VICTOR JARA'S HANDS

Wire fences still coiled with flowers of the night
Songs of the birds like hands call the earth to witness
Sever from fear before taking flight

Fences that fail and fall to the ground
Bearing the fruit from Jara's Hands

Me siento solo y perdido
Una vela alumbra mi camino
Cruzando tierras que nunca he visto
Cruzando el rio de mi destino
Solo soy un chico mas
Que suena en alto y mirando al mar

All alone and lost

My path is lit by flame
Crossing lands never seen
Crossing rivers of my destiny
Only a boy nothing more
Day dreaming wanting more 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_pZ0zn0qjg

These are the lyrics from and the actual song, "Victor Jara's Hands", by one of our favourite bands, Tucson, AZ-based Calexico. They create beautiful, haunting, alternative rock music with a Tex-Mex, and Chicano flair about mainly southwestern themes. 

Víctor Jara

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Víctor Jara
Birth name	Víctor Lidio Jara Martínez
Born	September 28, 1932(1932-09-28)
Origin	Chillán Viejo, Chile
Died	September 15, 1973 (aged 40)
Genres	Folk, Nueva canción, Andean music
Occupations	Singer/Songwriter, Poet, Theatre director, University academic, Social activist
Instruments	Vocals, Spanish Guitar
Years active	1959–1973
Labels	EMI-Odeon DICAP/Alerce Warner Music
Associated acts	Violeta Parra, Patricio Castillo, Quilapayún, Inti-illimani, Patricio Manns, Ángel Parra, Isabel Parra, Sergio Ortega, Pablo Neruda, Daniel Viglietti, Atahualpa Yupanqui, Joan Baez, Dean Reed, Silvio Rodriguez, Holly Near, Cornelis Vreeswijk
Website	Official website

Víctor Lidio Jara Martínez 

(September 28, 1932 – September 15, 1973^[1]) was a Chilean teacher, theatre director, poet, singer-songwriter, political activist and member of the Communist Party of Chile. A distinguished theatre director, he devoted himself to the development of Chilean theatre, directing a broad array of works from locally produced Chilean plays, to the classics of the world stage, to the experimental work of Ann Jellicoe. Simultaneously he developed in the field of music and played a pivotal role among neo-folkloric artists who established the Nueva Canción Chilena (New Chilean Song) movement which led to a revolution in the popular music of his country under the Salvador Allende government. Shortly after the Chilean coup of 11 September 1973, he was arrested, tortured and ultimately shot to death by machine gun fire. His body was later thrown out into the street of a shanty town in Santiago.^[2] The contrast between the themes of his songs, on love, peace and social justice and the brutal way in which he was murdered transformed Jara into a symbol of struggle for human rights and justice across Latin America.  

"As long as we sing his songs, as long as his courage can inspire us to greater courage, Victor Jara will never die."

Pete Seeger

 

Early life

Víctor Jara was born in the locality of Lonquén, near the city of Santiago, to poor peasants Manuel Jara and Amanda Martínez. Jara's father, Manuel, was illiterate and wanted his children to work as soon as they could rather than get an education, so by the age of 6, Jara was already working on the land. Manuel Jara was unable to extract a livelihood from the earnings as a peasant in the Ruiz-Tagle estate nor was he able to find stable work to support his large family. He took to drinking and became violent. His relationship with his wife deteriorated, and Manuel left the family when Víctor was still a child to look for work elsewhere. Amanda persevered in raising Víctor and his siblings by herself, insisting that all of them should receive a good education. Amanda, a mestiza with deep Araucanian roots in the south of Chile, was not illiterate, she was autodidactic; played the guitar, the piano and was a singer in her town, singing traditional folk songs at local functions like wedding and funerals for the locals.^[3]

Jara's mother died when he was 15, leaving him to make his own way thereafter. He began to study to be an accountant, but soon moved into a seminary instead, studying to become a priest. After a couple of years, however, he became disillusioned with the Church and left the seminary. Subsequently he spent several years in the army before returning to his home town to pursue interests in folk music and theater.

 

Artistic life

Jara was deeply influenced by the folklore of Chile and other Latin American countries; he was particularly influenced by artists like Violeta Parra, Atahualpa Yupanqui, and the poet Pablo Neruda. Jara began his foray into folklore in the mid-1950s when he began singing with the group Cuncumen. He moved more decisively into music in the 1960s getting the opportunity to sing at Santiago's La Peña de Los Parra, owned by Ángel Parra. Through them Jara became greatly involved in the Nueva Canción movement of Latin American folk music. He published his first recording in 1966 and, by 1970, had left his theater work in favor of a career in music. His songs were drawn from a combination of traditional folk music and left-wing political activism. From this period, some of his most renowned songs are Plegaria a un Labrador ("Prayer to a Worker") and Te Recuerdo Amanda ("I Remember You Amanda"). He supported the Unidad Popular ("Popular Unity") coalition candidate Salvador Allende for the presidency of Chile, taking part in campaigning, volunteer political work, and playing free concerts.

Political activism

Allende's campaign was successful and, in 1970, he was elected president of Chile. However, the Chilean military, who opposed Allende's socialist politics, staged a coup on September 11, 1973, in the course of which Allende was killed (See Death of Salvador Allende). At the moment of the coup, Jara was on the way to the Technical University (today Universidad de Santiago), where he was a teacher. That night he slept at the university along with other teachers and students, and sang to raise morale.

Víctor Jara's grave in the General Cemetery of Santiago. The note left reads: “‘Till Victory!”

Death

On the morning of September 12, Jara was taken, along with thousands of others, as a prisoner to the Chile Stadium (renamed the Estadio Víctor Jara in September 2003). In the hours and days that followed, many of those detained in the stadium were tortured and killed there by the military forces. Jara was repeatedly beaten and tortured; the bones in his hands were broken as were his ribs.^[4] Fellow political prisoners have testified that his captors mockingly suggested that he play guitar for them as he lay on the ground with broken hands. Defiantly, he sang part of "Venceremos" (We Will Win), a song supporting the Popular Unity coalition.^[4] After further beatings, he was machine-gunned on September 15, his body dumped on a road on the outskirts of Santiago and then taken to a city morgue.

Jara's wife Joan was allowed to come and retrieve his body from the site and was able to confirm the physical damage he had endured. After holding a funeral for her husband, Joan Jara fled the country in secret.

Joan Turner Jara currently lives in Chile and runs the Víctor Jara Foundation. The Chile Stadium, also known as the Víctor Jara Stadium, is often confused with the Estadio Nacional (National Stadium).

Before his death, Jara wrote a poem about the conditions of the prisoners in the stadium, the poem was written on a paper that was hidden inside a shoe of a friend. The poem was never named, but is commonly known as Estadio Chile.

In June 2008, Chilean judge Juan Eduardo Fuentes re-opened the investigation into Jara's death. Judge Fuentes said he would examine 40 new pieces of evidence provided by the singer's family.^[5] On May 28, 2009, José Adolfo Paredes Márquez, a 54-year-old former Army conscript arrested the previous week in San Sebastian, Chile, was formally charged with Jara's murder. Following Paredes' arrest, on June 1, 2009, the police investigation identified the name of the officer who first shot Víctor Jara in the head. The officer played Russian roulette with Jara, by placing a single round in his revolver, spinning the cylinder, placing the muzzle against Jara's head and pulling the trigger. The officer repeated this a couple of times, until a shot fired and Víctor fell to the ground. The officer then ordered two conscripts (one of them Paredes) to finish the job, by firing into Jara's body.^[6][7][8] A judge ordered Jara's body to be exhumed in an effort to determine more information regarding his death.^[9]

On December 3, 2009, a massive funeral took place in the "Galpón de Víctor Jara" across from "Plaza Brazil". Jara's remains were honoured by thousands. His remains were re-buried in the same place he was buried in 1973.^[10]

Víctor Jara's legacy

Although the military regime managed to burn the vast majority of master recordings of Jara's music, Joan Jara managed to sneak recordings out of Chile, which were later copied and distributed worldwide. Joan Jara later wrote an account of Víctor Jara's life and music, titled Víctor: An Unfinished Song.

On September 22, 1973, the Soviet/Russian astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh named a newly found asteroid 2644 Víctor Jara, in honor of Víctor Jara's life and artistic work.

American folksinger Phil Ochs, who met and performed with Jara during a tour of South America, organized a benefit concert in his memory in New York in 1974. Titled "An Evening With Salvador Allende", the concert featured Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie and Ochs.

An East German biographical movie called El Cantor (the Singer) was made in 1978. It was directed by Jara's friend Dean Reed, who also played the part of Jara.

Dutch-Swedish singer-songwriter Cornelis Vreeswijk recorded "Blues för Victor Jara" on his album Bananer - bland annat in 1980.

In the late 1990s British actress Emma Thompson started to work on a screenplay, which she planned to use as the basis for a movie about Víctor Jara. Thompson, a human rights activist and fan of Jara, considered the political murder of the Chilean artist as a symbol of human rights violation in Chile. She believed a movie about Jara's life and death would make more people aware of the Chilean tragedy.^[11] The movie would feature Antonio Banderas – another fan of Víctor Jara – as Jara himself where he would sing some of his songs and Emma Thompson as Víctor Jara's British wife Joan Jara.^[12] The project has not yet been made into a film.

The Soviet musician Alexander Gradsky created the rock opera Stadium (Стадион, Stadion) in 1985 based on the events surrounding Jara's death.^[13]

The Southwestern American band Calexico open their 2008 album Carried to Dust with the song "Victor Jara's Hands".

So why are we writing about Victor Jara today? Because his life, death, and legacy in Chile, paint a sad and tragic portrait of what happens when Fascism comes to a country. Which is what happened in Chile, on 11 September, 1973, (the first 9/11!) actively supported and encouraged by the Nixon administration, which we've written about in previous articles.

http://akprogressive.blogspot.com/2009/10/capitalisms-dirty-warssecrets.html

http://akprogressive.blogspot.com/2008/09/is-it-911-already.html

This is a good short article about why we are, and have been concerned, for some years now, about the increasing fascist trends we are seeing in the USA. Aided and abetted by the corporate media.

Glenn Beck and the Yearning for Fascism

by Matthew Rothschild

Glenn Beck’s got me worried again about fascism in America.

His so-called restoring honor rally last weekend assumed that somehow America has been dishonored, and that is a classic trope of fascists.

Nor was I comforted by all talk from Beck about “America today begins to turn back to God.”

Nor was I comforted by the full-throated and repeated chants of “USA, USA.”

Nor by Sarah Palin having the gall to claim “we feel the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King,” this just 10 days after she told Dr. Laura to “reload,” after the talk show host said the N word 11 times in five minutes.

As if the rally wasn’t enough, Beck continued on his crusade during the week. Check this comment out: Beck said, “There are a lot of universities that are as dangerous with the indoctrination of the children as terrorists are in Iran or North Korea.”

The irony is that Ahmadinejad has actually denounced the universities in Iran with similar disdain. One year into his first term, he asked scornfully “why liberal and secular university lecturers are present in the universities." He and Beck see eye to eye on that one.

Beck made a fool of himself also when he said, later in the week, that a flock of geese that appeared in the sky “was God’s flyover,” taking the place of an Air Force flyover he was not able to arrange. All of Beck’s references to “divine providence” and doing the work of God reminded me of a quote from W. S. Merwin, our new poet laureate, who once wrote: “The president of lies quotes the voices of God.”

I’ve been taking seriously the warnings of Noam Chomsky http://www.progressive.org/rothschild0610.html, who says he senses “the dark clouds of fascism” gathering here at home. I also take seriously the writings of Chris Hedges, the former New York Times reporter and author of several great books, including “War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning.” A couple years ago, Hedges wrote another book called “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America.”

And back in March, Hedges elaborated on the theme: “The language of violence always presages violence. When someone like Palin posts a map with cross hairs on the districts of Democrats, when she says “Don’t Retreat, Instead—RELOAD!” there are desperate people cleaning their weapons who listen. When Christian fascists stand in the pulpits of megachurches and denounce Barack Obama as the Antichrist, there are messianic believers who listen. . . .These movements are not yet full-blown fascist movements. They do not openly call for the extermination of ethnic or religious groups. They do not openly advocate violence. But, as I was told by Fritz Stern, a scholar of fascism who has written about the origins of Nazism, ‘In Germany there was a yearning for fascism before fascism was invented.’ It is the yearning that we now see, and it is dangerous. If we do not immediately reincorporate the unemployed and the poor back into the economy, giving them jobs and relief from crippling debt, then the nascent racism and violence that are leaping up around the edges of American society will become a full-blown conflagration. Left unchecked, the hatred for radical Islam will transform itself into a hatred for Muslims. The hatred for undocumented workers will become a hatred for Mexicans and Central Americans. The hatred for those not defined by this largely white movement as American patriots will become a hatred for African-Americans. The hatred for liberals will morph into a hatred for all democratic institutions, from universities to government agencies to the press.”

Hedges was prescient here, anticipating the anti-immigrant wave and the anti-Muslim wave—and even Beck’s swipe at the universities.

Hedges also talked about the urgent need to give people jobs lest more people succumb to the lure of fascism.

Another intellectual I greatly admire, Walden Bello, just echoed Hedges’s warning about the economic crisis feeding into fascism. In his article “Can You Say, Fascism? The Political Consequences of Stagnation,” Bellow writes: “The common failure of both market fundamentalists and technocratic Keynesians so far to address the fears of the unemployed, the about-to-be unemployed, and the vast numbers of economically insecure people will most likely produce social forces that would tackle their fears and problems head-on. A failure of the left to innovatively fill this space will inevitably spawn a reinvigorated right with fewer apprehensions about state intervention, one that could combine technocratic Keynesian initiatives with a populist but reactionary social and cultural program. There is a term for such a regime: fascist. . . . Fascism in the United States? It's not as far-fetched as you might think.”

Consider yourself forewarned.

© 2010 The Progressive

Remember, THERE IS GOING TO BE NO ECONOMIC RECOVERY IN THE US WITHOUT MASSIVE GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION IN THE FORM OF JOBS PROGRAMMES AND TIGHTER REGULATION OF THE FINANCIAL INDUSTRY. Very little manufacturing is left in this country, since all the previous administrations over the past 30 years encouraged corporations through tax breaks and looser regulation, to outsource jobs to low-wage/non-regulatory countries, China being the main example. Unless this is turned around, and soon, through tax breaks and stimulatory loans/guarantees to corporations to bring back manufacturing to this country, and to finance alternative energy research and manufacturing, the millions of long-term unemployed in this country will become very desperate. And many will fall prey to the loud messages of the Palins, Becks, Limbaughs, and other right-wing demagogues. Who are now openly racist and xenophobic. There will be race riots, and possibly even insurrection, or civil war, if this trend continues.

Remember too, many of the same people in the conservative movement supported the fascist dictatorships around the World, especially in South and Central America, and were part of the US administrations which aided and abetted these regimes. Which tortured and murdered millions of people in the 1960s through 1990s, for the crime of working to bring basic human rights, peace, and economic justice to the suffering people in these countries (Chile, Argentina, Colombia (still!), Brasil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Indonesia, Iran (until 1979), Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic). 

Chile was a vibrant, democratic country with an expanding economy when Salvador Allende was freely and fairly elected in 1970. Pressure from the US corporate interests that had holdings in that country enabled the murderous coup and dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet to come to power just three years later. Just because the US has nominally considered itself a "democracy" for the last 234 years (though for any person of colour or Indigenous group, really only the past 40), does not mean that the descent into fascism can't happen here. It already is starting, and it has to be stopped! Or the suffering of Victor Jara and the multitudes of others who died in great suffering over the past 50 years, separated from their loved ones, at the hands and weapons of fascist regimes, will have been in vain. And we will see a renewal of these tragedies, in this country. Cheers.