Our group has chosen 8 pieces of material, including 5 songs 2 movies and an example of a movement. In fact, all these pieces have one thing in common: they speak about freedom or lack of it. Three of these pieces ( “ Los Dinosaurios” , “No bombardeen Buenos Aires” and “La Memoria”) speak about the same historical moment that Argentina suffered in 1976 : the military coup. Some of them such as " No bombardeen Buenos Aires "and “Los Dinosaurios” were banned during this period as they inculcated ideals of freedom in people.We have one song and one movement (“Sin Cadenas” and Theatre for Identity) that speak about Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo. And other two pieces, talk about different historical moments in different places, but share the fact that during them, repression and violence were used against people . The last song , " Mentality " is a current song of a reggae band talking about the power we possess and about the fact that, if we couldn't use it in that critical moments, we have to use it now in order to change the world. This song says that only we can save the future of the world and not allow more violence and disrespect situations.
We hope that this oral lesson help us to become aware of what we have suffered and what we can still do for these causes.
"Sin Cadenas", by Los Pericos: los pericos is a reggae band generally associated with light songs. Some of their songs like "Ritual de la banana", were classics played in parties or dances in the late 80's and early 90's."Sin Cadenas", however, that originally tells the story of a boxer, was included in the soundtrack of David Blaustein's documentary, "Botín de Guerra", in which The Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo's work is showed.Since then, "Sin Cadenas" became an anthem for Madres de Plaza de Mayo, who use it in acts and as material that they could spare to people, and the whole meaning of the song changed. One of the chords translated in English says "Nothing escapes, nothing dies, nobody forgets, that's for sure."
Theatre 4 identity: it is a movement started by The Grandmothers of Plaza De Mayo, which draws attention to their goal of finding the people who were stolen from their families as children during the Argentine “Dirty War”. Three short plays about memory and identity, Loose Ends, Betrayal of Memory and At Chou's Drycleaner are some good examples.Each of the plays aimed to raise awareness about the loss of identity these people around the world face, after being stolen from Argentina in the 60s/70s when they were children.
“Los dinosaurios” by Charly García: this song written and played by Charly Garcia is about the military government that took place in the period from 1976 to 1983 during the dictatorship in Argentina .In the song, when the author mentions the dinosaurs, he means to the military who controlled the country, and speaks about them as monsters that made people disappear because of thinking in a different way from the government.
"La memoria" by Leon Gieco: this song talks about the memory of the missing people and of crimes committed in the period of dictatorship in Argentina.
"La vita è bella": this film is based on the book at the end of Defeat Hitler , Rubino Romeo Salmoni , who was imprisoned for three years in concentration camp Bergen- Belsen and survived. The film begins in the year 1939 , on the rise of fascism in Italy.
“No bombardeen Buenos Aires” by Charly García: this song was censored during the dictatorship, that is why it doesn’t appear in the singer’s album "Yendo de la cama al living"; It talk about Malvina’s war, in 1982 when this happened. The song express what the war caused, what it brought on society, workers and the
“The book thief”, directed by Brian Percival: this film is about a young girl named Liesel who lives with her adoptive German family during the Nazi era, in the Second World War. She becomes a close friend of a jewish refugee who lives in her basement and soon begins borrowing prohibit books from the Mayor’s wife and sharing them with him. She hates de Nazi power and what they do to people, along with the burning of prohibit books they made frequently.During the film, it is showed the lack of scruples that the Nazis had in those times with the society, and how they disrespected, killed and made disappear many people by the fact of thinking different from them, helping innocent people or having different religions.
Concluding our project, there's a lot much more in our heads than at the beginning. With this we mean that it kind of helped us overcome our ignorance in this subject giving us new information.
We learnt that there are many ways to help and evolve as a society and also the importance of art since it's a whole new level of expression.
Furthermore, by looking for songs and films about topics as freedom or peace, we were able to think over about how we want our world to be like and to acquire more knowledge about the dictatorship in Argentina as well as the Nazi Era in Germany -with Adolf Hitler on power.
Also, we found this project really useful because now we considered ourselves much more informed about these two periods mentioned that had such an impact on the society.
