Gustavo Coronel
This song, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY6evSbbW-U is
fast becoming the second national anthem of the Venezuelan diaspora,
estimated in more than one million persons spread all over the planet.
It is a beautiful song, even for those ears who are not sentimentally
involved. It is, perhaps, not surprising that its authors are not
Venezuelans but Spaniards, Pablo Herrero and Jose Luis Armenteros, who
spent a brief time in Venezuela writing the song. Herrero says: “We
stayed in Caracas and would go to Higuerote in the weekends. We visited
Maracaibo, Canaima, the Llanos (Plains) and the Caribbean coast. I am
Venezuelan by heart because I want to be and that song came from my
soul. Venezuela is a fabulous country with magnificent landscapes but
the best is the people”.
I
say that it is not surprising to see excellent music about a country
written by foreigners. Some of the more “Spanish” sounding music was
written by Lalo, a Frenchman and by Rimsky Korsakov, a Russian. A great
Czech composer, Antonin Dvorak, wrote a beautiful “American Quartet” and
a “New World Symphony” that evoke America as anything Bernstein ever
wrote. And Bernstein, in turn, wrote some pretty exciting Latin music
in his “West Side Story”.
I
would venture that interpreting the soul of a nation could perhaps be
easier for a foreigner than for a native. I love Venezuela but I have
never been able to see so vividly the beauty of our people as I have
seen it through the eyes of men and women who came to our country from
distant lands. The first impact of Venezuela in the minds of children
and adults running away from dictatorships and cruelty were stronger,
shinier, of more emotional impact, than my vision, as a born Venezuelan,
of a country where freedom and cordiality were a matter of routine.
Venezuela
had never experienced racial hatred, had never felt threatened from the
outside. Welcoming the first large wave of immigrants looking for
refuge from the ravages of the Second World War, the country was
spiritually open. It had also been spiritually open to receive the flows
of immigrants from the Spanish Civil war in the early 40’s and the flow
of South American political refugees running away from the Southern
Cone military dictatorships during the 50’s.
Today
the country is in a crisis that is equally material and spiritual.
Hatred, social resentment, corruption of values and principles are at an
all-time high. The government of the last 16 years has brought to the
surface the worst of the Venezuelan soul. Those who came to Venezuela in
the past are starting to return to their home countries, with broken
hearts. And the Venezuelan natives, who never felt like going away, are
now driven away by the humiliation and the horror of what they see and
experience. It is mostly for those Venezuelans that the song has a
special meaning, because it speaks of the country that once was and
yearns to be again.
The song reminds us of how we can be. It gives us a light in the darkness.
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