Colombia’s demons are inexplicably aligned with its angels
This endlessly clowned-about piece of public telenovela is why Colombia is so captivating, but also so maligned
Colombia has many redeeming features. Most of all, she is likeable. In a world of increasing sameness, where every surface is sealed, every space moderated, every variable measured, Colombia is strangely therapeutic. Where existence no longer feels human-shaped, Colombia is distinctly human. It is really a fragile, timid animal, always melancholic, always acting out its fears in public, always spooked by its own tail. It is a strange horse.
It is also conflicted. Colombia is a creature that sees the world through a haze of psychedelic rage, fear, love and sadness. Everything in its immediate orbit gets sucked up into a whirlwind of awkward energy — and trying to extinguish the flames just seems to ramp up the levels of lunacy. The more you avoid eye contact, the more it leans in towards you, hovers over you, and zaps your every move with calamity inducing spears.
This is a country trapped inside itself, running on a broken loop, one repeated so often that it becomes a reassuring madness, like the squeaking rusty chains of a swing — silence would be unnerving. Conversation feels like rehearsed noise. Words and sentences graciously preordained. Talking constantly without really talking. Rapid-fire burbling, occasionally coming up for air, before ironing out the same phrase again with some confusing alterations. Colombia is its own nursery rhyme, stretched and bended between reality and fantasy.
People seem happy for no reason. Absorbed into their own screened fantasy, only focusing on small lumps of reality. A kind of Captain Jack Sparrow thrashing about in an inflatable swimming pool. Colombia is a state of mind completely at ease with the idea that tomorrow is the last day. It is a world of never ending low expectations. There never seems to be anything to lose. In fact, it feels like there is a degree of overachievement already.
But, this is to soft pedal what is also clear in abundance. Something specifically terrifying. Colombia’s impoverished people are stretched thin. Shackled by their environment. Incomplete versions of themselves. Low-grade copies. Abandoned buildings. Chances are, many of them will not hold out.
One of the curses of being impoverished seems to be that you forget how to argue your own case, you become submissive and apathetic, even in the face of tyranny. Impoverished Colombians are a peculiar mix of people hissing and spitting like crackpots in an attempt to overthrow their government — followed by a sluggish fearful dithery posture when pondering what they would do if they succeeded.
It is like watching a kind of strangely lackluster raging bull, or someone trying very hard to give an impression of wanting to do something that they do not want to do. A rebel content to fight small battles, hiding in the shadows. People have a glint in their eyes and appear hellbent on periodic challenges to authority, but there is fear.
This is a landscape that spurts with sporadic eruptions of violence but also fits of pleasure. When reality seems to be collapsing under its own weight, when the hardest thing is to remain unafraid, Colombians seek solace from indulgent escapism.
Colombia itself is a kind of pure nostalgic fantasy; strangely decorated cream buns, frilly aprons, rosy cheeks, fits of giggles, all served with warm milk. Colombia is a plump, wobbly, but oddly brittle, dessert.
All of which is a long way round to the real issue. Which is that life is damn hard. Poor people do not help each other at their own peril, but in doing so, they often just make matters worse. The fate of every man’s vegetable patch seems doomed to be thwarted by some calamitous unforeseen event. Different conflicting worlds wiggle in and out of each other. Everybody seems to be stepping over somebody else whilst fumbling for their front door keys.
There is a feeling that nothing lasts for very long, nothing ever really works, so why bother. Everybody has the same toothbrush and the same coloured frying pan. Homes and the people in them, can feel makeshift, beholden to a weird mush of belongings. Shutting out poverty through dreamy escapism has left impoverished Colombians strangely burdened.
Whereupon, it’s easy to point the finger at privileged Colombians, who also fear this interwoven muddle — and who believe they have everything to lose and nothing to gain from tampering with it.
Poor people in Colombia are a sorry burden, a bad card — and recent events have shown that they will be exterminated as such. But, whether or not privileged Colombians should feel themselves responsible for the plight of their impoverished neighbours remains open to fruitless discussion.
Privileged Colombians have built a wall around themselves and around their wealth — and it has choked their sense of normality. Great privilege has not only brought contempt from those who do not have it — it has also been an insidious asphyxiation for those that do.
The cost to pay for this misuse of privilege seems to be a strange kind of stupidity and a stunted view of the world — none of which can be fixed with an expensive education, or expensive trips to Europe.
But, as much as privileged Colombians would benefit by interacting with their own people — this is not to lay blame at their door. As much as privileged Colombians should worry about becoming increasingly isolated — or having their worldview evermore inward-looking — this should not take the focus away from the root of Colombia’s poverty.
And what of the Colombian government? Muddling along, seemingly oblivious to its role in all this. Perhaps, guiltiness frays the nerves and numbs the senses. But, the lines between the government and its people are blurry. The astonishingly, bewilderingly, inexcusably, barbaric behaviour on behalf of the Colombian government is in many ways just a magnification of what is already out there.
If the Colombian government is overrun with people cocooned by an enduring haze of short-sightedness, it is because it simply mirrors and reflects the world around it. If the Colombian government is lying about nearly everything, nearly all the time to nearly everyone, it is because lying is part of the fabric of Colombian culture.
Perhaps, it is not Colombia’s elites or its cowboy government by themselves that threaten to take things into a weird place. It’s not its politics per se. It’s the constant parade of superficial spectacle and pantomime, the preference for theatrics in place of accountability and responsibility, the endless jelly and ice cream, the apathy towards a collective set of moral behaviours, the placing of blame on some higher entity, the hocus pocus “si Dios quiere”, and the predictable “inconvenientes”.
This endlessly clowned-about piece of public telenovela is why Colombia is so captivating — but also so exasperating — and maligned. Colombia is a swirling soundtrack, out of tune in a beautiful way. But, it is also barely under control. It’s okay to be imperfect, often the imperfections are where the magic is, but there is a cost for not following your own conscience.
Colombia needs to make eye contact with this. But, does it really want to? Probably not. Colombia seems so tied to its own wheel of fire, putting out her flames would be a considerable loss of identity. Its demons are inexplicably aligned with its angels — and there is no voice of reason to unravel them. Weird conflict seems to be built into its operating system.
In the meantime, we can speak coherently about human rights and social justice and democracy, and in a way that makes it feel as though this new legitimate energy is now safely integrated into the spectacle. These protests have highlighted glitches that have unsettled the Colombian government. But, whether or not this fleeting moment is now able to create a fundamental shift in the lives of impoverished Colombians, depends on a more profound cultural introspection.
