Pete Seeger, el Valle del Jarama y la caza de brujas

Peter Seeger, junto a Arlo Guthrie, canta ‘There’s a Valley in Spain called Jarama’ y cuenta la historia de esta canción que forma parte de ‘Songs of the Lincoln Battalion’.

En Barcelona cantó la canción ‘Viva la Quince Brigada’.

Uno de los momentos más conocidos de su compromiso político fue su declaración en 1955 ante el Comité de Actividades Antiamericanas del Congreso, el ‘tribunal de la caza de brujas’. Se negó a acogerse a la Primera Enmienda, lo que era un riesgo añadido, y se negó también a dar nombres de sus amigos y correligionarios, a explicar sus ideas políticas o las de la gente a la que conocía:

«I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious beliefs or my political beliefs, or how I voted in any election, or any of these private affairs. I think these are very improper questions for any American to be asked, especially under such compulsion as this. I would be very glad to tell you my life if you want to hear of it».

Sí se ofreció a cantar una canción ante el Comité. Intentaron pillarle por ahí y le preguntaron si había actuado en actos organizados por organizaciones que el comité relacionaba con el partido comunista. Y la declaración continuó así:

MR. SEEGER: I am saying voluntarily that I have sung for almost every religious group in the country, from Jewish and Catholic, and Presbyterian and Holy Rollers and Revival Churches, and I do this voluntarily. I have sung for many, many different groups-and it is hard for perhaps one person to believe, I was looking back over the twenty years or so that I have sung around these forty-eight states, that I have sung in so many different places.

MR. SCHERER: Did you sing before the groups that Mr. Tavenner asked you about?

MR. SEEGER: I am saying that my answer is the same as before. I have told you that I sang for everybody.

CHAIRMAN WALTER: Wait a minute. You sang for everybody. Then are we to believe, or to take it, that you sang at the places Mr. Tavenner mentioned?

MR. SEEGER: My answer is the same as before.

CHAIRMAN WALTER: What is that?

MR. SEEGER: It seems to me like the third time I have said it, if not the fourth.

CHAIRMAN WALTER: Maybe it is the fifth, but say it again. I want to know what your answer is.

(Witness consulted with counsel.)

MR. SEEGER: I decline to discuss, under compulsion, where I have sung, and who has sung my songs, and who else has sung with me, and the people I have known. I love my country very dearly, and I greatly resent this implication that some of the places that I have sung and some of the people that I have known, and some of my opinions, whether they are religious or philosophical, or I might be a vegetarian, make me any less of an American. I will tell you about my songs, but I am not interested in telling you who wrote them, and I will tell you about my songs, and I am not interested in who listened to them.

Por negarse a contestar a estas preguntas, fue condenado en 1961 a un año de prisión por desacato al Congreso, pero la pena fue anulada en la apelación.

Aquí está la transcripción íntegra de su declaración ante el Comité.

Y está la supercool foto de Seeger dirigiéndose a la sala del tribunal que le condenó. Con la guitarra.

Peter Seeger, with guitar, on his way to court to be sentence for refusing to "name names" HUAC, 1961 pic.twitter.com/eLxhIcnJ0E

— Jonathan Mandell (@NewYorkTheater) enero 28, 2014

–El legado de Pete Seeger en seis canciones reivindicativas (y un documental).
—Cinco grandes actuaciones de Pete Seeger.
–Peter Seeger habla en 2006 de ‘We Shall Overcome’.