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From
1973 to 1990, Chile was governed by a military dictatorship,
which had overthrown the elected government of Salvador
Allende Gossens three years into his six-year term.
Many players participated in the movements for change
that led Chile back to a civilian government in 1990
-- social scientists, lawyers, union leaders, grass-roots
community leaders, politicians and artists. Least recognized
in accounts of Chile’s redemocratization were the
artists, who, almost immediately after the 1973 coup,
began laying a groundwork for later strategies that
eventually put an end to military rule.
For novelist and journalist Patricia Verdugo, the role
of music was paramount. Verdugo remembered going to
Princeton in January of 1978 for some meetings with
Chilean physicists. They saw everything as very bleak
and told her they saw no end to the dictatorship. They
wanted to know when something was going to happen. They
had a sensation, as all exiles have, of never being
able to return to their country. She assured them that
things were happening. "But where?" they insisted.
To their disbelief, she replied:
What
is happening can be measured in music. The only way
we have of communicating is through music. We can’t
talk about politics; they don’t allow us to hold
meetings. But if I hear someone listening to music,
I know who that someone is and that’s enough
for me to know that that person is with me, only because
he is listening to Violeta Parra.
She tried to explain to them, and to other exiles when
she visited Harvard, what it meant to play the guitar
again in the universities. They thought that was "stupid."
"No, it is not stupid," she told them, "because
you have not lived through the terror. The terror is
so great that gathering around a guitar to sing Gracias
a la Vida by Violeta Parra is a fierce act of dissidence."
Verdugo elaborated:
Music
was our first symbol of identity that gave us energy
and enabled us to reconstruct groups. I felt I was
in one of those animated cartoons, the one where one
of the characters–I don’t remember which
one–is fighting some moles. The moles start digging
tunnels underground until suddenly, bup! the house
caves in. They undermined everything underground without
his ever realizing it. So, I said to the exiles, "That’s
what is happening. What we are doing is fundamental
in terms of communicating with each other through
song. You don’t see it because it’s all
underground. It’s under the music."
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