Mireya Moscoso,
the head of the official centennial commission Lorena Castillo
and Government and Justice Minister Arnulfo Escalona, by way of
a series of contract rescissions, totalitarian pronouncements,
misrepresentations, insults and legal machinations did their
best to stop Rubén Blades from playing on Independence
Day. The fundamental allegation was that Blades would politicize
the event, and given the knowledge of hindsight, we now know
that the president’s intention was to use this
nation’s centennial for political propaganda of her own.
Mayor Juan
Carlos Navarro intervened and set up a municipal stage, Escalona
tried to stop it, but the government failed to serve its papers
in time and the show went on. However, protection by the
National Police was withheld.
That latter bit
of pettiness could have resulted in somebody being killed.
Coming to the concert scene off Calle 50 from Avenida Balboa,
the crush got increasingly severe as the crowd approached a
narrow opening, in front of which a municipal cop was doing his
best to exclude weapons. Parents put their terrified little kids
on their shoulders and somehow everybody got through without
anybody being suffocated, but it was a close thing. It would
have taken just one provocateur to start a deadly stampede.
However, this
mostly young, overwhelmingly Panamanian crowd was on its best
behavior despite being packed in like sardines. Blades had said
that he wanted to see only the Panamanian flag in the crowd, and
except for a couple of Martin Torrijos banners, people complied.
There was a sea of little Panamanian flags.
I got only as
far as the Wall Street Securities building, where there were a
lot of radio stations playing the music that was playing on the
stage, but since they were slightly out of phase, it detracted
from the sound quality. I am told by people who were right up
front or who watched on TV that the sound was perfect from their
vantage points.
Be that as it
may, from where I was standing the phenomenon was a sing-along.
Blades, backed by Dino Nugent, Fidel Morales, Luis Arteaga,
Roberto Delgado, George De León and Henry Gorgona,
essentially an all-star band from the Panamanian scene, plus
Puerto Rican salsero Gilberto Santa Rosa and a little boy named
Aldair Brants, did “Amor y Control,”
“Decisiones,” “Pablo Pueblo,” “Pedro
Navaja,” Plantación Adentro” and finished off
with “Patria.” Many people in the crowd knew the words
to all of his songs and sang along, which didn’t do much
for the acoustics but set the tone of the event as a public
celebration of something much more consequential than a popular
entertainer playing his hits.
Between songs,
Blades spoke of growing up in the Panama of the 60s, of people
who died to make this country whole, and of so many people in so
many fields who have lived to shed glory on this country. I
would imagine that Mireya Moscoso and Arnulfo Escalona are
offended that they were not mentioned, but there was nothing the
least big partisan about what Blades said or sang at this
concert.
So will Blades
be on the ticket with Martín Torrijos, or hold a post in
the next government? Maybe, maybe not. But he did demonstrate
the sort of demeanor that we don’t expect from our
political leaders but ought to demand. His was a class act, and
the entire event was the celebration of a generation that
insists on being free.
Mene, mene,
tekel, upharsin, Mireya and Arnulfo.
I hope that this
concert was recorded and will be marketed. Its international
release would give a bunch of worthy Panamanian musicians who
played along with Blades some of the international recognition
they deserve. More importantly, the fact that this concert took
place at all, combined with the huge crowd and the way that the
assembled people behaved, was something of immense social and
political significance that we’re likely to fully recognize
only in retrospect.
Also in this
section:
Cool Internet
sites
Music, The Rubén
Blades centennial concert
Theater, El
Veredicto
Film, The Revolution Will Not
be Televised
