• Submitted by: admin
• Arts and Culture
• International
• Music
• South America
• 09 / 18 / 2007

The most recent was musician Silvio Rodriguez, who is also a member of parliament of the very fraternal revolutionary Cuba.

Despite spending several years as an exile in Havana and Santiago de Cuba in the 1970s and 1980s, during which time I attended many of his concerts, I never had the opportunity to meet Silvio Rodriguez personally. Nevertheless, as surely has happened to millions of other Latin Americans, I fell like I have always known him "as a friend and a principled comrade", as his songs entered our homes and consciousness for years. And even more so remembering how, during the [Pinochet] dictatorship, cassettes and old records of Silvios would secretly circulate hand to hand, giving hope, raising spirits and bringing light.

Silvio Rodriguez was in Chile this year, and he had barely stepped off the plane when he asked to speak with President Bachelet. He spoke to her about the need to implement institutional mechanisms to guarantee that ticket prices for artists who visit the country are not controlled solely by the cold laws of the market economy, so that concerts and other popular cultural events are accessible to the working class as well. I dont know how she responded, but I am sure that it was a just request. The state should not only guarantee the right to life, health, work, education and social welfare, but also the right to culture as an inherent part of the wellbeing of each individual.

Silvio felt that the high price set for tickets to his concerts were unreasonable and he attentively listened to those who complained. He had to send a strong message and he did. The suspension of his concert in Talca, for which he immediately took the blame, led to a lawsuit filed against him by a few people. Naturally, the relentless anticommunist news media, which we here are very familiar with, immediately picked up on the story. Nonetheless, the events themselves, laws related to consumer rights and the good will of some colleagues led to a judicial process that ended in the dropping of the lawsuit and an agreement between all parties.

Meanwhile, and not at all as a consequence of the legal actions against him, Silvio has offered to perform at a free concert, already being organized, which will probably take place in November, if the Cuban singer-songwriter attends the tribute to our immortal Violeta [Violeta Parra].

Today, with fairness and serenity restored, I was thinking about how paradoxical it would have been if Silvio had been found guilty for having defended peoples access to culture. As we said in his defense, using legal terms, one can not try to make a man, who for decades has been one of the biggest «suppliers» of strength to the souls of millions of human beings, into a «non-supplier.» In relation to this I recalled "of course, keeping in mind the differences of the two situations" how in 1961, after coming back from Cuba, Neruda went to see the great Siqueiros, who had been arbitrarily tried in Mexico. Upon leaving Siqueiros, Neruda wrote the following verses: «aquí te dejo, con la luz de enero, / el corazón de Cuba libertada / y Siqueiros, no olvides que te espero / en mi patria volcánica y nevada. / He visto tu pintura encarcelada / que es como encarcelar la llamarada.» «here I leave you, in the January light, / the heart of Cuba liberated / and Siqueiros, dont forget that I await you / in my volcanic and snow-covered homeland. / I have seen your imprisoned painting / which is like imprisoning a blaze.» [Unofficial translation]

Source: Juventud Rebelde, taken from the 11/09/2007 edition of the Chilean newspaper El Siglo