FW: Music Tour from Nicaragua
nic...@igc.org
-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Baker [mailto:paulb...@compuserve.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 1999 12:48 PM
To: Nicaragua Network US
Subject: Copy of: Music Tour from Nicaragua
Dear Friends -
Latin America isn't only bad news!! In all our struggles to cope with
earthquakes and hurricanes, the new 'dictators' and the IMF, we often
overlook so much that is beautiful.
I was recently in Villa Nueva, one of the squatter camps on the outskirts
of Managua, set up for people who lost everything to Hurricane Mitch.
Grimly bare, dust-swept, flapping tents of torn plastic, whirling wind,
burning sun - yet there!, and there!: a little garden new-planted, a man
carrying water lovingly, children dancing, a dog trotting..
For 30-odd years now, I've been celebrating this wonderful determination to
life through the music of the ever-renewing Latin America New Song
tradition, especially that of Victor Jara, the great Chilean songwriter and
singer, cruelly murdered during the Pinochet/CIA coup. Together with the
singers who've followed him, Silvio Rodriguez from Cuba, Mercedes Sosa of
Argentina, the Nicaraguan Godoy brothers, Victor still brings the light of
love to people's faces and renews the vision of justice in their hearts and
hands.
A long-time singer and writer, then, I now live primarily in Nicaragua,
working in community programmes, from solar hot showers to children's
music workshops.
To support this work, I tour the US twice a year, singing people the beauty
as well as drawing their attention to practical programmes. Practical and
background biographical information follow; get in touch to make bookings
or for more information, and please circulate what seems appropriate to any
friends or networks you feel may be interested.
Best wishes in your own work,
Yours sincerely,
Paul (Baker)
APPENDIX ONE: PRACTICAL INFORMATION
WHAT?
"NICARAGUA NOW - GOOD NEWS FROM THE POOR."
Songs from the Latin American New Song Movement, in both Spanish and
English.
Presentations about today's Nicaragua, still deeply mired by the
after-effects of Hurricane Mitch, but still full of life.
Reports on the continuing disaster which Mitch began.
Positive initiatives to develop a sustainable way of life in an
impoverished neighbourhood on the outskirts of Managua, Nicaragua's capital
city.
Presentations interweave music, slides, video, stories, questions and/or
discussion, according to the requirements of the inviting group. They can
range from full concerts to small discussion groups.
WHEN?
TOUR 1: MAY 24 - JUNE 23
TOUR 2: OCTOBER 25 - 24 NOVEMBER
WHO?
Paul Baker, musician, writer, activist and organizer. originally from
Britain, lived 10 years in Los Angeles with Salvadorans under death squad
attack in the US; now living and working in La Primavera, one of Managua.'s
shanty towns (see Appendix Two for fuller information).
WHY?
To raise awareness of how much the Nicaraguan people are doing with how
little;
to fill some of the gaps left by the 'news' media about the ongoing
realities of 'Mitch';
to encourage interchange between Nicaraguan and UK community groups and
individuals;
to raise funds to keep Paul working as a fulltime community organizer and
international link person, and for specific community projects in ecology,
appropriate resource use for energy and building, plus tool and cultural
programmes.
WHERE?
Wherever you want.
Paul is used to giving presentations in pulpit and pub, at conferences and
picket lines, in folk clubs, colleges, schools, to women's and youth
groups, solidarity, ecological and peace organizations, union meetings ...
wherever. He's always happy to participate in joint events, and
particularly enjoys meeting and playing with local musicians.
Indeed, an 'Evening for Nicaragua', with a line up of local bands, is often
the most effective way to bring out the numbers and to bring in new people.
HOW MUCH?
A 'Visiting Speaker' fee is always welcome, but there's no fixed charge;
income is by collection and/or entrance fee. Help with bus or train fare
from last presentation is appreciated (for one person). A sofa, or a piece
of floor (preferably carpeted), is fine for accommodation.
HOW TO BOOK?
E-mail Paul direct on: <paulb...@compuserve.com>
Or Call either ASH EAMES 603 764 9948 (<dst...@connriver.net>) or
DON WHITE 213 660 4587 (<agu...@csulb.edu>)
APPENDIX TWO: BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
My name is Paul Baker. For 35 years I've been a singer, writer and
organizer dedicated to helping build a just, sustainable and beautiful
world, working through the arts, direct action and structural change. The
following are principal milestones from those years.
* 1962 - 1970: Student monk in a silent Trappist monastery. Due to the
dramatic 60s challenge to hierarchical, militaristic, Catholicism initiated
by 'Third World' church leaders, I surreptitiously made a guitar from scrap
wood, learned the early songs of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, and, in 1970,
instead of taking final vows, took to the minstrel's road.
* 1970 - 1987: Community organizer with OXFAM and Scottish Education and
Action for Development, using guitar and song to encourage people to take
action to change unjust structures and to develop alternatives, eg: coffee
and tea from workers' co-operatives; peaceful conversion plans for
factories making armaments; setting up instant response networks for
Central America to counter atrocities and in case of US invasion.
During this period, I met exiles from Pinochet's Chile, who taught me the
songs of Chile's most-loved singer/poet, Victor Jara, tortured and murdered
during the US/British supported military coup of September, 1973. (Note:
Augusto Pinochet is now of course enmeshed in the trammels of the justice
he trampled into the mud.)
* 1977: 'Of Minstrels, Monks, and Milkmen', published by SCM Press, London.
My account of the monastic revolution, and a challenge to northern society
to confront the destructiveness of our selfish way of life, especially its
role in perpetuating the poverty of the 'Third World'.
* 1987 - 1997: Lived within a Salvadoran family in Los Angeles, first, to
serve as some defence against death squad attacks in the US itself. Later,
to help sustain the squads' principal victim, Yanira Corea, as a fulltime
organizer within the US solidarity movement. Here my music served to raise
funds for Yanira's work, to animate rallies, conferences, meetings, etc.,
and to provide income from benefits to a range of community groups from
CISPES (Committee In Solidarity With the People Of El Salvador) to Tree
People.
* 1982: Organized and sang at a Peace and Justice Presentation before the
largest crowd ever gathered in Britain (300,000: Bellahouston Park,
Glasgow), on the occasion of Pope John Paul's first visit. The themes were
homelessness, unemployment and the arms trade and race.
* 1984: Organized and led a delegation of community leaders to Queen
Elizabeth at her holiday home of Balmoral Castle. Former Church of Scotland
Moderator and Queen's Chaplain, Dr. George Reid and myself presented her
with an Open Letter challenging the Thatcher government's determination to
bring US Cruise missiles into Britain. The Queen herself broke with all
tradition and protocol in receiving us - such a thing had never happened
before. Nor has it since. In consequence, the 'Balmoral Letter' made world
news headlines.
* 1986-7: As Scottish representative to the great International March for
Peace, Justice and Self-Determination in Central America, travelled with
300 other internationals from Panama to Mexico, to challenge our northern
denial of the rights of Central American countries to run their own
affairs, and to show solidarity with the vast majority of its peoples,
impoverished by that denial.
After the Peace March, was sent as Special Delegate from Scotland to
President Reagan to offer him 'Blood Of The Innocent', a book of
testimonies of ordinary Nicaraguans, realting how their infants, schools
and homes were being destroyed by the US-proxy force, the 'Contras'.
Once again, it was later revealed that this was an illegal force, even by
US law; in consequence, the World Court of Justice found for Nicaragua
against the US, and ordered the US to pay $17 billion war damages. To date
not one dollar of this award has reached Nicaragua.
Refused entry to the White House, I presented the document instead to Revd.
Jesse Jackson, in Congress.
* 1989: 'Song In High Summer', published by Source Books, California. An
account of the years under death squad threat and attack, together with an
outline of Victor Jara's life and influence, and a renewed challenge to our
northern unsustainable way of life.
To date, 'Song In High Summer' has earned over $20,000 for continued
community work.
* 1990 - 1991: Invited by Joan Jara, Victor's widow, to join herself, Inti
Illimani and other great Chilean musicans, dancers and artists, in concerts
to reclaim the sports stadia used in Santiago as
concentration/extermination camps during the Pinochet coup. Victor himself
died in one of these terrible places.
* 1992: 'I Thought I Heard Sweet Victor, Singing ... ', a first audio tape,
based on my experiences playing in Victor's studio behind the Jaras' house
in Santiago. This tape was partially funded by the Puffin Foundation. It
sold out its 500 copies and earned $2000+ for continued community work.
* 1993: Scripted, co-ordinated and sang in concert presentations of
Victor's songs, interwoven with readings from Joan Jara's book 'Victor - An
Unfinished Song' and Eduardo Galeano's 'Memories of Fire', to commemorate
the 20th anniversary of the Chilean coup. These were given in Los Angeles
and San Francisco, and involved such artists as Martin Sheen, Isabel
Allende, Jackson Browne, Fionnula Flanagan, and Rita Moreno.
These concerts reaised approximately $5,000 for Fundacion Victor Jara, set
up by Joan to assist impoverished young artists and musicians in Chile.
* 1996: Invited to Managua to sing in a memorial concert for Flavio Galo, a
Nicaraguan peoples' singer, killed in Northern Nicaragua, under suspicious
circumstances. Sang with the remaining members of the Galo Family Coro
(Choir), plus Norma Elena Gadea and Carlos Mejia Godoy, then Nicaragua's
principal singers within the New Song Social/Protest tradition.
* 1996 - 7: Provided translation and music for the making of 'Deadly
Embrace: Nicaragua, The World Bank and the IMF', a video produced by Ashley
Eames for Nicaragua Network.
To date 1,000 copies of Deadly Embrace have been sold and distributed.
* 1998: 'Twice Ten Thousand Years', a second audio tape produced. 1000
copies sold out, earning over $4000 for continued work.
* 1990 - present: Yearly music tours of the USA and Britain; other tours to
Canada, Central America and Ireland. These tours serve to raise awareness
of the situation in Central America, to focus on the cause/effect links
between our material over-development and that region's continuing
under-development, and to raise funds for my own survival and work, in
addition to specific community projects. These tours generally are one or
two months' duration, and realize a total of some $10,000.
* 1990 - present: Benefits played for a whole range of peace, justice and
ecological organizations; for example: OXFAM, Tree People, Friends of the
Earth, CISPES, Campaign Against the Arms Trade, Chile Solidarity, New
Hampshire Central America Network, among many others.
* 1990 - present: Organizer/Participant in yearly delegations/construction
brigades (month-long) to impoverished neighbourhoods in Managua, Nicaragua.
Besides serving as translator, carpenter and resident singer, I also assist
Very Special Arts (an arts organization for disabled people) and college
student delegates in workshops for children with learning and other
disabilities, besides organizing cultural exchanges and a series of
meetings with community leaders from churches, women's organisations,
factories, youth groups, and workers' co-ops.
* 1999 - present: Working as representative for several Sister City Groups
in Nicaragua, to help them in their hurricane relief efforts, assessing
ongoing needs with community representatives, channeling funds, medicines,
seeds, tools and other supplies to stricken communities.