Making music out of the madness
After noticing an army guard carrying a gun in the same way that he holds his guitar, Cesar Lopez - a street musician from Bogota, Colombia - came up with an ingenious invention: the escopetarra (from the Spanish words escopeta and guirtarra for rifle and guitar).
Now, Cesar Lopez recieves requests from artists such as Shakira and Brazilian musicians Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso for the instrument but, as he says, "we're not trying to sell them or get someone to pay for them. We're just trying to get the word out".
Right wing paramilitaries (AUC) have been fighting the Colombian government for 40 years, leaving as many as 3,000 soldiers and civilians dead every year. Lopez wants to see all groups involved turning in their weapons. And it's beginning to happen. As part of a current peace protest, the Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos promised Lopez 12 assault rifles - three of which are from the AUC - to turn into escopetarras.
There is still a long way to go - one of the largest rebel groups are still resisting negotiations - but positive movements such as this are helping to inspire and transform the use of "the worst human invention (the gun)" into "the most beautiful" and, in the end, "the gun dies and the guitar is born."
Source: Miami Herald.
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More about Oxfam's campaign to Control Arms on Generation Why.
posted at 10:50 AM
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