As promised, Correa v El Universo was to be continued. In fact, already the week after the Supreme Court's ruling in the case, president Correa invited the whole crême de la crême of the international diplomatic community present in Quito, to assist his pardoning of the condemned directors and editorialist, as well as the authors of the book El gran hermano. The Ecuadorians, the actual target audience in this case of their democratic system and press freedom, were invited to watch the screening of Correa's speech outside the presidential palace.
Mostly, it was a self-congratulatory speech, highlighting the righteousness of his own position and pointing out the lack of journalistic ethos of the international media, who hadn't bothered asking him for his version of the facts when reporting on the Court's ruling. At the very end of his speech, Correa took an interesting turn countering the accusations of disrespecting press freedom and freedom of expression. "Our answer," he says, "are the kids going to Millennium schools, disabled people accessing well-functioning health care facilities, and first class highways connecting our cities." In short, socio-economic well-being trumps democratic principles, an argument not unfamiliar with some other rulers across the globe. (Did I hear you say Paul Kagame or Lee Kuan Yew?)
In the weeks following this mediatic show, huge billboards in support of the president and his policies appeared across those very same highways (paid for with public money, needless to say). Conveniently, this coincided with the start of a huge march of indigenous peoples in defense of water, protesting against the reckless public policy to promote huge mining investments across the Andes. Even before the protesters made it to Quito, Correa didn't leave an opportunity go by without disqualifying the protesters' motives and arguments, arguing that the march has blatantly failed.
As the protesters were about to march into the capital, the president tried to cut their roads of access and means of transport. In the meantime, he started rallying his own supporters with the same buses he forbid the indigenous people to use to enter Quito. From all over the country thousands of pro-Correa protesters marched to his palace to express their support for his government. Ironically, if these people already knew why they were in Quito (except for the free transport, food and drinks, that is), most answered quite vehemently that they were here "to protect our democracy".
Yes, the very same democracy that their star had put to the second stage just a few weeks earlier. In defense of a democracy that delegitimises and impedes the exercise of the constitutional rights of its citizens to gather, use public roads and present individual or collective protests and proposal to the competent authorities. A democratic system in which a governor sends a letter to the president with the names of public servants who did not attend the pro-Correa protests, recommending he shows them the door. Shouldn't this democracy rather open the debate on how to finance social progress (c.q. whether or not mining is the most adequate economic policy to generate sustainable economic growth) in the face of the constitutional rights granted to nature?
Monday 30 April 2012
Friday 6 April 2012
Overwhelming history at the sound of a theorbo
It's Semana Santa, and Quito has a wonderful way of celebrating this week before Easter. At several sacred and less sacred locations in the city centre, top notch artists are performing several performances as part of the XI Festival de Música Sacra. Here's to living in the historical centre! I just have to walk a few blocks down the road to enjoy these musical delights. And the best part is, it's all for free!
The other night, I attended a performance of the Colombian 'early music ensemble' Musica Ficta, in the magical Iglesia de la Compañía, just a block down the road from the presidential palace. This baroque ensemble is renowned for playing Hispano-American baroque music, with scores dug up from archives in Bogotá, Quito, Cusco and other cultural centres of the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. By default, these historical notes beg for equally historical instruments such as the baroque guitar, the vihuela, the shawm, the dulcian and the theorbo.
As the church got filled with the warmth of guitar strings, graceful puffs and flaring chantings, Carlos Serrano shared with his audience how thrilled they all were to be playing their baroque music in that church, the perfect setting given their historical coincidence. That comment of his made me think back at some of the texts from The Peru Reader that I had read on the Viceroyalty of Peru (stretching from the Carribean beaches of Colombia to Potosi's ore-filled Cerro Rico in present-day Bolivia), the geo-political framework of the very same period in which that music was written and the Jesuit church built.
All of sudden, history came alive. Realising I was listening to 16th century music in a baroque church in Latin America, it daunted to me how alien all of this experience was to these lands. Back in the day, locals didn't compose such music; they weren't catholic; and their concept of a fun night out most certainly wasn't attending a baroque music ensemble. Those who did attend such nights out (or, more likely, afternoons), were the nouveaux riches, the local elite seeking social acceptance among the Spanish colonialists, who had imposed their rites and customs on these promised lands.
Nothing else symbolised in a better way this cultural imposition and ignorance of the local richess as the inside decoration of the church, completely guilded with gold leaf, freshly extracted from the land on which it was built, with the blood of people it had expulsed and demonised. The sounds and voices that just a minute back had sounded so warm and joyful, became distantly cool and, in a way, made me feel out of place. The performance got a whole new dimension, moving me immensly, giving me the sensation that history was overwhelming me. And that, at the sound of a theorbo...
The other night, I attended a performance of the Colombian 'early music ensemble' Musica Ficta, in the magical Iglesia de la Compañía, just a block down the road from the presidential palace. This baroque ensemble is renowned for playing Hispano-American baroque music, with scores dug up from archives in Bogotá, Quito, Cusco and other cultural centres of the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. By default, these historical notes beg for equally historical instruments such as the baroque guitar, the vihuela, the shawm, the dulcian and the theorbo.
As the church got filled with the warmth of guitar strings, graceful puffs and flaring chantings, Carlos Serrano shared with his audience how thrilled they all were to be playing their baroque music in that church, the perfect setting given their historical coincidence. That comment of his made me think back at some of the texts from The Peru Reader that I had read on the Viceroyalty of Peru (stretching from the Carribean beaches of Colombia to Potosi's ore-filled Cerro Rico in present-day Bolivia), the geo-political framework of the very same period in which that music was written and the Jesuit church built.
Musica Ficta performing in the Iglesia de la Compañía
All of sudden, history came alive. Realising I was listening to 16th century music in a baroque church in Latin America, it daunted to me how alien all of this experience was to these lands. Back in the day, locals didn't compose such music; they weren't catholic; and their concept of a fun night out most certainly wasn't attending a baroque music ensemble. Those who did attend such nights out (or, more likely, afternoons), were the nouveaux riches, the local elite seeking social acceptance among the Spanish colonialists, who had imposed their rites and customs on these promised lands.
Nothing else symbolised in a better way this cultural imposition and ignorance of the local richess as the inside decoration of the church, completely guilded with gold leaf, freshly extracted from the land on which it was built, with the blood of people it had expulsed and demonised. The sounds and voices that just a minute back had sounded so warm and joyful, became distantly cool and, in a way, made me feel out of place. The performance got a whole new dimension, moving me immensly, giving me the sensation that history was overwhelming me. And that, at the sound of a theorbo...
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