Tag: summary

Agency and Protest: Paro Nacional (21N)

Colombia has been going through a lot recently. Honestly, I look around and I think the world is going through a lot right now. And perhaps it always has.

What have the protests in Colombia been about? Anybody who watches international news or claims some awareness of world events (even by glimpsing it via memes or article clickbait) knows that in South America there have been a lot of protests. Chile was the first place I recalled getting a lot of attention. Colombians were soon to follow.

The simple answer to this question is that: they are protesting what people are always protesting in capitalist societies. Education is undervalued and underfunded. Teachers, including university professors, are underpaid or even not paid at all (much less on time) for months. There is a notorious problem in Colombia with the unequal exchange of services for money. Most consumers still seem accustomed to the system upon which the Americas was sadly founded: slavery. They want your labor and the product of it for free, or at least for dirt cheap.

I can’t begin to tell you (although I know it falls into the category of anecdotal evidence, but still) the number of people I know which work in the service industry for scraps – and then their employers don’t pay them a full wage. And it’s almost never paid within the agreed upon time frame.

So yes, economic unrest. Another issue seen in the States as well as here is the cutting of pensions and social security. This has a negative impact on the old and those planning to retire. Although they may have worked hard every day for their entire lives, they are expected to be happy with making a minimum or less wage. Not to mention that minimum wage in Colombia is only 800.000 some pesos – that’s well less than $300 USD – and the economic reform people are protesting called for that amount to be cut by 75%.

Many cities (like Valledupar) are in crisis because of an influx of refugees, a lack of institutions in place to manage them, and the strain this interaction has caused in already fragile border economies. Now the poorest of the working class is forced to compete with desperate refugees who legally cannot be hired, have families to take care of, and therefore are willing to work for the bare minimum of the bare minimum in order to survive.

The effect of this is obvious: whenever a local person demands their pay, the employer cuts them off and replaces them with a desperate refugee, not unlike what has been seen in the Southern region of the states when refugees surge. The cities become more and more poor as Colombians feel more and more resentment towards incoming foreigners. Many are tired of the government’s weak approach to handling labor laws and accommodating (or not) for refugee populations.

Those community leaders who have struggled to give their people a voice are quickly snuffed. Violence (paramilitary and police and otherwise) is rampant, with no acknowledgment of a peace settlement with the radical guerrilleros in sight.

But my question, looking at the situation here, is who wouldn’t be radical? Accepting these conditions is absurd. I watch my friends unable to find jobs when they have degrees in a myriad of subjects – the same thing that is happening in the states right now. I watch degrees postponed due to on-going strikes because teachers aren’t given a decent salary – much less paid on time.

That led to the protesting, which has been on-going since November 21st (21N makes reference to the 21st of November). It was launched in universities, especially, all over the country after minors were killed by the military in a community once dominated by the FARC. Only 2 days after the protests began, a 17 year old was killed in a protest at the hands of the police who were shooting grenades into the crowd. Bogota and other cities became militarized – supposedly for the protection and safety of the people, but the feeling of those protesting was anything but one of safety. The violence had gotten so bad, the disgust with Duque, and the cut to social service packages in the country, that these peaceful strikes were mixed with some intense displays of frustration. I’ve heard and seen some destruction caused in major cities like Bogota and Cali, but rumors claim that the police and paramilitaries are just as likely behind this as individuals that mar the image of the Paro.

A problem the world over is the people on top telling the people that are suffering on the bottom how they should react to their own oppression. What’s the “right” way to protest. For the most part, people have followed the law while standing firm in their rights and convictions. During the weekend following 21N I attended several protests, all peaceful, but equally trembling with outrage at the actions and attitude of the Colombian government and military. Dry laws were set up during the weekend of the initial strikes, assuming that drinking would lead to hooliganism among the protesters. In some cities, curfews were established to keep people in their homes or else face the impunity of the police as they squash the backlash – I mean, maintain order.

I attended a Velaton, an event where everyone lit a candle outside of the city hall, chanting, remembering those social leaders that have fallen defending their rights, a muted cry for justice and an end to Duque’s presidency. Some do not wish for it to end considering him legally and democratically elected, but do assert that more needs to be done to fix the mess of reforms and address the big problems.

Duque himself has been something of a puppeteer in the eyes of the Colombians. Currently he has around a 28% approval rating. He is a young – 43 years old – the youngest president Colombia has had –  and a clear ally of controversial political figures like Alvaro Uribe. Uribe’s regime (to give you an idea) consisted in lots of paramilitary violence and covering up of injustices committed to silence communities disadvantaged under his regime – indigenous, AfroColombian, workers, women, guerrillas – which the rest who protested were defaulted. He’s a “liberal” in the neoliberal sense, and held power officially for 8 years. His legacy continues, and that’s why most do not trust Duque to actually be acting and thinking on his own. Because in spite of all of this, Uribe has a cult following – which mainly falls into two ironic camps: the very poor and the very rich.

Sounding familiar to any US Americans out there? I know to me it does. In many of these post-colonial countries, and even the colonizers, the population is divided into two camps: haves and have-nots, landowners and laborers. Well, Uribe and Duque represent the landowners, and their treatment of people outside of their class has been violent and atrocious, at best. The amount of corruption in institutions like schools and among the police has gone up remarkably.

21N started with a march. Just a marching of all that identify with the movement – the poor, working, and middle class, teachers, professors, Afrocolombianos, indigenous people, elderly, women – and yes, even foreigners like me. I look at these issues and I see world issues reflecting in every story, the same pattern. I know this pattern did not start with the corruption here. If anything, it has a foreign sponsor – the US, lest we forget the US’s own intervention in the 90’s and early 2000’s.

I could write a book, and books have been written (Colombia: The Drug Wars is a great place to start. But suffice it to stay, I stand with the Paro Nacional. I stand with Paros all over the world – Paris was in the middle of one when I went early this month, mainly for the same reasons. It’s a lot of data, and a lot to take in – more complex than this simple summary from my perspective that I have written here. But it matters. And it needs international attention.

Right now, the Paro is rebooting. It’s still standing firm on the same issues, which have not improved or even been addressed as far as anyone can tell. Protesting is a long, harrowing path. One mustn’t wonder why some would rather fight bloody wars to be treated fairly and be able to live in peace. It’s a contradiction, but when the mechanism of power is so strong that even workers all over are unable to cease to work without dying, where even when they stop working, they are ignored (let them die, the attitude seems, fewer to worry about), well, sometimes it’s even led me to ask myself: what more can be done?

The most cathartic part of that paro weekend was the Cacerolazo – a term coined in reference to when Latin Americans take to the streets with pots and pans, banging them in a cacophony of protest (there’s a long history of this in Latin America – I felt pretty tripped out participating in something I’d only read about in Latin American history classes before). We met in Parque Viajero, a haunt in the heart of the city where young people usually gather to smoke and talk. Some usually play dominoes there or share their music or a drink. That night, it was Sunday, and yet the park was full. All because of the Bailaton, or dance off that was proposed as part of the continued strike.

Many cannot afford to stop working. Many do not even have work. So what’s left is causing a small disturbance to remind everyone around them of why people are protesting. Many chanted angrily about the president, about the slaughter of social leaders, about the lies and corruption, as the throng struck their pots and pans in a war-like rhythm. People are tired, tired of not having a voice or agency in their society. Of not having a future. Of not having employable prospects, unless they choose to leave or know the right people. People are tired. Of how unsustainable our situation has become.

And not only in Colombia – the world is feeling the same strain. We must be willing break that which is already broken, to revolt, to create something new, a mix within the mess. And that’s what the people of Colombia who are protesting hope for, trapped in a Sisyphusian cycle of struggle and pushback in order to attain it.

Summarizing a Decade: 2010-2020

I want to open this entry with some food for thought: writing is a spontaneous process, guided and crafted, edited and poked at, but at the end of the day, for me, it is best done as a spontaneous, passion-filled, heat-of-the-moment endeavor. My best writing comes at my best moments. I never really know when those moments will strike. So I will try to write more in the hopes of having more of those “Aha!” moments.

My friend’s mother gave me the best spark to the meager kindling of my inspiration on New Years Eve. We were discussing, as many have, how this 2020 is the beginning of a new decade. How crazy is that! We both were meandering along the paths our lives had taken during this decade, and how with this new one, we were granted more new paths, more new journeys and lessons. In a sudden “aha” moment burst, I told her that 2010 had been for me my first full 10 years as an adult. And what a strange concept being an adult is. But it was true. She looked at me, a long look, the type you know will be followed by something you’d better take note of, and told me I should write it down, reflect on what these 10 years have meant to me, how I have grown, where I have been. And how that might show me well where I can go in the new decade.

And, as you can guess, I am heeding her advice.

Being an adult is no small thing although in the US we make it as simple as having a car and moving out of your parents’ house. In the past, passing from a child to an adult was a huge deal, communal rites of passages established in every culture and religion. We still celebrate many of these landmark moments: graduations, confirmations (if you’re Catholic), marriage (in many cultures, the first time you are made to leave your family home), and more. The age marker shifts depending on these cultures and traditions, just as what it means to be an adult can shift.

How did I know I had been an adult in 2010 for the first time in my life? Well, yes, some of it is obvious. I moved out officially, although I already lived and studied outside of my home from the age of 16. But still, once I graduated from high school and moved to New Orleans for college, it became a ritual to only visit home about twice a year. And it’s been like that ever since. I have not once lived in my house since the summer following my graduation in 2010.

Responsibility is also a common thread. We joke about it when we proclaim we are “adulting” just for getting out of bed, having some caffeine, working most days, cleaning our house, paying bills, etc. Being autonomous beings in a Capitalist society, basically, where our biggest concerns are first HOW and then WHAT we will eat, HOW and WHERE we will sleep, and HOW we will provide for ourselves to shape our present and maybe, just maybe, our future. These are things that as “real” adults we have nobody there chiding us and telling us when to go to bed or how much money to spend or save or even forcing us to go to work. Our choices become autonomously OUR OWN once we are Adults. And now I had this role, well I had for a while, but now bills and jobs were also included in the picture. Of course it became even more “real” once I graduated college, but that can just be added to the list of milestones marking this decade of First-time Adulthood.

When discussing the decade, my friend’s mother (being in a much more advanced stage of life) mentioned that hers was defined by loss. Loved ones and friends passing away, in greater and greater number. I, too, felt this shift during my 2010’s. For the first time, I began to lose people I had cared about and known since I was a child. When I moved to California after graduating from UNO, I was hit by two very large losses: the death of my paternal grandpa and two close elderly neighborhood friends. It was at the middle of the decade, 2015, when I realized that I had made a very tough choice. Even though moving away was the dream I had fed and pursued since I was young, I had no idea how hard it would be to have to hear over the phone or read a message stating that someone that I had loved and felt eternal had passed away. Death really does exist in a paperweight – it is a part of life, one nobody escapes. It is a season, and as seasons go, we will experience our times of abundance and our times of loss.

I was lucky, however, looking beyond those I lost, to experience an abundance of love in the form of new friendships, new journeys, and new opportunities. With time, these experiences brought confidence, something which has not been entirely stable for me by any means, but has completely shifted the way I view myself, others, and generally the world around me.

I lived as a nomad, or so I believed. Almost 5 years in New Orleans. Graduated. On to almost 3 years in California. And now 3 years in Colombia.  Three very different places. Each place has marked me, just as the tattoo I have marks my chest. The symbol is important to me – the heart, guiding and guided by travel. Why did I end up in California? Well, I fell in love while I was studying in New Orleans. Many times I fell in love during my first decade as an adult. Many times I was made to say good bye and let go of people, realizing that perhaps I loved something more than the person, but the concept of a perfect existence in harmony with someone else. In truth, only the universe knows what’s in store, and so I guess I’ll keep wandering, although I’m not anywhere the nomad I like to think I am.

Comfort. Economic stability. Struggles. Transition. All of this marked the second half of the past 10 years. I had moments where I felt perfectly content, and yet still anxious because I wasn’t completely doing things on my own. I still needed help. Being autonomous does not mean you stop relying on others. We all are in this web of interconnection and interdependence from the very beginning – there’s no escaping it. Sometimes I made choices simply out of necessity, living with people because I feared I could not afford to live alone, or taking jobs (or extra jobs) to keep myself afloat. I’ve been lucky to reach a point where I have no imperative to do either – I can finally be a self-sustaining individual. But that comes from years of sacrifice, saving, and biting the bullet when asking for help.

I thought moving away would magically give me a complete detachment from my family and the humble, somewhat embarrassing place I come from. It does not. In fact, becoming a full adult has made it sink in even deeper that we must embrace ourselves for what we are, and that means accepting our roots. It also means making peace with them and the people that brought us up, as flawed and problematic as they may be.

In these ten years, I broke ties with people I thought I loved, and I mended and forged ties I never thought possible with the people that watched me grow. I spent Christmas with my family this year, and I couldn’t help marveling at how at peace I felt being at home with them. I wasn’t running from the reality of things. The illnesses, the financial struggles, the religious tension – it’s all there, but as an adult, I’ve been able to forgive the scars given when I was too young to understand them and fully understand why these things had happened. It was not an overnight process. It wasn’t some lifetime hallmark experience where one holiday we finally all came together and put our differences aside – no. This took years of healing, years of talking and not talking. But in the end, somehow, throughout all of the turbulence that was my 2010’s, I found peace. I was able to let go of all of that bitterness and just forgive and accept the things that had happened.

No small part of that was realizing that I didn’t need to let myself be ruled by those negative feelings. Therapy helped me become stronger during this decade, and I hope it continues to do so whenever I need it. Friendly reminders that we are all humans living on a rock floating in this infinite galaxy just trying to do basic things like survive and be happy – and all of the complications our expectations can put on that and stress us out.

In this decade, I found stoicism and meditation. I found family with new friends in different places. I found commonalities in things that seem oh so very different at first glance. I learned how to listen more and react less.

Most importantly, I am still learning and will continue to learn in 2020. I never intend to stop learning. I think I may have even finally found my calling, or the “Next Phase” in the plan. I always like the feeling of having a plan, something I can coordinate and follow when my internal chaos seems too much.

Yes, I was shattered many times. I suffered in relationships that I chose and chained myself to. I became a victim, the thing I detested most, just to “save” someone else (I guess that would be a martyr, right?). And I realized that true love really does start within oneself, within one’s friendships and the ties that bind beyond romanticism and physical and chemical urges. Love, as a concept, is so much more than anything we give because we feel we must in order to be loved. I began to learn at several points of love’s infiniteness. And I continue to walk that path and realize it’s okay to walk it alone at times, to walk it sure of one’s own steps, without diving in and getting lost in the murky waters of another person’s ego.

I survived this decade as someone who honestly didn’t want to survive sometimes. A person paralyzed by fear, yet willing to travel to another country and try something different. A person believing herself insignificant and flawed, yet willing to make mistakes in order to learn. The 2010’s may have been my rite of passage, my baptism by fire. And the truth is, I am and will always be the same person with a few new ideas and experiences and traumas to carry along with me.

But at the heart of this is growth. Growth and change, not fearing either of them. That is the pride I carry after so many dark and inspiring moments in the 2010’s. I started believing I had nothing to show for myself and my dreams. I have ended it and walked into 2020 knowing I have everything, certain that I will somehow continue to be exactly where I am meant to be.