Freedom and Complicity: The Case of Horison and Solidarity, two Congress for Cultural Freedom Journals in Southeast Asia

• Main Author: Mendoza, Amado Anthony G., III
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2022
• Subjects: anti-communism; freedom; complicity; Horison; Solidarity; Cold War; Southeast Asia; Digital Humanities; Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies; South and Southeast Asian Languages and Societies
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/akda/vol2/iss1/5; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/context/akda/article/1031/viewcontent/4_Freedom_20and_20Complicity_Akda_202_281_29.pdf
• Institution: De La Salle University

The current project is a two-pronged study of Horison (Indonesia) and Solidarity (Philippines), two journals funded by the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) during the Cold War in its quest to mount a cultural offensive against the rising threat of communism in Southeast Asia. The first part of the project deals with what Ang Cheng Guan sees as the case of the Cold War ceasing to be an actual historical event and, in turn, transforming into an “object” of historical inquiry (1–17). To this end, the article will provide a short account of both journals’ genesis and history during the Cold War’s peak in the region. Through the use of computer-aided methods, the second part will attempt a “closer” reading of selected editorials from 1966 to 1976 in order to shed light on specific discursive-ideological aspects (i.e., anti-communist intimations) evinced by both journals and their progenitors.