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In Search for a Colombian Identity
Entry 4 of 28 | show all | print this entry |
Although the United States arguably offers the widest variety of experiences, lifestyles, cultures, etc. there remains a national identity that runs through the veins of every person that lives there, whether they just arrived or came on the Mayflower (Indigenous people offer a provocative alternative). America is known as the land of opportunity and self-improvement; there is the mentality that you can achieve your dreams, it's just a matter of diligence, and to be in America means you have the opportunity to be in the center of culture, technology, and business. The country is a conglomerate of individuals who recognize these types traits and beliefs to be prevalent, and this binds them together in a national constellation. This identity or glue is relevant regardless if it is demonstrably true, and even if it is critiqued or ignored. I for one reject many fundamental aspects of American life, with respects to consumerism, politics, etc. but whether I like it or not, share this common identity and take advantage of my privileged position to pursue my dreams, and in a very American individualistic way as a writer/artist.
The reason I've briefly skirted over this is to seek out what are my initial impressions of Colombian identity. Without explaining explicitly, here are some events and information that may give a clearer view.
Last Thursday, a friend of mine who has a well paying job (she works a hell of a lot) with the Colombian government invited me out to the Hamburgueseria, a bar/restaurant/venue in the northern part of Bogotá. Essentially, the northern part of the city is rich while the north is poor. She had played for me on her Ipod some songs of a group, The Black Cat Bone that was going to play there in a couple of weeks. They performed original blues-rock in English, because according to my friend, blues in Spanish is terrible. Tonight's group was Classic Stone Ensemble (CSE). I invited two friends, Natalia and Fernando, and we traveled from the Candeleria, the colonial, narrow district of Bogotá about 100 blocks north to Usaquén. To my surprise there was a 10,000 peso cover, about 4 bucks, which could be used to buy drinks and food. This may not sound like a lot, but this is simply unaffordable for roughly 80% of the population. I paid for the three of us. Inside, CSE was wailing away at "In The Flesh," by Pink Floyd. There were 5 of them and the singer and lead guitarist replicated Roger Waters and David Gilmour impeccably (though it's clear to a native English speaker, that the singer had an accent) and his words to the crowed were always in Spanish. The place was packed and there was nowhere to sit and my friend hadn't arrived yet. Natalia was a classical music aficionado and disliked rock while Fernando was walking around trying to bum a cigarette. I was terrified that they thought I had dragged them here to show the superiority of American culture. I went to the bar to get Fernando a beer and Natalia a blackberry juice, hoping they wouldn't be walking out the door. When I returned both of them were bobbing their heads to the music. Natalia hugged me and told me that Pink Floyd was one her favorite bands and Fernando smiled in approval. My friend Ana arrived with her Italian co-worker, and she immediately went right in front and rocked out to Comfortably Numb. Everyone was so into CSE that it felt like we could have been at a Pink Floyd concert in Wembley Stadium in London. We eventually sat down and the menu filled with hamburgers and even a vegetarian burger, which I ordered. The band changed gears slightly and jammed out with Queen songs like "I Want It All," "Under Pressure," and "Bohemian Rhapsody.
Fernando is a philosophy student and is busy trying to organize funds so that he is his fellow philosophy students can travel to Germany for a philosophy conference. His library is filled with Kant, Karl Poper, Jurgen Habermas, and John Rawles, and his thesis deals with Colombian politics through the works of Thomas Hobbes.
The following night I went with Natalia to the Bogotá Philharmonic Orchestra. They performed a symphony of the Austrian composer Joseph Bruckner. The conductor was a young French virtuoso and received a standing ovation at the end.
I know a Colombian artist who spent a large chunk of his artistic years in Germany, though he said his Colombian friends became ephemerally wealthy 15 years ago due to Narcotraficantes ability to launder their money by purchasing art. His current work focuses on creating sculptures and memorials that deal with mines, which according to him, Colombia has the most active in the world.
The lower middle class cannot afford such a night at the Hamburgueseria. Instead, something more typical is a party consisting of some family members sitting around in their bedroom and drinking beer and liquor to the point where everything is hilarious and dancing to salsa, reggaeton, and hip-hop becomes an exercise of balance. I feel old and experienced in my life compared to them, who have shined shoes, or carved furniture, and nothing more since they were 8, and maybe have half their teeth left at the age of 45. The truth is 26 for them is old (most that will have kids, will have had them already), but given that I´ve seen a far greater part of the continent and I am only 26, makes me incredibly young. They constantly ask me how to say words in English and want to know how I can bring them to the U.S.
Natalia's father is a musician was selected to compose a song for an event for an organization that helps displaced newcomers to Bogotá learn how to grow food in an urban setting. There is no work for them so either they go hungry or adapt. Colombia has millions of displaced people due to the interaction of violence and poverty. 50 years ago, Bogotá had about 700,000 people, today 8 million, more than New York City and when people arrive, they arrive with nothing, and unlike the New York my Great Grandparents came to, there is no budding industry they can be a part of. As I mentioned in my first blog, even well educated engineers end up of buying and selling cars, or moving to the US to work low wage service jobs.
The wealthy have all spent significant time in the U.S., usually educated there, and some of them are born abroad. From what I can tell, they know Disney World far better than places like Ciudad Bolívar at the south end of Bogotá and most other parts of Colombia. Ironically, the poor have a slightly more comprehensive picture as they come to clean the apartments in north, and don´t have to fear for their body or possessions when they come. My friend got lost in a car once in and ended up in a untouchable neighborhood and someone ripped the sideview mirror off.
Three families own the largest enterprises, though recently Coors bought much of the beer production while a Brazilian businessman owns Avianca, the national airlines founded by Germans more than 80 years ago. A German also was responsible for initiating steamboat transport on the Magdalena, which he imported from the U.S. and demanded 20 years of exclusive rights from the newly independent country. United Fruit Company out of Boston operated as state within a state in the Banana Zone, and the Colombian government massacred striking workers in 1928, as immortalized in One Hundred Years of Solitude. When they left, García Márquez´s hometown of Aracataca became a ghost town.
Colombia's most populous area is separated by three mountain ranges, each of them bigger than any mountains in the continental U.S. The southern and eastern parts of the country are tropical Amazonian rainforests where roads are nonexistent and where the guerillas have been chased into to, due to the billions of dollars of military support that US has given the Colombian government. Just recently, a tribal Amazonian group that has had essentially no contact with the outside world, decided to stake its own place in the monster of civilization. The Colombian Caribbean Coast is its own animal, the center of the tourism that exists in the country, with the colonial fortress city of Cartagena, and Tayrona National Park, which is the coastal region of Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. It is the highest coastal mountain range in the world, whose peaks are glaciated, despite being only several hundred miles from the equator. Gabriel García Márquez grew up Caribbean banana country, where they speak fast, live slow, and where a prostitute took his virginity at the age of 13. His mother's parents did want her to marry his father, because his family was aligned the conservative party, so they took her away into the rigors of the Sierra Nevada for many months, but luckily love prevailed. When he traveled up the Magdalena River and then mountain train to Bogotá to find a high school scholarship, he shivered, cried in desolation, and couldn't sleep due to oxygen deprivation. He wrote, "The first thing that called my attention in the gloomy capital was too many men rushing through the streets, dressed like me, in black suits and hats, and without any women... "
In The General in This Labyrinth by García Márquez, Bolívar's personal assistant/slave Jose Palacios tell him that Bolivar had planted the seeds of independence in the people of Nueva Granada (Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador) so deeply that the people wanted to separate from themselves. Bolívar says not to repeat the words of the enemy, even if they are true. As it was, Nuerva Grenada fractioned into the three countries, and the leaders of them were all hell bent against Bolívar and his ideas of Pan-Americanism, despite the fact that he was the one most responsible for liberating all of them from the Spanish yoke. It would be as though, instead of George Washington becoming president, he would thrown out of the country sick and broke and New England, the MidAtlantic and the South became independent form each other. Of course, Bolívar is celebrated by everyone today, but the two political parties that arose; one from his supporters and the other from his rival's, Santander, have been slaughtering each other since independence, and their combined power have excluded other groups in a way that for a couple of decades, the two parties decided to switch presidents every four years, only allowing voting for that party. It was their attempt to lessen violence.
Colombia´s world famous painter Fernando Botero lives in Europe. My project, not surprisingly combines the lives of the two figures that unite Colombia, García Márquez, and Símon Bolívar. The latter was born in Venezuela, while the latter has essentially been an ex-patriot that last 35 years, living in Europe and Mexico. The Magdalena river is the one geographic feature that has been crucial to the colonization and development of the country, though today, it's relative abandonment due to its destruction and the proliferation of air and road routes, is immediately apparent upon viewing it.
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