'Manifesto (I Speak For My Difference)' by Pedro Lemebel

Manifiesto (Hablo por mi diferencia) por Pedro Lemebel

Pedro Lemebel (1952–2015) was a Chilean artist, writer, and queer revolutionary. They (Lemebel referred to themselves using both feminine and masculine gendered language, so I use gender-neutral pronouns to avoid confusion) first made their mark on Chilean literature through a series of performances and readings made in the 1980s. Their writings (including poetry, short stories, and non-fiction pieces) were known for their boldly queer and provocative stance, as well as for their ability to commemorate the beauty and the grit of working-class queer life in Chile.

Here I publish one of Lemebel’s most well-known (but heretofore untranslanted into English) poems, known as his Manifiesto or ‘Hablo por mi diferencia’. In 1986, there was a large gathering of left-leaning opposition groups in the Mapocho Station of Santiago. It was here that Lemebel would make their defiant entry into Chile’s literary culture, dressed in high heels and with a hammer and sickle dolled onto their face. It is this context, of an intransigent public intervention against the established left in Chile, that the poem should be read. Although the Soviet Union had abolished the criminalization of homosexuality after the October Revolution, the ascent of Stalin led to the country becoming more conservative, with the recriminalization of homosexuality being passed by decree in 1933. Thus, most of the revolutionary groups of the 20th century, being predominantly Marxist-Leninist, followed the Soviet homophobic line.

This led Lemebel to experience a doubling of their alienation: firstly, being alienated by the violently conservative military junta that governed Chile at the time, and secondly, being alienated by its similarly homophobic opposition. To reactionary and revolutionary alike, Lemebel was seen as swimming against the current. Manifesto thereby is Lemebel’s attempt to carve out their own space in this movement, a space which was as revolutionary as it was queer. Striking out in a tragicomic vernacular, this poem is part-chronicle, part auto-biography and part call to action. It is Lemebel speaking on behalf of their difference, rejecting attempts to construe their alterity as at odds with serious political activism, and celebrating it as its own source of praxis.

To achieve this, Lemebel draws own their own idiomatic language, one that developed its eccentricity through its inheritance of queer and working-class dialects. Their writing expresses chilensis, a term that Chilean people use to describe their particularly brusque and crude adoption of the Spanish language (filtered in part through various Mapuche loan words). Thus, one of my primary aims was capturing the informal and idiomatic language of the poem without lapsing too much into domestication. To compliment this, I have also included a series of footnotes to add context when needed.

Thank you to Chris Poole for his insightful comments, as always.

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Hablo por mi diferencia

No soy Pasolini pidiendo explicaciones
No soy Ginsberg expulsado de Cuba
No soy un marica disfrazado de poeta
No necesito disfraz
Aquí está mi cara
Hablo por mi diferencia
Defiendo lo que soy
Y no soy tan raro
Me apesta la injusticia
Y sospecho de esta cueca democrática
Pero no me hable del proletariado
Porque ser pobre y maricón es peor
Hay que ser ácido para soportarlo
Es darle un rodeo a los machitos de la esquina
Es un padre que te odia
Porque al hijo se le dobla la patita
Es tener una madre de manos tajeadas por el cloro
Envejecidas de limpieza
Acunándote de enfermo
Por malas costumbres
Por la mala suerte
Como la dictadura
Peor que la dictadura
Porque la dictadura pasa
Y viene la democracia
Y detrasito el socialismo
¿Y entonces?
¿Qué harán con nosotros, compañeros?
¿Nos amarrarán de las trenzas en fardos
con destino a un sidario cubano?
Nos meterán en algún tren de ninguna parte
Como en el barco del general Ibáñez
Donde aprendimos a nadar
Pero ninguno llegó a la costa
Por eso Valparaíso apagó sus luces rojas
Por eso las casas de caramba
Le brindaron una lágrima negra
A los colizas comidos por las jaibas
Ese año que la Comisión de Derechos Humanos
no recuerda
Por eso, compañero, le pregunto
¿Existe aún el tren siberiano
de la propaganda reaccionaria?
Ese tren que pasa por sus pupilas
Cuando mi voz se pone demasiado dulce
¿Y usted?
¿Qué hará con ese recuerdo de niños
Pajeándonos y otras cosas
En las vacaciones de Cartagena?
¿El futuro será en blanco y negro?
¿El tiempo en noche y día laboral
sin ambigüedades?
¿No habrá un maricón en alguna esquina
desequilibrando el futuro de su hombre nuevo?
¿Van a dejarnos bordar de pájaros
las banderas de la patria libre?
El fusil se lo dejo a usted
Que tiene la sangre fría
Y no es miedo
El miedo se me fue pasando
De atajar cuchillos
En los sótanos sexuales donde anduve
Y no se sienta agredido	
Si le hablo de estas cosas		
Y le miro el bulto
No soy hipócrita
¿Acaso las tetas de una mujer
no lo hacen bajar la vista?
¿No cree usted
que solos en la sierra
algo se nos iba a ocurrir?
Aunque después me odie
Por corromper su moral revolucionaria
¿Tiene miedo que se homosexualice la vida?
Y no hablo de meterlo y sacarlo
Y sacarlo y meterlo solamente
Hablo de ternura, compañero
Usted no sabe
Cómo cuesta encontrar el amor
En estas condiciones
Usted no sabe
Qué es cargar con esta lepra
La gente guarda las distancias
La gente comprende y dice:
Es marica pero escribe bien
Es marica pero es buen amigo
Súper-buena-onda
Yo no soy buena onda
Yo acepto al mundo
Sin pedirle esa buena onda
Pero igual se ríen
Tengo cicatrices de risas en la espalda
Usted cree que pienso con el poto
Y que al primer parrillazo de la CNI
Lo iba a soltar todo
No sabe que la hombría
Nunca la aprendí en los cuarteles
Mi hombría me la enseñó la noche
Detrás de un poste
Esa hombría de la que usted se jacta
Se la metieron en el regimiento
Un milico asesino
De esos que aún están en el poder
Mi hombría no la recibí del partido
Porque me rechazaron con risitas
Muchas veces
Mi hombría la aprendí participando
En la dura de esos años
Y se rieron de mi voz amariconada
Gritando: Y va a caer, y va a caer
Y aunque usted grita como hombre
No ha conseguido que se vaya
Mi hombría fue la mordaza
No fue ir al estadio
Y agarrarme a combos por el Colo Colo
El fútbol es otra homosexualidad tapada
Como el box, la política y el vino
Mi hombría fue morderme las burlas
Comer rabia para no matar a todo el mundo
Mi hombría es aceptarme diferente
Ser cobarde es mucho más duro
Yo no pongo la otra mejilla
Pongo el culo, compañero
Y ésa es mi venganza
Mi hombría espera paciente
Que los machos se hagan viejos
Porque a esta altura del partido
La izquierda tranza su culo lacio
En el parlamento
Mi hombría fue difícil
Por eso a este tren no me subo
Sin saber dónde va
Yo no voy a cambiar por el marxismo
Que me rechazó tantas veces
No necesito cambiar
Soy más subversivo que usted
No voy a cambiar solamente
Porque los pobres y los ricos
A otro perro con ese hueso
Tampoco porque el capitalismo es injusto
En Nueva York los maricas se besan en la calle
Pero esa parte se la dejo a usted
Que tanto le interesa
Que la revolución no se pudra del todo
A usted le doy este mensaje
Y no es por mí
Yo estoy viejo
Y su utopía es para las generaciones futuras
Hay tantos niños que van a nacer
Con una alíta rota
Y yo quiero que vuelen, compañero
Que su revolución
Les dé un pedazo de cielo rojo
Para que puedan volar.

I Speak For My Difference

I am not Pasolini asking for explanations
I am not Ginsberg expelled from Cuba
I am not a fag disguised as a poet
I don’t need a disguise
Here is my face
I speak for my difference
I defend what I am
And I am not so strange
I hate injustice
And I don’t trust this democratic dance
But don’t talk to me about the proletariat
Because being poor and a faggot is worse
You gotta be rough to bear it
It’s crossing the street when you see those lads on the corner¹
It’s a father that hates you
Because his one and only son has a limp wrist
It’s having a mother with hands cut by chlorine
Aged by cleaning
Cradling you when you’re sick
Because of bad habits
Because of bad luck
Like the dictatorship
Worse than the dictatorship
Because dictatorships end
And then comes democracy
And right behind it socialism too
And so?
What will they do with us, comrades?
Will we be tied by our braids into bundles
bound for a Cuban AIDS sanitorium?²
They’ll put us on some train to nowhere
Like on General Ibáñez’s ship³
Where we learned to swim
But none of us made it to shore
Because of that Valparaíso dimmed its red lights
Because of that the whorehouses
Poured out a single black tear
For those fruits feasted on by crabs⁴
That year the Commission of Human Rights
doesn’t remember
Because of that, comrade, I’m asking you
Does the Siberian train that
reactionaries decry still exist? 
That train that passes before your eyes
When my voice starts to get too sweet
And you?
What will you do with that childhood memory
Of us stroking our cocks together (among other things)
While on holiday in Cartagena?
Will the future be in black and white?
Will the difference between night time
and the working day always be clear?
Won’t there be a faggot on some corner
Throwing the future of your new man off balance?⁵
Will they let us embroider birds
on the flags of our free homeland?
I leave the rifle to you
Who is cold-blooded
And it’s not fear
I lost my fear
Of dodging knives
In the seedy basements where I spent my time
And don’t feel attacked
If I speak to you of these things
And check out your bulge
I’m not a hypocrite.
Don’t a woman’s tits
Make you lower your gaze?
Don’t you think
That alone in the mountains
Something would happen between us?
Even if you hate me afterwards
For corrupting your revolutionary morals.
Are you scared I’ll homosexualize your life?
And I’m not just talking about putting it in
& taking it out & taking it out & putting it in
I’m talking about tenderness, comrade
You don’t know
How much it costs to find love
In these conditions
You don’t know
What it’s like to carry this leprosy
People keep their distance
People understand and say:
He’s a fag but he writes well
He’s a fag but he’s a good friend
Real-good-vibes
But I’m not good vibes
I accept the world
Without asking for those good vibes
But either way they laugh
There are scars of laughter on my back
You say I think with my ass
And that with the first shock of the electric prod⁶
I’d let it all slip
You don’t know that I never learnt
My manhood in the barracks
The night taught me my manhood
Behind a post
That manhood you boast of
Was drilled into you in boot camp
By a murderous pig
Like the ones still in power
I didn’t get my manhood from the party
Because they rejected me with sniggers
More than once
I learnt my manhood participating
In the struggle of those years
And they laughed at my faggy voice
Chanting: And it’s gonna fall, and it’s gonna fall⁷
And although you shout like a man
You’ve brought nothing down
My manhood was the gag
It wasn’t going to the stadium
And getting into scraps for Colo-Colo
Football is another form of repressed homosexuality
Like boxing, politics, and wine
My manhood was biting down on my tongue
Eating my rage so I didn’t kill the whole world
My manhood is accepting myself as different
Being a coward is much more difficult
The only other cheek I’ll turn,
Comrade, is on my ass
And that is my vengeance
My manhood waits patiently
For the chauvinists to get old
Because at this stage of the game
The left is trading its limp ass
In parliament
My manhood was difficult
That’s why I won’t get on this train
Without knowing where it’s going
I won’t change for Marxism
Which rejected me so many times
I don’t need to change
I’m more subversive than you
I won’t change just
Because of the rich and the poor
Give me a break
I also wont change because capitalism is unjust
In New York fags kiss on the street
But I’ll let you chew on that
You who are so interested
In the revolution not rotting away
To you I leave this message
And this is not for me
I am old
And your utopia is for those who are to come
There are so many children who will be born
With a broken wing
And I want them to soar, comrade
I want your revolution
To give them a piece of red sky
So they can fly.

1. In the Spanish text Lemebel refers to machitos, which is the plural diminutive form of macho. I felt that ‘lads’ was best in capturing the sense of a chauvinistic young man.

2. Cuba’s response to the AIDS crisis was to quarantine indefinitely those who tested positive for HIV. This was, effectively, life-imprisonment. So, while the reference to Cuba might gloss as a positive, it is in fact another representation of the betrayal of queer people by revolutionary movements at the time.

3. Carlos Ibáñez del Campo (1877-1960) was dictator (1927-1931) and president (1952-1958) of Chile. In the 1930s, General Ibáñez invited prominent gay men and left-wing militants onto a ship in Valparaíso, only to sink it once it was out at sea, killing all aboard.

4. Here Lemebel speaks of colizas comidos by crabs. A glossary that Lemebel created for one of his works claims that coliza is a informal term for a gay man and (more routinely) a type of bread that is commonly eaten in Chile. Translating colizas as ‘fruits’ (which is admittedly an archaic term) allows me to retain the gastronomic roots of the term while also allowing the alliteration to occur: ‘fruits feasted on’ matching colizas comidos.

5. A reference to the New Soviet man.

6. The Spanish reads: Y que al primer parrillazo de la CNI. The CNI, short for Centro Nacional de Informaciones or National Information Center, was Chile’s intelligence agency - akin to the CIA - during the military dictatorship. They were responsible for the persecution, kidnapping, torture, murder and disappearance of political opponents. The parrillazo was a type of electric prod used by the CNI to extract information for prisoners during torture.

7. A popular political chant at the time, referring to the military junta.