Kerima Lorena Tariman’s Sa Aking Henerasyon: Mga Tula at Saling-Tula

Abstract

State capture of artistic and cultural production is a key tactic of fascist rule. Following past regimes—notably Marcos Sr., whose court poets and pet intellectuals manufactured mythologies for the dictator—the current Marcos-Duterte regime continues to weaponize art and culture in service of the elite, most recently distorting history in Darryl Yap’s fictitious Maid in Malacañang and enlisting their latest spin doctor, film producer Paul Soriano, for the newly created position of Presidential Adviser for Creative Communications. In the context of a regime built on systemic historical revisionism, rampant disinformation, and nostalgia for fascism, revolutionary art is a necessary practice of resistance in countering the co-optation of art and in shaping a new liberatory culture. By crafting a practice of art as one collectively shared and produced by and with the people, revolutionary artists actively seek to disrupt and transform the world through collective struggle. Sa Aking Henerasyon: Mga Tula at Saling-Tula (2022) exemplifies this artistic practice, illuminating the ways in which revolutionary poetry can offer glimpses into another possible world, one beyond the everyday violence of neoliberal capitalism.