freire’s ideas. Cold War realities could not allow this pluralism to survive, even in the “Free World.” Freire’s historical experiences suggest that he should have embraced political pluralism more readily and more consistently, but the Left’s disdain for “bourgeois democracy” and enthusiasm for the one-party state were slow to wane. And the Cold War transformed the context in which this man from the Brazilian northeast operated. Freire was purely a nationalist as long as he remained in Brazil, and yet even during his years as an internationalist he never truly abandoned the hope for a unifying nation-state, even one...