Nicaragua: Notes from the Frontline #4: Re-inventing the United Nations

Echoes of Silence
One Planet. One People.
Workers, not 'Stars' [Victor Jara]

Nicaragua: Notes from the Frontline #4  

Hey again,

Things are really cooking here in the Global South. A wonderful street muralist is here from Chile. Alejandro 'Mono' Gonzalez. Check out his work with our Movimiento Victor Jara on FB 'Victor Jara Nicaragua' and his own life and times via 'Googly', as we pronounce it here! [Tragically, nobody's even heard of cricket, however.]

So Mono's been staying with Padre Miguel d'Escoto. That - in this context - is the really exciting part. For Padre Miguel is on a crusade to not merely reform, but to re-invent, the United Nations, via a proposal entitled: "Re-inventing the United Nations" [amazingly enough!]. The proposal's key is to ground the functioning of the United Nations and indeed of the individual nations themselves in Mother Earth herself. Running so contrary to the West's cancerous military/industrial 'development', this makes the UN essentially and pro-actively pacifist and anti-imperialist.

Because I'm Mono's taxi-guy, and because Padre Miguel is also nuts about Victor Jara and Beethoven, we've become good pals. So I'm hopeful that I can slide the old 'One Planet, One People World Interactive Flag' into the mix somewhere, together with this 'Peoples Declaration of InterDependence' I cobbled together for the new century(!). Maybe they'll be some small help.

ECHOES of SILENCE

 DECLARE INTER-DEPENDENCE!

One Planet. One People.

Peace. Justice. Beauty.

Notes for a Future

Paul Baker Hernández

In-Dependence within Inter-Dependence

Honour the Fatherland honor Mother Earth.

Honor Mother Earth honour the Fatherland.

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A DECLARATION OF INTER-DEPENDENCE

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Addressed to the United Nations and to All Governments

__________________

We, the Peoples and People of this one exquisite - and exquisitely fragile - planet hold these truths to be self-evident:

Ø That all persons - children, women and men - of every race, calling, creed, color, condition and age are created equal. There are no exceptions.

Ø That they, collectively and individually, are endowed with certain inalienable inalienable rights. Among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Ø That the fundamental sources and resources to achieve these rights: Peace without threat, fear, force or weapons, pure air, fresh water, an uncontaminated earth, nourishing food, good health, creative education, a secure home, equitable justice, local and global responsibility, authentic, proportionate, participative representation and worthwhile work - also belong inalienably to them all. For ever.

Ø That this inheritance - these resources truly without price - can never be taken over or away by individuals, classes, corporations and/or states for their own exclusive or majority use, exploitation, profit or control.

Ø Rather, that it is the marvelous gift and responsibility of every human generation to enjoy these resources with respect and delight, in interdependence with all peoples and with the whole multitude of species, both animal and plant, with which we co-inhabit this tiny, fragile, and exquisitely wonderful planet.

Ø And, within that gift, to hand them on, enhanced, to the children of our children's children.

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To make this Declaration reality we call on you to re-allocate at least 1% of all budgets currently dedicated to the military, war, and the arms trade - money, materials and, before all else, the creative lives and expertise of all those involved in any way with war and weapons - to bring fresh water to everyone on Earth. 

And to redress the female/male/racial imbalance at every level, with the greatest urgency.

Ø Not only will these measures help re-green the planet and avert looming wars over water (so much more precious than oil), but also, by beginning the build-down of weapons, they will mark a vital psychological turning point for humanity, especially in the true honoring via increased respect for women, so-called 'minorities', children, and all who have given their lives for others and for peace.

Ø Further, they will improve global health dramatically, by making available vast quantities of material/financial resources and freeing up whole armies of skilled personnel for urgent medical, ecological, educational and other vitally important tasks within the global community

Ø And, finally, they will at last provide, in the wonder of a healed, peace-filled, planet, a truly fitting memorial to all those who gave their lives believing their sacrifice would, at long last, ‘end all wars’.

There are critical moments in every life. We believe this is one such in the life of all humanity and the flora and fauna of the entire planet. We know that you too hold the good of Earth and humanity dear. Now is the time to act, and to act boldly.  We therefore urge you - as truly a matter of life and death - to take action, offering this Declaration of Inter-Dependence to our own nation and to the entire international community; calling for the immediate establishment of an annual Global Inter-Dependence Day; and, above all, insisting that the many millions whose talents and creative lives are swallowed up by war and its instruments be set free to help ensure that every person on Earth has clean water to drink, every minute of every hour of every day.

Thank you.

Echoes of Silence.  www.echoesofsilence-ecosdelsilencio.pbworks.com

Coordinator: Paul Baker Hernandez, contact: paulbaker2004@yahoo.com

(505) 86153180 (cell); (505) 2249 0979 (landline)

Realising the Dream; Bringing Victor Home

Nicaragua: Notes from the Frontline #3: Astonishing Times continued: Chile - Nicaragua - Chile

Echoes of Silence
One Planet. One People.
Workers, not 'Stars' [Victor Jara]

Nicaragua: Notes from the Frontline #3




Hey All,

Just couldn't resist re-posting this photo of wee Sami, one of our myriad grandchildren.

Relevance? Well, been invited to go (back) to Chile in November. Working on elaborating wee Sami's message, incorporating the whole ALBA saga into something like:

"Realizing the Dream; Bringing Victor Home."

As I wrote to Tony Corden, the other VJ fanatic who proposed us making the trip in the first place:

"It's a wonderful circle, founded on the music:

     a) Chilean exiles come to UK/US, inspiring us via Victor's songs with Allende's dream: 'That every child have milk to drink, every day.'
     b) They, Joan [Jara], we, work/sing away to keep the dream alive/attempt to make it real during 40 long years. Hard going but increasingly wonderful, in Wales you, Malcolm and co. with 'El Sueño Existe' [The Dream Lives On], in Nicaragua, our Movt. Cultural Victor Jara with our festival, 'Victor Jara Siempre Canta' [Victor Jara Still Sings], the constant tours, singing translations, songs about Victor, articles, etc.
     c) Return to Chile in November 2013 to honor the exiles, bringing Victor (and them) home in our songs, and telling people about ALBA, encouraging Chile to join because in the ALBA countries, yes! the children actually do have milk to drink, every day!!
     In so many ways ALBA is the realising of the original dream.

Watch this space for developments.

One Planet. One People: In-Dependence within Inter-Dependence.

Echoes of Silence

One Planet. One People.

Workers, not 'Stars' [Victor Jara]

Nicaragua: Notes from the Frontline 2                        

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Please click on photo to see full beauty.

Dear Everyone

Independence Day here. Like most countries, lots of marching about, flag saluting, extolling 'The Fatherland'.  But - what about 'The Motherland'? 

And, 'no man/nation is an island'.

   

So this One World flag is an attempt to enable us to honour both the individual nation and the Mother Earth from which all nations grow and on which we all depend.  In-Dependence within Inter-Dependence. As in that most marvellous of tools, the human hand. 

What do you think, dear family and friends? (Isn't the Nicaraguan version especially soooo  beautiful?).  

How do we begin to get it (or something similar) adopted locally, nationally, globally?

One Planet. One People. Is it, 'Dream on, Dude!' or, 'I have a dream'?

In peace, justice and beauty, much love.

Paul.

_________________________________________________________________

  

Please sends comments/ideas to paulbaker2004@yahoo.com 

Or call Nicaragua (505) 86153180 (cell), 2249 0979 (line) 

Thank you.

 News/analysis from Nicaragua/Latin America www.tortillaconsal.org [Nicaragua] –www.nicanet.org [USA] – www.nicaraguasc.org.uk [UK]

A Magnificant Woman - Joan Jara

To contact us, please write to paulbaker2004@yahoo.com or call [505] 86153180.

All posts may be re-posted/re-printed, with attribution as appropriate. Thanks.

September. September 11th 40 years ago, the cataclysm of the Nixon/Kissinger/Pinochet coup that destroyed the elected government of Salvador Allende, leading to his death and the torture and murder of thousands. Included in their tragic number the great singer/songwriter, Victor Jara. His songs are loved and sung the world over for their unique combination of fierce passion for justice, humour, and often wonderful beauty. But without his wife, Joan Turner Jara, much of Victor's legacy would have been lost. Here then is a long overdue tribute to Joan, with much love.

A MAGNIFICENT WOMAN ϟ by Paul Baker Hernández

Chile’s great - greatly-loved – singer, Victor Jara, is legendary. His music, with its wonderful melding of fierce passion and great beauty, is unparalleled. 40 years after his appalling martyrdom, his songs continue to be seminal for committed musicians the world over, from Billy Bragg to Silvio Rodriguez, from concert halls to downhome neighborhood bars. Their exquisitely-crafted demands for justice make them irresistible, eternal, echoing out the very soul of humanity in its longing march to freedom.

However, the widespread recognition of songs such as ‘Te Recuerdo, Amanda’ and ‘Ni Chicha ni Limona’’ is also due to the courage and decades-long dedication of one remarkable woman. In late 1973, Joan Jara and her two small daughters were airlifted to safety from the catastrophic tragedy that Chile had abruptly become, leaving Victor dead. Without her British passport, she, Manuela and Amanda would almost certainly have been disappeared as well, to be thrown onto the growing heaps of disfigured dead or sold as ‘adopted’ daughters to friends of the military.  And, with them, much of Victor’s music would also have perished; for the precious luggage they clutched so close was heavy with the original masters of his songs. 

Born in London, Joan grew to become a fine dancer; to marry Patricio Bunster, an exotic fellow-member of the Ballet Joos; to return with him to his native Chile. There, she taught dance at the national university; there, Manuela was conceived; there, Patricio abandoned her to court a contestant for Miss Chile. And there, one of her most gifted students, a certain Victor Jara, with his wonderful smile, gently came to her, helping her survive her depression and lifting her out of her loneliness.   Although he was several years her junior, they lived together happily until his death, with Manuela as much Victor’s daughter as their own physical child, Amanda. And after a while, they even collaborated creatively with Patricio - in Joan’s words, ‘largely thanks to Victor’s extraordinary bridge-building skills’.  

    Indomitable at 85, even after decades of fruitless searching for justice both for Víctor and so many more victims of the Kissinger/Pinochet horror, Joan launched the ‘Justicia Para Victor/Justice for Víctor’ campaign to mark 2013, the 40^th anniversary year of their murder.   After Víctor was recognized and set aside for ‘special interrogation’ during the coup that destroyed Dr. Salvador Allende’s elected government and shredded the West’s pretensions to democracy forever, he disappeared. Eventually, Hector, a young student pressed into service in the Santiago morgue, risked his own life to bring Joan and her family the terrible news – that his body had been found stacked among dozens of others, waiting to be flung into a common grave.

   “I’ll never forget it,” Joan told me once. “It didn’t look like Víctor at first, he was so pale and thin, as though they had sucked all the life out of him before killing him. And his hands and wrists were all wrong. They’d been smashed with rifle butts. But I knew it was Víctor, my husband, my lover, my only love.”

   It was only when Víctor’s remains were exhumed in 2010 that she also learned he had been killed by a single shot to the head. Apparently some officers decided to take revenge on him for his songs championing those impoverished by the unjust system they supported, so, having smashed his hands and demanded that he still sing, they played Russian Roulette with him for God knows how long before they felled him with that one fatal bullet; then machine-gunned him where he lay. “Víctor is one of the well-known victims,” Joan says. “If we can get justice for him our hope is it will open the floodgates for all those others destroyed and disappeared in that terrible time, those whose names are known only to their loved ones.”  

    Eight men were involved, most of whom are today awaiting trial in Chile. However, one of the ring-leaders, Pedro Barrientos Nuñez, now a US citizen, has lived in Florida for decades. So far, so surprisingly(!), the US government has refused to comply with international law requesting his extradition to Chile. Thus the primary focus of the Justice for Víctor campaign is that the chains of military impunity be broken, that Pedro Barrientos be returned to Chile to face trial, and that true justice be done for all the victims and their families.

    Despite the campaign being taken up with eagerness, Joan is not sanguine of its outcome, she knows it’s still an uphill fight. For if the judges dare to set justice truly free, not only will the lowly Barrientos and his friends have to face judgment but so too will the lordly Kissinger and his accomplices in the US government.  So she, together with all the families of Chile’s unsung victims, is appealing to us for help. They stress that, in the spirit of Victor’s own lapidary phrase, we’re workers, not ‘Stars’, our solidarity should be something creative wherever possible. So, how about a wee gathering September 11^th to remember all the victims of that terrible date, North American and Chilean? It could be filled with music and dance, children’s games and Chilean wine. Here in Nicaragua we’re organizing a great festival, entitled, Víctor Jara Sings Forever. On the smaller personal scale, if I can scrounge up the airfare, I’ll be going to Chile to take Víctor’s songs back home, so honoring the Chilean exiles who brought them to us in Scotland in the first place; to thank Joan in person for the wonderful gift she has guarded so faithfully and shared so humbly for so unutterably long; and to offer in exchange my own composition, I Thought I Heard Sweet Víctor, Singing in the Night, conceived in the very garden of the house she shared with Víctor in Santiago. Then, let’s talk to news media about the anniversary, ask them to play a song or two, or to read from Joan’s own book, Victor – An Unfinished Song. How about a special ceremony in your community of faith, or a special motion in your trade union? … the possibilities are as unlimited as love itself.

    In this rare video clip, from a television interview given just months before his death, Víctor himself talks about the importance of love in music and the struggle for justice, singing of course, but also emphasizing the vital role of other magnificent women: his mother, market worker by day, folksinger by night, and the tragic Violeta Parra, who, although she killed herself shortly after writing her beloved Gracias a la Vida, Thanks to Life, played a vital role in the development of his own music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpu4sWg7mIk

    Again, in love, please send a message of loving support to Joan, her family and the Fundación Víctor Jara through their webpage: www.justiciaparavictor.cl, thanking them all for all their tireless work, and, through them, reaching out to all the doubly-tragic ones searching for their loved ones even still. 

    I caught a clip of Joan speaking at the opening of the Justice for Victor campaign the other day. My memory of what she said is, “Deja la Vida Volar (Let Life Fly) is my favorite song today. We are determined to find justice for Victor and for all those who died or were disappeared in those terrible times. But, above all - after forty long, long, years - it’s time to celebrate the beauty of the legacy Victor left us.”

   

    In Joan’s honor then, and that of all the magnificent women to whom humanity owes so much, let courage, justice and beauty have the last word.

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Singer, songwriter and organizer, Paul Baker tries to follow Victor’s dictum: ‘We artists are workers, not stars’. Passionate lover of snow, solitude and silence, the songs somehow brought him to searing, chaotic, clamorous Managua, Nicaragua. ‘And I love it!’, he says. ‘Talk about the power of music!’  In Nicaragua, Paul works in music/ecological projects, with the ‘Víctor Jara Sings Forever’ movement, writes singing English versions of his best-loved songs, and has just completed ‘Pensé oír al dulce Víctor, en la noche cantar’ (I Thought I Heard Sweet Víctor, Singing .. ), an original song begun in the Jara’s Santiago home while working with them reclaim the stadia where Víctor and so many others suffered and died. He tours USA/UK yearly with house/stadium concerts, workshops, lectures, sermons, festivals, picket lines – bookings: paulbaker2004@yahoo.com