HELIOLITH

Prentiss of “Aprendiz de Todo” wrote today about Molotov’s song and video “Frijolero” that came out in 2003, and remains popular, being covered by various other bands and continues to receive decent airplay, especially for a 3 year old song. I began to write a comment for him but it ended up being longer than I would normally submit for a comment, so I moved it here.

My response was orginally catalyzed mostly by the following sentence, (via Prentiss’ post) “Thanks to the detailed explanation and translation of the song by Alan Wall — whose politics I disagree with but I have to say he’s very fair in presenting Molotov’s…”

Prentiss, you really think he’s fair? Maybe I’m not getting where his treatment of Molotov breaks off and his spewing of dogma starts… I guess perhaps you’re just referring to the translation. To me it sounded like an ultra-conservative idealogue bashing a brilliant song that seriously exposes some very tragic social-political realities. The fact that he republishes the bands’ email addresses in plaintext (inviting both spam and hatemail) is evidence enough that something is awry. I’d really rather not boost Wall’s pagerank by linking again to him, since a google search on “Frijolero” turns up VDARE as the 5th hit or something already.

My own identity is fairly colored by listening to punk music, so Molotov has always been funny, touching, powerful and positive to me, the tossing about of insults is more absurd than offensive, although sometimes (depending on my listening mood) a bitter-edged reflection of the sadness of the realities of racism (the institutionalized anti-latin racism in this country dwarfs in scope and effective power the prejudice held by mexicans against gringos). To me the song and the video show a complex and frustrating situation in a piercingly satirical light, and provides a great vent of expression. I’ve had discussions with bilingual folks from both cultures about the song, and most whom I’ve talked with think the song ‘rocks’ whereas one person thought it went a bit far. The same could be said for any rebel-music that shares anything with the punk ethic; you can criticise it at face value and gain nothing, or you can listen to it without passing judgement and it is far more powerful.

I disagree with just about everything Allan Wall says, except I’ll grant that his translation is quite passable. (P*nche is definitely a non-specifically ‘grosero’ adjective in my experience so his translation of it as a vulgar noun is quite odd, possibly motivated by sensationalism). I think though, that his invective is quite vicious: “You have to understand though, what Mexicans mean when they condemn “racism.” The Mexican definition of racism is “Any attempt by the U.S.A. to control its own border with Mexico.” I looked hard for a notation that showed where he was quoting this from, but he wasn’t; it appears to directly reflect Allan Wall’s point of view. I wonder if Wall speaks Spanish with as thick an English accent as the song pokes fun at? It’s irrelevant to me what one’s accent is as long as you can be understood, but it would explain a lot if that’s what’s got his ire up.

Also, his criticism of Spanish MTV’s uneven censoring of expletive content (which I didn’t verify) seems to occur in the context of Mexico (notes on the site explain that he’s a gringo in Mexico). Unless I’m misunderstanding, censoring agents are motivated primarily by laws and traditions in the ‘dominant langauge of the land.’ This is of course completely sidestepping the issue that light profanity in Mexico is a more grave insult than it would be in English (example- “estoy hasta la madre” would be self-censored in many Spanish speaking family environments, whereas “I’m sick and tired” wouldn’t be in an English family environment in my experience).

I quickly looked for something else to show Allan’s style, and found a piece he wrote on the Tigres del Norte song “Somos más Americanos” which was slightly less abusive, in spite of the controversial nature of the song. He did bash the Tigres’ claim about the “border crossing us” which really isn’t about the timeline of the U.S. “taking” of the southwest versus individual/family migrations as it is about the enforcement of an artificial frontier.

Sadly, Wall’s politics are much like those of the “Minutemen” vigilantes that run rampant and unchecked, armed to the teeth at the US/Mexico border lately, with the goal of hunting down immigrants without legal papers.

I heard some good coverage of the story yesterday via Pacifica by the authors of this piece from the new LA Writer’s Collective Weblog. The connections between white-supremecists, neo-nazis and these vigilantes are somewhat disturbing, especially as officals turn their heads and authorities refuse to decry their activities.