BOOK REVIEW 93 In fact, what distinguishes Freire's methods from so many bourgeois liberal methods of education is precisely the practical revolutionary dimension he imparts to it. He provides the answer not only to the question how a people of an underdeveloped country can become literate but also to the question why they should learn to read and write. To him literacy is an essential ingredient of the process of the realisation of men's true vocation, that is, the humanisation of man as subject of history. Such a conception makes the method an efficient weapon in the hands of revolutionary movements, and for the same reason it is useless and even dangerous for the reactionary forces defending the status quo. Rightists too evolve forms of cultural action including literacy campaigns, but their ultimate objective is to strengthen their domination over the masses and to domesticate them so that they will not be prompted to ask inconvenient questions regarding the legitimacy of oppression. In a class society the masses are treated as 'objects', 'things' to be managed, directed and manipulated by the oppressors : Any situation in which 'A' objectively exploits 'B' or hinders his pursuit of self-affirmation as a responsible person is one of oppression. Such a situation in itself constitutes violence, even when sweetened by false generosity because it interferes with man's ontological and historical vocation to be more fully human (pp 40-41). This oppressive violence imposes a 'culture of silence' on the masses. It may assume the form of crude and direct use of force or the sweet reasonableness of bourgeois democracy. But the result is the same : the prevention of emergence of the masses from their submerged condition to assert their right to participate in the making of history. In a situation of oppressive violence the masses are "prohibited from being"—they are forced to be beings-for-others. Freire's method is aimed at breaking down this 'culture of silence' by demythologising reality. It requires an active attitude on the part of the learners. In oppressive societies the teacher-taught relation is one of domination. Learning-teaching should be a co-operative dialectical process in which the teacher while teaching learns from the taught and the taught while learning teach the educators. In Freire's view learning to read and write constitutes an act of knowing and establishing a creative relationship with the world. Learning to read and write ought to be an opportunity for men to to know what speaking the word really means : a human act implying reflection and action. As such it is a primordial human right and not the privilege of a few. Speaking the word is not a true act if it is not at the same time associated with the right of self-expression and world-expression, of creating and re-creating, of deciding and choosing and ultimately participating in society's historical process.2 Freire's criticism of the conventional educational system in metropolitan and colonial societies is shared by many. He characterises it as the 'banking' method because here education is conceived as an act of 'depositing'. Students are containers or receptacles to be filled in by