(Almost) Everybody loves Obama

This post is tangentially related to the forthcoming US elections. I could have written a proper post on how I find this election historical and exciting, and on how hopeful I am in an eventual Obama administration. Also, I could have cited and commented on one of the many of the polls that say that the citizens of the world would elect Barack Husein as president of the USA. I could have done that indeed. Rather, here I prefer to comment on the country that is desperately wishing a McCain administration. Yes, you guessed it: that country is Colombia.

In fact: the government, the media and every semi-informed person in Colombia is convinced that a Republican in the office is the most convenient thing for Colombia. Their reasoning is rather primitive, and above all, stupid: the Colombian opinion tends to believe that a McCain administration will make effective a free-trade agreement (FTA, Tratado de Libre Comercio - TLC, in Spanish) between US and Colombia. You might ask: what's the deal with that?

Before answering let me explain a bit on the relation between US and Colombia. Colombia is important for the US as it represents the focus of the drug problem. Since the term 'war against drugs' was coined (around 30 years ago) Colombia has been understood and treated as the main producer of the drugs that are available in the US. The diplomatic and commercial relations between the two countries have been shaped accordingly. Not surprisingly, Colombia is the second largest recipient in the world of financial and military aid from the US. The most recent initiative for this ---the so-called Plan Colombia--- was approved during the Clinton administration, and maintained during Bush's. What started as a cooperation plan against drug production, slowly moved towards the direct use of US aid to combat the guerrilla. This is something that, to be honest, makes absolute sense, given the proven participation of such groups in the drug business. Naturally, the 'war against terrorism' made it easy to shift the focus of the planned aid.

So, during the last eight years or so, the relations between US and Colombia were mostly based on issues related to the Plan Colombia. There was also a minor commercial component. This is something fundamental for Colombia but certainly irrelevant for the US, as you might imagine. Up to now, there exist some small agreements that make trade somewhat flexible, but these are temporal and full of conditions. (It is worth mentioning that in the legal side, main Colombia exports to the US include flowers and coffee.) So there was a need for a more open agreement eliminating the trade barriers between the countries.

The above of course sounds logic and even necessary. The problem is that the agreement that both governments approved is simply terrible for the majority of Colombian interests. Just think in the following: once the Democrats took the majorities of the congress, they made several changes so to make the thing less unfair. One of the many problems with the agreement, in my view, is that it advocates a notion of commerce that is so wide that it is outrageous.

A couple of examples are useful at this point. One of the things the agreement regulates is the amount of hours of TV produced and aired by Colombian broadcasters. In other words, by means of the agreement, Colombian TV channels should buy and air a fixed amount of movies and TV series made in the US. This is because unregulated TV production in Colombia could potentially affect US companies (!). This is not symmetric, as you can imagine. A second example is the following: thanks to the agreement, US pharmaceutical laboratories and companies would have the right to patent native medicines and fauna and flora present in Colombia. So, for instance, if someone discovers that a certain plant is beneficial for some disease, US laboratories not only could patent that plant and the procedure to extract a medicine out of it, but also Colombia would be forced to buy them that medicine from the US (!)

In this way, the agreement covers a wide spectrum of what can be considered as commerce. Of course, there are portions of the FTA that are convenient for some components of the Colombian economy. The incipient Colombian software industry is one of them. Flower producers would get benefits as well. The position of the government is rather clear: the FTA is far from perfect, and we need it desperately for those who will get benefits of it, regardless of the fact that (i) Colombia is not ready for such an agreement (for instance, we don't have proper highways from/to main ports); (ii) many interests would be affected; (iii) we have no other big commercial partner in the world.

So, this takes us again on why the Colombian government and media really wish another Republican administration. They ignore that the Democrat majorities in the congress will prevail, even in the (hopefully unlikely) case that McCain comes into office. They must think that a scripted speech from Sarah Palin will make the FTA a reality. In fact, for more than a year Democrats have systematically delayed the study of the act enforcing the Colombian FTA, just to make George W really upset. Colombia has become part of the bipartisan discussions and tensions by accident; Nancy Pelosi is a really hated person in Colombia. They have claimed arguments related to human rights violations to justify this position (heavily supported by the Colombian opposition and many leftist Non-Governmental Organizations). The reality is that a FTA is something tremendously unpopular among Americans, specially nowadays. Obama knows this and hence opposes to the FTA, at least in the current terms. He also proposes to shift the focus of the Plan Colombia. Republicans claim that the FTA is necessary to support a 'loyal ally' in the war against terrorism, and that Plan Colombia should be maintained untouched. This is McCain's position. This topic was quickly mentioned in the third presidential debate; this short, predictable mention was largely discussed and analyzed in Colombian newspapers. The same newspapers that gave huge coverage to McCain visit to Colombia, and that only now realize that Obama perhaps could win.

To conclude, if you think that everyone in the world wants Obama as president, think twice. Apart from the neocons and creationists, a significant amount of Colombians might like to have a 72-year old war veteran as president, and a hockey-mom that sees Russia from her balcony as vice-president. Let us simply hope for the best next Tuesday.

Piazzolla and Me

I got into Astor Piazzolla's music by mistake (or, more precisely, by serendipity). It was a Saturday afternoon after a nap, that I turned the TV on and saw a rather attractive girl hitting her violin with a stick, while the rest of a symphonic orchestra was graciously playing. The scene was rather strange, but the music rapidly captivated me. Soon after that piece, the director started to explain the differences between Vivaldi's Four Seasons and Piazzolla's Estaciones Porteñas. Even if I was still sleepy, I managed to realize that the percussive rhythm of hits on the violin was only one of the many hints on how Piazzolla understood the spirit of seasons in the city of Buenos Aires.

After hearing Piazzolla's four seasons for the first time, I became an avid listener and follower of his music. I've accumulated a lot of albums of him and his bands, as well as of performances other musicians have done. I can truly say that Piazzolla's is one of the most inspiring things that have come to me. A whole range of feelings come to the outside thanks to Piazzolla compositions. His music is both catchy and profound; happy and deeply sad at the same time. The melodies are complex but somehow it feels you can relate to them very easily. Sometimes I get tired of "modern music", and then I return to any Piazzolla album and then everything makes sense again. My favorite, without a doubt, is Libertango, which I recommend to everyone.

Piazzolla lived a very passionate life. Not surprisingly, the several stages of his artistic life were intimately related to the circumstances of his personal life. Born in 1921, at the age of four, Astor and his family moved from Argentina to New York, where he grew up and lived till he was 16. It was in NY, at the age of 9, where he got into the Bandoneon, and developed a passion for it and for Tango music. In 1937 he returns to Buenos Aires, and joins the most important Tango group of his time. He managed to interact with famous performers and composers, soon detecting a sense of disgust with the traditional Tango style. In 1954 he decides to study piano in Paris, under the guidance of Nadia Boulanger, who encourages Piazzolla to follow his very own style in Tango compositions. At this point it might be useful to remark that the many cultural influences of Piazzolla (he was an Argentinian with Italian ancestors, grown up in New York and formed as pianist in France) were fundamental in creating in him a very clear sense of uniqueness in his art.

Until 1958, the life of Piazzolla was essentially devoted to develop his new style in Buenos Aires, where his new ideas were not welcomed by those radical defenders of "true Tango". In that year, he and his family (wife and two kids) go to New York to start a new life. It is in 1959, with the death of his father that one could say that the first period of Piazzolla ends. Indeed, such an event marked Astor in such a profound way, that after that his musical and personal life took a very diverse path. The sadness caused by the death of his father was Piazzolla's main inspiration to compose "Adios Nonino" (Goodbye Nonino), a sort of Tango requiem for his late father. (Astor's kids called their grandpa "nonino", a word derived from the Italian "nonno", which means "grandfather".) Adios Nonino is one of the most popular compositions of Piazzolla.

After that, Piazzolla not only starts a new artistic period, with he also starts a new life. Indeed, he left his family to pursue new artistic and personal adventures. Some say that Nonino's death suddenly removed any moral yardstick in Astor. He then starts a new relationship with a young singer, and along with Horacio Ferrer, creates "Maria de Buenos Aires", the first Tango opera. Perhaps the most famous piece of this rather positive period (both artistically and personally) for Piazzolla is "Balada para un Loco" (Ballad for a madman).

After that period, around 1975 Piazzolla forms the Electronic Octect, one of the most interesting expressions of his so-called "new tango." The group includes elements and performers from Jazz, percussions and synthesizers; these two last components being clearly unconceivable from the traditional Tango perspective. This is a rather short period (around 2 years). It is worth mentioning that in his personal life this is a sweet period, as he gets very close to his son Daniel, who is part of his band.

A third and final period is again determined by the irruption of a new woman in Astor's life. This is around 1976, where he meets and marries his second wife. They move to Paris, where he continues in his artistic and personal evolution, getting close to performers such as Richard Galliano. In fact, during this period Piazzolla continues with his musical experimentation, composes soundtracks for movies and tours around the world. In 1990 he collapses in Paris, being in coma for twenty-three months, and finally dies in Buenos Aires in 1992, leaving behind an splendid legacy to contemporary music.

It is always interesting to wonder about the lives of extremely talented people as Piazzolla. Some say he was an extremely selfish person, kind and warm in the everyday contact with family and friends. He also was a rather contradictory and inflexible person regarding social and political aspects. In fact, Piazzolla was known to sympathize with Videla's dictatorship in Argentina. In the musical aspect --the one that should interest us the most-- he was the most rigorous of the directors while being the most adventurous of the improvisers. He accepted no mistakes from his musicians, but was enthusiastic enough to take any "reasonable" contribution that would enrich the pieces.

Needless to say, discovering Piazzolla's life and music is a long yet extremely rewarding process. At the beginning, it's no easy to get a grasp of what he tries to convey with the music. It is certainly worth listening, specially nowadays when one hears all kinds of crap, supposedly called music.