Loose notes on their anniversary: ​​Rafael Tovar and Teresa, under the protection of power

MEXICO CITY (Process).- Rafael Tovar y de Teresa (RTT; 1954-2016), undoubtedly a prepared and cultured character, began his bureaucratic career in public service under the protection of the power of José López-Portillo Pacheco. The starting signal would take place at the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit, where he would serve as head of Cultural Relations (1974-1976), the last section already under the orders of Hugo B. Margáin, to continue his meteoric career as an advisor. of the general director of the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature, Juan José Bremer de Martino (1976-1978).

His gift of ubiquity is surprising, since these first two commissions occurred while he was studying for a degree in Law (1974-1978) at the Azcapotzalco Unit of the newly created Metropolitan Autonomous University, where Carmen Beatriz López Portillo Romano, rector of the University of the Sor Juana Cloister since 1991, she would be his companion on the bench and with whom he would marry pharaonically on October 20, 1979 during his father-in-law’s six-year term in the official residence of Los Pinos, divorcing in 1996 and contracting a new marriage in 2000 with Mariana García-Bárcena Langenscheidt.

Right at this point it is worth noting that in a certain sense everything remained in the family(1), given that RTT’s maternal grandmother responded to the name of Dolores Villagordoa y López Portillo (1886-1962), daughter of Margarita López Portillo y Rojas, to whom season sister of José López Portillo y Rojas (1850-1923), grandfather of President López Portillo, who was a senator and deputy, governor of Jalisco for the National Catholic Party, secretary of Foreign Affairs of “El Chacal” Victoriano Huerta, member of the Mexican Academy of Language and author of “La Parcela” (1898) and “The indigenous race” (1904). Her progenitor was another governor of the old New Galicia, Jesús López-Portillo y Serrano, who also served as imperial prefect, commissioner and state councilor of Emperor Maximilian of Habsburg.

These surface investigations, in true bird’s eye view, insist on news that is not widely spread: the relationship between Rafael Tovar and Teresa and Carmen Beatriz López Portillo Romano and the conservative nature of their families. Family bond that explains the mobility of both characters, whether in the federal public administration or in educational promotion in what was called the Sor Juana Cloister.

Still a high school student, Rafael Tovar y de Teresa had already revealed to us his essential passion for music by collaborating in the cultural supplement of “Novedades” (1972-1973) by Rómulo O’Farril Jr. from Puebla (…).

His writings and articles on musical activities describe the programs and concerts and adhere to journalistic logic. Tovar y de Teresa shares his testimonies and points of view, he is a chronicler outside the organization of educational institutions. He is not part of the Conservatory or UNAM. He is a chronicler of musicians, composers and auditions. It will be far from accounting for works, rhythms, instruments, orchestras and performers, structuring the means of recognition and promoting sound formation, evaluating and appreciating enjoyment, identifying, configuring a collection of composition strategies, styles, notation systems and modalities of execution (…).

Already as an official, he will be involved in cultural activities regardless of their themes and characteristics. He will be a promoter who exports or imports exhibitions or concerts, for example. From the Chancellery, INBAL, Conaculta or even the Ministry of Culture, he will promote programming, not research or the training of audiences or the empowerment of artists and academics. Far from generating training strategies for performers, schools, musicians and ensembles such as, as a reference, the National System of Youth and Children’s Orchestras and Choirs of Venezuela founded in 1975 by José Antonio Abreu.

During his administration at the head of departments and entities, he will promote top-level actions and functions, but not sufficiently strengthen the teaching-learning processes. Limited resources, secondary attention or insufficient international cooperation mechanisms prevented the improvement of our orchestras, academic excellence and the fair and equitable promotion of financing, scholarships and incentives (…).

Barely qualified as a lawyer and lacking significant experience, he entered the Mexican Foreign Service in 1979, where he served as general director of Cultural Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1979-1982). Already in the administration of the federal Executive, Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado will continue as minister at the Mexican Embassy in France (1983-1987), in both appointments under the orders of Jorge Castañeda Álvarez de la Rosa, an exceptional diplomat. Upon returning to Tlatelolco, he will take on an advisory role from the head of international policy (1987-1988), Bernardo Sepúlveda Amor, responsible for the Contadora Group and other regional coordination initiatives.

With the more than disputed electoral victory of Carlos Salinas de Gortari, a flow of control devices and demobilization of critical consciences would be detonated, taking advantage of the prevailing economic crisis and the desperation of numerous sectors of the population. With undeniable cynicism, the National Solidarity Program emerged (…). For its part, the world of creation and ideas would tend to be mediated with the emergence in 1989 of the National Fund for Culture and the Arts (Fonca), intended to grant co-investment support to specific projects and the evaluation of trajectories and proposals. of scholarships to artists and intellectuals. This evaluation and monitoring network represented, to a considerable extent, the backbone of the nascent National Council for Culture and the Arts (Conaculta), emancipated from the Ministry of Public Education and the until then current Undersecretary of Culture. This would divorce the nascent organism from artistic appreciation and initiation from basic education.

I sense that the proximity of intellectuals to politics occurs in a similar way regardless of the latitudes of the planet. Solely and exclusively as a curiosity that shows such “cohabitation”, it is worth taking a look again at a great snapshot by Pedro Valtierra, where courtly relaxation is shown. As the years went by, several of those portrayed tried to qualify and dismiss his presence in the photograph. However, it is a historical document. Conditionally, if such powerful figures are willing to share bread and salt with the architect of the wildest version of our capitalism, what can we expect from those who lack fame, recognition and protection? Dialogue and, where appropriate, debate with political power is essential, but here it is not about that, but rather a jovial and festive meeting.

Before the electoral storm, but the winds of the dismantling of the state apparatus in the midst of a brutal crisis were already blowing strongly, we appreciated the then Secretary of Programming and Budget, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, at a gathering of the Ateneo de Angangueo organized by Iván Restrepo with the comfortable participation of Carlos Monsiváis, Elena Poniatowska, Margo Su, Héctor Aguilar Camín, Gabriel García Márquez, Miguel Ángel Granados Chapa, Benjamín Wong Castañeda and León García Soler. The diners could be others, almost anyone, given the almost generic subordination with the state or business bosses of artists, scientists, journalists, thinkers and a very long etcetera. These contacts would proliferate at the time of the promoter of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Since the appearance of the new governing body of culture and the arts, without legal basis or motivation compared to the national institutes, limited to being a questionable administrative entity, its owner Víctor Flores Olea appointed Tovar and de Teresa as first Coordinator of Affairs Legal (1989-1990) and later as coordinator of International Affairs (1990-1991). He was also general director of the National Institute of Fine Arts (1991-1992) and president of the National Council for Culture and the Arts (1992-2000), a position he held again from 2012 to 2015. In 2015, when the Secretariat was created of Culture, was designated as the first head of the branch in Mexico.

The approaches of Víctor Flores Olea and Rafael Tovar and Teresa about Conaculta have substantial differences. The founding president maintained a position of transversality in the cultural management processes, providing elements of sum and complementarity between the visions of the INAH, from paleontology to the 19th century, and the INBAL, from the 20th century onwards, for example; avoiding duplication of structures and legal priority conflicts; while his successor would insist on subordinating the national institutes and converting them into areas under his command, privileging the foreign dimension of their dissemination with large exhibitions from abroad in Mexico or from Mexico abroad. One of the educational priorities, the training of citizens, ceased to function nuclearly, given that little by little the institutional work moved away from the philosophy of the SEP and its commitments (…).

Returning to training and research, we can also see how the processes of INBAL, Imcine and Conaculta are linked, starting with the creation of the National Center for the Arts (Cenart) in 1994 on 12 hectares. This is a great initiative to concentrate schools and research centers previously decentralized in the urban area of ​​Mexico City. The intention that these instances coexist from a functional and multidisciplinary point of view is understandable; However, the objective of founding a creative coexistence and environment remains to be seen (…).

The enormous resources that Conaculta and, as of December 11, 2015, the Ministry of Culture has allocated and consumed, as in the case of Cenart and many other spending centers, could well be used to strengthen and modernize the INAH schools: National Anthropology and History (ENAH), National Conservation, Restoration and Museography “Manuel del Castillo Negrete” (ENCRyM), aimed at structurally safeguarding the nation’s cultural heritage, preserving and studying the signs of our cultural identity, and not frivolously performing tasks of flash and circumstance.

It is impossible to even point out the essentials in this brief review of such an intense, long-lived and controversial career as that of Rafael Tovar and Teresa. Cultured, with a conservative vision, alien to indigenous and urban-popular topics, and a solvent scholar and writer marked by the nostalgia and melancholy of an aristocratic past, it is enough to remember his historical essays “The Last Toast of Don Porfirio” (2007), and “From peace to oblivion: Porfirio Díaz and the end of a world” (2015), and his novel “Paraíso es tu memoria” (2011).

In short, a ubiquitous prianist who enjoyed the favor, in addition to those mentioned, of Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León in Conaculta, of Vicente Fox Quesada as his ambassador in Italy, of Felipe Calderón Hinojosa when presiding over the celebrations of the bicentennial of Independence and the centenary of the Revolution (2007-2008) and Enrique Peña Nieto upon returning to his Conaculta home and achieving the creation of the Ministry of Culture on December 11, 2015 by approval of the Chamber of Deputies.

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1 For those who are interested in knowing the RTT family tree, it is suggested to consult:

* Writer and doctor in Political and Social Sciences (Guadalajara, 1960). His books include “Diego de Velázquez and the palatine power”, “The gaze of the subject: Postulation of meaning and construction of the real”, The prison of metaphor: Essays on Latin America and the Caribbean”. With Jorge González Aragón he directs the editorial collection Corpus urbanístico de México in Spanish archives.