Frida Kahlo's scathing letter to Mexican President Miguel Aleman
"Public freedom of expression and opinion, the means of progress of every free people.”
“Miguel Alemán,
This letter is a protest of just indignation that I want to communicate to you, against a cowardly and humiliating crime that is being perpetrated in this country.
I want to communicate to you the tremendous historical responsibility that your government is assuming by letting a Mexican painter’s work, renowned worldwide as one of the highest examples of the Mexican Culture, be covered up, hidden from the eyes of this country’s people and from the international public because of SECTARIAN, DEMAGOGIC, AND MERCENARY reasons.
That type of crime against the culture of a country, against the right that every man has to express his ideas — those criminal attacks against freedom have only been committed in regimes like Hitler’s and are still being committed under Francisco Franco, and in the past, during the dark and negative age of the “Holy” Inquisition.
It is not possible that you — who represent at this moment the will of the Mexican people, with democratic liberties gained… through the bloodshed of the people themselves — can allow a few investors, in complicity with a few ill-willed Mexicans, to cover up the words that tell the History of Mexico and the work of art of a Mexican citizen whom the civilized world recognizes as one of the most illustrious painters of our times.
There is one thing that is not written in any code, and that is the cultural conscience of the people, which will not allow Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel to be converted into an apartment building.
For that reason I am addressing you, speaking simply and clearly, not as the wife of the painter Diego Rivera, but as an artist and citizen of Mexico.
With the right that such citizenship grants me, I will ask you: Will you allow THE PRESIDENTIAL DECREE THAT YOU YOURSELF ISSUED to be stepped on by a few sectarian, clerical merchants? As a Mexican citizen and, above all, as President of your people, will you permit History to be silenced — the word, the cultural action and the message of the genius of a Mexican artist to be silenced?
Will you permit public freedom of expression and opinion, the means of progress of every free people, to be destroyed?
All this in the name of stupidity, narrow-mindedness, chicanery, and the BETRAYAL OF DEMOCRACY?
I beg you to give yourself an honest answer about the historical role you have as the leader of Mexico in an issue of such significance.
I am laying forth this problem before your conscience as a citizen of a democratic country.
If you do not act as an authentic Mexican at this critical moment, by defending your own decrees and rights, then let the science- and history-book burning start; let the works of art be destroyed with rocks of fire; let free men get kicked out of the country; let torture in, as well as prisons and concentration camps. I can assure you that very soon with very little effort, we will have a flaming “made-in-Mexico” fascist regime.”
Context:
Public vandalism of Diego Rivera’s famous mural, Dreams of a Sunday in the Alameda, where he depicted the atheist Mexican politician Ignacio Ramirez holding up a sign stating “God does not exist”. Catholic faith lovers were upset with this depiction and vandalised the mural. Frida who was Diego Rivera’s wife, wrote this scathing letter to the then President who had been her classmate in childhood asking him to intervene and stop crowds from vandalising art.
About the book -The Letters of Frida Kahlo: Cartas apasionadas
The only volume of its kind, The Letters of Frida Kahlo reveals fascinating details about Kahlo's romances, friendships, and business affairs in a selection of letters to friends, collectors, doctors, family, politicians, lovers, and, of course, Diego Rivera. In over 80 pieces, Kahlo discusses her art, politics, and tragedies with a passionate energy that no biographer of this important artist could ever capture. The Letters of Frida Kahlo, full of ardent desires, seething fury, and outrageous humour, will delight the many fans of her art with a glimpse into an exuberant and troubled existence.