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Essences
"We lost the fight, we didn't lose the argument" Noemi Klein
If you have IE Here is the URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgcFN3JBeKk
If you don't speak Spanish, the video featured above will probably seem like a spirited rendition of gibberish, but in fact the song "La Muralla" (The Wall) is one of the battle hymns of Salvador Allende's Chile.
The words of this song were written by the Afro-Cuban poet Nicolás Guillen and set to music by the Chilean folksingers Quilapayún.
Quilapayún and Victor Jara sang the songs that still identify the Salvador Allende period.
In the video, "La Muralla" is sung by the post-Allende Chilean folk group "Ventiska", and "the special guest star", singing lead (the old guy with the beard) Ricardo Venegas, is one of the original Quilapayún.
When Pinochet lowered Chile into the "night and fog" of the torture chamber, the mass grave and the Chicago School of economics, the members of Quilapayún managed to escape, but Victor Jara didn't... he was arrested, tortured and killed.
The song, "La Muralla" became an instant classic. It is sung at every memorial to Salvador Allende (they fall on September 11th) and in itself has become a hymn of the Spanish speaking left, both in all of Latin America and Spain itself. In any concert where it is sung it brings the audience to their feet.
To anyone who lived through that period in the Spanish language it brings back memories of a time when young people believed that a better world was possible and were ready to sacrifice their lives to make it happen. Thanks to the Chicago School of Economics and the CIA, many of them did.
Now that George W. Bush, Milton Friedman, Alan Greenspan, Ronald Reagan and Margret Thatcher have crashed and burned it is time for the left to crawl out of the rubble, dust itself off and get busy.
The left has been buried under the rubbish that neoconservatism has dumped on it for so long that many people, including (especially?) many people of the left have forgotten what the left is.
This is where poetry can help.
Poetry exists in the place where the heart and the mind speak fluently to each other.
Guillen's verses express in a very few words what the left is about: human beings joining together to defend their humanity and all the simple, humble things that make life human, against the people, things and situations that make being human impossible. "Solidarity" is a clumsy word for brotherhood.
The song expresses these ideas, but more than anything else it expresses the emotion that is felt when these ideas are put into practice
I've translated Guillen's poem into English as best I can, unfortunately in the process I've destroyed the cadences of its beautiful Spanish.
That ought to get it.The Wall - Nicholas Guillen
To make this wall, bring me all the hands:
From the Blacks, their black hands, from the Whites, their white hands.
A wall to go from the sea to the mountains, from the hills to the sea,
all the way to the horizon...
- Knock, knock!
- Who's there?
A rose and a carnation ...
- Open the wall!
- Knock, knock!
- Who's there?
The Colonel's sword ...
- Close the wall!
- Knock, knock!
- Who's there?
The dove and the bay leaf ...
- Open the wall!
- Knock, knock!
- Who's there?
The scorpion and the centipede ...
- Close the wall!Here it is in Spanish just in case anybody wants to sing along:
The heart of a friend, opens the wall;
the poison and the dagger, closes the wall;
the myrtle and mint, opens the wall;
the tooth of the serpent, closes the wall;
the nightingale in the flower, opens the wall ...
Let's raise a wall
joining all our hands;
The Blacks, their black hands
The Whites, their white hands.
A wall to go from the sea to the mountains, from the hills to the sea,
all the way to the horizon...
Para hacer esta muralla,
tráiganme todas las manos:
Los negros, su manos negras,
los blancos, sus blancas manos.
Ay,
una muralla que vaya
desde la playa hasta el monte,
desde el monte hasta la playa, bien,
allá sobre el horizonte.
--¡Tun, tun!
--¿Quién es?
--Una rosa y un clavel...
--¡Abre la muralla!
--¡Tun, tun!
--¿Quién es?
--El sable del coronel...
--¡Cierra la muralla!
--¡Tun, tun!
--¿Quién es?
--La paloma y el laurel...
--¡Abre la muralla!
--¡Tun, tun!
--¿Quién es?
--El alacrán y el ciempiés...
--¡Cierra la muralla!
Al corazón del amigo,
abre la muralla;
al veneno y al puñal,
cierra la muralla;
al mirto y la yerbabuena,
abre la muralla;
al diente de la serpiente,
cierra la muralla;
al ruiseñor en la flor,
abre la muralla...
Alcemos una muralla
juntando todas las manos;
los negros, sus manos negras,
los blancos, sus blancas manos.
Una muralla que vaya
desde la playa hasta el monte,
desde el monte hasta la playa, bien,
allá sobre el horizonte...
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'...under the rubbish neo-conservatism has dumped on it...' That's good, dave.
'The dove and the bay leaf' is nice.
Solidarity!
Can you tell us how to embed a video in a blog? (IE won't play them, though, it seems.)
October 29, 2009 4:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
You take the code from "Embed" from Youtube and you paste in the HTML side of you blog, which looks like and "A" with a couple of "carrots" on either side and that's it.
October 29, 2009 5:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you. Great post, too.
October 29, 2009 6:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
I didn't know that IE wouldn't play these inlined videos. I wonder why not?
Anyway if I had know it wouldn't I'm not sure I would have posted this as IE is still the number one browser.
The problem is at TPM, because I have it cross posted at my home blog, http://seaton-newslinks.blogspot.com/
and it shows up fine in IE.
October 30, 2009 1:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
That is why I gave up on them. I discovered that half my readers either could not see the video (there was a blank space) or the video showed up and my script was missing.
So I just link them now.
October 30, 2009 1:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is not just that IE users can't see the video, it is worse than that. IE users can't see anything past the video, can't access the comments or any text past the video.
I usually use IE for various reasons no need to go into it.
Here's how it goes. I saw you post this thread on my dashboard because I follow you. I clicked on it, saw I couldn't access it because you put a video on it, decided not to bother to switch browsers, and moved on to something else. Just now I saw the start of your comment on my dashboard, and I finally decided to go to the trouble to switch to Firefox so I could see the comments.
This problem has been evident for a long time, and I think it's not getting fixed because no one is complaining to management and they don't know about it. Most readers are not going to care that much that they can't see the whole post and the comments, think it's some glitch they aren't going to bother with, and they are just going to move on to something else.
By posting a video in a blog, yes you are limiting yourself to an audience people who don't use IE. I have no idea whether it's an issue of Movable Type compatibility with IE or with this site's installation. Why should I care, there is other stuff to read, and I rarely post videos or look at videos because I am often on dial-up. It's the responsibility of youse guys who want to post videos and look at videos to be the squeaky wheel if you don't like it. :-)
October 30, 2009 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
To be clear, the loading on IE stops with the video, you get nothing past the video, none of the initial text and none of the comments. It's like a code stops the loading of the page, as the comments do turn up on one's dashboard (when you click on them, though, you only get taken back to the partly loaded page.) I believe this happens with all videos.
October 30, 2009 2:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
The HTML is incorrect. Dunno if that would fix IE or not. Instead of <object ...> ... </object> you have <object ... > ... <object />
October 30, 2009 3:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
David, I thought that was you singing. No kidding, I was looking at your mug shot on the right, the video on the left, thinking "could that be....?"
I remember the feelings of hope and excitement that spread from Chile in those days. That sure got smashed to smithereens. I read that Allende had assassinated himself with a sub-machine gun, and an image of that impossibility formed in my mind that has persisted to this day. That was a beautiful song, thanks.
October 29, 2009 6:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hereby render unto David Seaton the Dayly Blog of the Day Award for this here TPMCafe Site, given to all of you from all of me.
This is a great wake-up call. All I can think of is our military industrial complex.
If our America is so right, how come we need more armaments than all the nations on the face of this planet?
How come we can initiate preemptive wars and scoff at the objections of other nations who are not even involved in the fight?
How could we always be right and claim the rest of the globe is wrong?
October 29, 2009 6:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Uhhh...because God whispered in some folks' ears that we were "exceptional.' And they ran with it; Manifest Destiny on steroids, yes?
Do you remember sitting in 6th grade social studies, and being taught that? My stars!
October 30, 2009 7:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
hahahah. Yes I do Wendy, I recall that quite clearly now that you mention it.
October 30, 2009 1:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here is the URL:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgcFN3JBeKk
October 30, 2009 2:05 PM | Reply | Permalink