Estadio Chile

Estadio Chile

Somos cinco mil aquí
en esta pequeña parte la ciudad.
Somos cinco mil.
¿Cuántos somos en total
en las ciudades y en todo el país?
Sólo aquí,
diez mil manos que siembran
y hacen andar las fábricas.
Cuánta humanidad
con hambre, frío, pánico, dolor,
presión moral, terror y locura.

Seis de los nuestros se perdieron
en el espacio de las estrellas.
Uno muerto, un golpeado como jamás creí
se podría golpear a un ser humano.
Los otros cuatro quisieron quitarse
todos los temores,
uno saltando al vacío,
otro golpeándose la cabeza contra un muro
pero todos con la mirada fija en la muerte.
¡Qué espanto produce el rostro del fascismo!
Llevan a cabo sus planes con precisión artera
sin importarles nada.
La sangre para ellos son medallas.
La matanza es un acto de heroísmo.
¿Es este el mundo que creaste, Dios mío?
¿Para esto tus siete días de asombro y de trabajo?
En estas cuatro murallas sólo existe un número
que no progresa.
Que lentamente querrá más la muerte.

Pero de pronto me golpea la consciencia
y veo esta marea sin latido
y veo el pulso de las máquinas
y los militares mostrando su rostro de matrona
llena de dulzura.
¿Y México, Cuba y el mundo?
¡Qué griten esta ignominia!
Somos diez mil manos
menos que no producen.
¿Cuántos somos en toda la patria?
La sangre del compañero Presidente
golpea más fuerte que bombas y metrallas.
Así golpeará nuestro puño nuevamente.

Canto, qué mal me sabes
cuando tengo que cantar espanto.
Espanto como el que vivo
como el que muero, espanto.
De verme entre tantos y tantos
momentos de infinito
en que el silencio y el grito
son las metas de este canto.
Lo que veo nunca vi.
Lo que he sentido y lo que siento
harán brotar el momento...

Estadio de Chile:
The Final Work of Victor Jara

After the CIA-sponsored fascist coup d'état of September 11, 1973, which brought Augusto Pinochet to power, Victor Jara, along with other intellectuals, university students, politicians, lawyers, educators, and anyone else that the coup régime could not abide, were imprisoned at the Estadio de Chile, where they awaited interrogation, torture, and - ultimately - execution. While he awaited his turn, beloved Chilean folksinger Victor Jara - savagely beaten, one eye swollen shut - scratched Estadio de Chile, his final poem, onto paper, a poem he would never finish.

Carlos Orellana, who worked in the department of information and culture at the Universidad Técnica (Technical College) with Jara, described in an interview how the poem made it out of the impromptu concentration camp set up in the stadium:

"Normally, in the stadium, they announced the surname of the prisoner on the PA system, ordering him to report to some location or other. But a soldier came for Jara. At that time, Victor was sitting between Boris Navia, a lawyer from the University, and me. The soldier silently approached, and, without saying a word, touched Victor's shoulder, signalling to him to follow them. I, as well as the other prisoners, had the impression that the soldiers didn't want to say out loud that Jara was being taken anywhere... When the singer stood up - he certainly didn't expect to return alive - he had enough time to take a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket, and he passed it furtively to Boris Navia. It was the poem Estadio de Chile, written by Victor.

"Later, once we had already been brought to the Estadio Nacional during the first interrogations, they found the paper with the poem amongst Boris Navia's things. He'd hidden it in a sock. The poem denounced fascism and the dictatorship. The soldiers thought that it had been written by Boris, and they beat him mercilessly with their clubs. They took the poem from him. But, with the help of the comrades, Boris was able to make several copies of the poem by hand. One of the copies ended up in the hands of Ernesto Araneda, a distinguished communist and ex-senator, who was also incarcerated. I don't know how he managed to save the poem and send it out. After the singer's death, the party clandestinely edited the poem, which was rapidly distributed and became famous...

영문

Chile Stadium

There are five thousand of us here.
In this small part of the city.
Five thousand.
How many of us are there in all
In the cities and in all the country?
Here we are, ten thousand hands
Who plant the seeds and keep the factories running. So much humanity,
hungry, cold, panicked, in pain,
Under moral duress, terrified out of their minds!
Six of ours lost themselves
In the space of the stars.
One man dead, one man beaten worse than I ever thought
It was possible to beat a human being.
The other four wanted to free themselves of all their fear.
One jumped into the void.
Another beat his head against the wall.
But all had the fixed look of death in their eyes.
What fear is provoked by the face of fascism!
They carry out their plans with the utmost precision, not giving a damn about anything.
For them, blood is a medal.
Killing is an act of heroism.
My God, is this the world You created?
Is this the product of Your seven days of wonders and labour?
In these four walls, there is nothing but a number that does not move forward.
That, gradually, will grow to want death.
But my conscience suddenly awakens me
And I see this tide without a pulse
And I see the pulse of the machines
And the soldiers, showing their matronly faces, full of tenderness.
And Mexico, Cuba, and the world?
Let them cry out of this ignominy!
We are ten thousand fewer hands that do not produce.
How many of us are there throughout our homeland?
The blood of our comrade the President pulses with more strength than bombs and machine guns.
And so, too, will our fist again beat.
Song, how hard it is sing you when I have to sing in fear!
Fear like that in which I live, and from which I am dying, fear.
Of seeing myself amidst so much, and so many endless moments
In which silence and outcry are the targets of this song.
What have never seen before, what I have felt and what I feel now
Will make the moment break out...

1. Estadio Chile.mp3

1. 15_chile_stadium