Juanes Cancels Oligarch’s “Concert for Peace” in Honduras
By Al Giordano
Juan Esteban Aristizábal Vásquez, a.k.a. the Latin Grammy award winning pop singer known as Juanes, almost got sucked into a trap by the business interests behind the Honduras coup d’etat: a “Concert for Peace” that had been scheduled for Saturday, July 26 in Tegucigalpa.
All day long members the pro-coup faction on the #Honduras Twitter feed (mainly a gaggle of ex-Cubans and ex-Venezuelans who type a lot about “communists” and “reds” in their zeal to defend the coup) were agog, thanking the Miami-based Colombian Juanes and also Spaniard pop star Alejandro Sanz and Colombian Carlos Vives, for lending themselves to the spectacle of “peace” under a repressive coup regime.
Back on July 6, the 36-year-old Juanes - a public ally in his native country of rightist President Alvaro Uribe - posted via Twitter: “Honduras, I am thinking a lot about you… get well soon… not one more painful tear, not one more drop of blood.”
It was reminiscent of the moment back in 2001 when Mexico’s two national television networks organized a “Concert for Peace” as counter-programming to the Zapatista caravan’s arrival in Mexico City, announcing that the Mexican pop groups Los Jaguares, Maná, and Carlos Santana would perform. Singer-songwriter Julieta Venegas denounced the charade and Santana told reporters he had never agreed to lend his name to any such venture. The polemic led to one scene, covered by this reporter, on the Zócalo (city square) of Puebla, Mexico, where 50,000 poblano youths, upon the mention of Los Jaguares and Maná, began chanting in unison, “culeros, culeeeeeroooos,” roughly translated as “asswipes.”
Well, back in Miami today, Juanes thought better of ending up as a prop in a similar spectacle, and cancelled the Honduras concert with some Twitter messages of his own that read, in succession:
Honduras, the Peace Without Borders concert that we’ve been talking about is not going to take place…
This, for various reasons… artists and production scheduled and of course political uncertainty…
Which do not guarantee a truly clean concert for us…
All of us are with the people of Honduras and our greatest desire is that civil society return to normality…
We have to avoid political manipulation from any sector. Peace Without Borders is a politically neutral organization…
And its only flag is peace. A hug.
And with that, the 17-time Latin Grammy award winning pop star extricated himself from the manipulation that the coup backers tried had to rope him into… as goes the concert, so goes the coup... a metaphor for what Honduran Civil Society is also doing today.
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Comments
Ok, I just read Conroy's
Submitted July 17, 2009 - 2:18 am by Sullivan (not verified)Ok, I just read Conroy's response to the article on Gen. Vasques arrest.
So it looks a bit like an "inside baseball" story, and maybe it is, but this whole story is really "inside baseball" and to understand the players, we must be aware of what plays they are making.
Cheers,
Tim
A great speech
Submitted July 17, 2009 - 10:37 am by Lorie CavinFirst. Thanks to Al et al, for the coverage of Honduras at this critical time. I have learned so much.
Second. If you have 35 minutes of time, may I suggest Obama's speech to the NAACP? Really gave me a lift.
edit: my linking abilities are lacking. I watched it at msnbc.
My husband just got laid off. Second time in 5 years. COBRA for first 9 months for my family: $500. thanks to some government help. Month 10 through 18: $1250.
Public Option. I need it. Pre-existing condition crap needs to go.
Juanes
Submitted July 17, 2009 - 12:17 pm by Charlie HardyAfter Colombia bombed and invaded Ecuador in March 2008, Juanes organized a concert—on the Colombian-Venezuelan border! Why didn’t he plan it for the Colombian-Ecuadorian border? Or better yet, why didn’t he organize it to take place in front of the Palacio de Nariño in Bogota where the bombing and invasion of Ecuador was authorized?
@ Lorie
Submitted July 17, 2009 - 1:09 pm by Al GiordanoLorie - Funny you should mention it.
I quote Obama's NAACP speech last night in a new post now up here at The Field, in which I show how Secretary Clinton is contradicting it.
"camisa negra" as dog-whistle?
Submitted July 17, 2009 - 1:19 pm by FreddyMoraca (not verified)Not being a fan of rock-en-español, I had no clue of Juanes' Uribista tendencies, but apparently Italian neofascist clubbers did not fail to decode the Mussolinian message in the title track of the album whose cover appears above, see
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_camisa_negra
@ Freddy
Submitted July 17, 2009 - 2:08 pm by Al GiordanoFreddy - That's why I put that album cover up as the graphic. It is a permanent reminder to Juanes of how his actions, words and lyrics can come back to bite him if he's not more careful than he was naming a song "The Black Shirt."
Where Did All The Folk Singers Go?
Submitted July 18, 2009 - 1:08 am by Communard (not verified)Juanes is just another example of the poor state of Latin American music right now. The hemisphere that gave us Victor Jara, Mercedes Sosa, Silvio Rodriguez and Soledad Bravo is now offering us these commercial, politically dead figures like Juanes. I doubt he's even a real Uribista. Like Shakira, he probably doesn't even know what Uribe's actual politics are.
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