Music & World: Latin American Folklore

NOTE: THIS POST WAS SUPPOSED TO BE PUBLISHED ON MONDAY 20 JUNE, 2011, SORRY

Part of the Music & World series, the topic of the day the Cold War in the Latin American plane, the worldwide conflict and how it affected and influenced Latin America.

Latin America was the western counterpart of Eastern Europe, a zone of influence dominated by american Imperialism. The US government imposed to Latin America lots of capitalist dictators, fascist juntas that would impose by force and fire the market economy to the people, funded coups to overthrow any government that defied Capitalism and the USA. The overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz and Salvador Allende, the hostility of Reagan against Daniel Ortega after he overthrew the pro-capitalism dinasty of the Somozas.

The effects of the conflict influenced and marked an era in Latin american folklore, singers and composers wrote chants and songs to freedom, a call against Imperialism and inspiring others for a change or to resist.

Víctor Jara was Chile's greatest balladeer, his songs were an apology of freedom and justice, and hope, a hope that was new for a hopeless people always subdued by the United States and their puppet presidents. Jara celebrated the new era that came to Chile with the victory of Salvador Allende. One of his most fanous songs is La Plegaria A Un Labrador (The Pledge To A Peasant), a call for unity and solidarity (Levántate y mírate las manos, para crecer, estréchala a tu hermano/Get up and look at your hands, to grow, turn it to your brother), to remember the need ofr unity against a ferocious enemy (Juntos iremos unidos en la sangre, ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte ¡amén! / We'll march united by blood, now and in the time of our death, amen!). Other folklore bands include Inti-Illimani and Quilapayún. both from Chile of the time of Salvador Allende. Inti-Illimani composed the song Unidad Popular, the hym of the coalition of the left-winged parties that promoted Allende for presidency in 1970 and won.

In 1973, after the US-funded coup against Allende that impossed Capitalism back again by Pinochet and his Junta, Quilapayún composed what is the most famous protest song of Latin America, and perhaps the most famous Latin American song: El Pueblo Unido Jamás Será Vencido, a song that has been covered by uncountable number of Latin bands and bands from all over the world to call people for battle, for resistance. The song is until today a well-known song in Latin America. Through the world the claim has been quoted and/or translated, during the Portuguese resistance to fascist junta, during the 2007 Greek general election.

Another famous flolkore song is Venceremos, which borned as a campaign song for the 1970 Chilean generals supporting Allende, after 1973 the lyrics were modified for the new Chilean reality under the capitalist dictatorship of Pinochet. The song's lyrics were written by Víctor Jara and were made world-wide famous by Inti-Illimani.

The history of popular singers was not easy at all, during a time in which social justice was seen as a threat by the USA and that threat was made an excuse for countless violations of human rights. Víctor Jara is remembered for his last song, a song for his fellow prissoners in the National Stadium in Santiago following the coup that overthrew Allende and for his last poem, the peom is now written in a plaque at the stadium, now the Víctor Jara Stadium.

After the coup and as the horror of the dictatorship began, thorugh all the world singers and bands showed solidarity with Chileans and their cause, The Clash in the song "Washington Bullets" o el grupo Soviético Pesnyari en su canción "Heaven Shall Burn".

In Mexico the popular genre of Trova gave voice to the opressed people, opressed by the perfect dictatorship of the single-party regime. One only party had the chance to be elected to presidency or any charge in the political scene. Óscar Chávez is the most famous mexican composer of the time, his songs and ballads not only dedicated to the romantic scene of the bohemian youth of the 1960's and 1970's but also to activism, to the numerous of teenagers and young men and women that went to the streets with one sole acclaim: FREEDOM, the 1968 movement marked a change of paradigm in Mexico, young teens and the youth in general were finally out, wanted to be listened by the political elite subdued to the will of the American empire. Chavez' songs like Décimas De Tlatelolco and Los Estudiantes speak about the movement, and the nassacre of October 2nd, 1968, Óscar Chavez rised his voice as the voice of the people, of the students that survided and the voice of the disappeared students.

The songs of Óscar Chévez can fullfit in all what a young student can feel, not only love, passionate love for some one. but also anger and discontent with the unfair system and a will of change, of a new dawn, that's the essence of Óscar Chávez and his meaning, his solidarity with the social movements that seek justice and freedom. His solidarity in poetic contexts is well seen in his song composed in memoriam of Allende: A Salvador Allende, in which he uses poetic means for singing to the memory of a great man, in Spanish Allende means beyond (for the verse: Allende el mar, Allende tiempo, tú regresarás corazón del Pueblo) and Salvador means saviour (for the verse Tú te salvas Salvador).

Maybe for the elite politics and just for the political sphere can be said of Latin America that is a zone where the world powers can influence and can interfer easly, in the cultural means the Latin American folklore and popular music has touched the hearts and pens of wolrdwide artists and bands, from the United States itself to Europe and Asia, the popular motto of freedom borned in Latin America is still yelled out in riots and protests, so we, latin americans can say, we have largely influenced the world.