Victor Jara: The folk star killed by fascists in a coup
Victor Jara was more than a musician, and not just because he was also a theatre kid.
Please don’t let that put you off a man who, yes, did learn everything he knew about music from his university theatre program, but was also a total screaming badass. One who fought for his leftist beliefs and, tragically, was murdered for them by fascist cowards with guns. This was a man who well and truly earned the description of him said in Massacre at the Stadium, a Netflix documentary about his life. That he was a “cross between Bob Dylan and Martin Luther King“. High praise indeed.
Born Víctor Lidio Jara Martinez on September 28th, 1932, in San Ignacio, Chile, Jara led an early life that showed him the best and worst of his world. The child of an unhappy marriage, Jara’s father wanted him to forgo school to work on their family’s farm, but Jara himself gravitated towards his mother and her musical ways. She played guitar and piano, and would often entertain their village with a repertoire of beloved folk songs.
This clearly left a mark on Jara, who took to music just as much, but only after he’d tried his hand at studying to be an accountant, then for the priesthood, before spending several years in the Chilean army. After leaving the forces, he started his career in music, beginning first in theatre before releasing his own music in the late 1950s. These were songs informed by the poverty and unity of his childhood, and thus, when he began to make a name for himself, he soon became an outspoken supporter of Salvador Allende’s socialist movement.
Even back then, identifying yourself with socialist politics put a massive target on your back. Plus ça change, I guess. Or in this case, cuánto más cambian las cosas.
How did Victor Jara get caught up in a coup?
Jara spent the 1960s balancing a pop career with his political activism. The two weren’t interlinked per se, lots of his music was about love, loss and other non-political topics, but everything came back to Allende and his socialist crusade. This was especially important due to the blatant corruption at the heart of the Chilean government, which was radicalising the left even further and in the early 1960s, Jara himself became a member of the communist party. The guy meant what he said.
Thus, when Allende was elected president of Chile in 1970, Jara was considered a key part of what humanised him to the Chilean public. On the one hand, this made him a national hero in most eyes. Yet to a great number of people, he was as much a part of the problem as Allende. So, when the Allende regime was overthrown in 1973 via a coup orchestrated by the Chilean military (and the US government, naturally), Jara was among the first against the wall.
Jara was captured, imprisoned and tortured before being shot dead on September 16th, 1973.
The 40-year-old’s body was found riddled with machine gun bullets before a shot to the head finished the job. Over 30 years later, the vermin responsible for his murder were convicted for their crimes and on December 3rd, 2008, Jara was reburied with a massive state funeral, which reflected his status as a Chilean hero.
One wonders whether he would have wanted any of that, though. Rather, I can imagine that if people were to retain his socialist principles and his commitment to uplifting the underclass, he would have been happy whatever they did with his body.