Wednesday, 9. April 2008, 17:25:15
Stories, Politics, Trips, Colombia
Image: A comic strip from the fifties depicting a funny right-wing version of the murder of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán and the chaos that followed, where all was a comunist plot designed carefully in Moscow. Stolen from the image collection of
Juglar del Zipa, a Colombian blogger.
I knew that there was something, besides the deadline to pay the rent, to be remembered about today. Sixty years ago, a charismatic Colombian candidate to the presidency was murdered in very strange circumstances, and the reaction that followed changed the face of Bogotá, the Colombian main city, and even of the country, forever.
I am not going to bore you to death with my political interpretation of this riot, but play a little with the idea of the generalised riot itself. (for that, the best thing would be to have
a look at the web)
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Wednesday, 7. February 2007, 16:23:59
Stories, Politics, Colombia
Some Latin Americans are very comfortable with the fame of latin america as an exotic place, and, in particular, some Colombians are very much so about the popular idea of the
magical realism as a particularily colombian feature. To be honest, I am not. Gabriel García-Márquez did mean a lot to me once, but he was relegated to a second line by other writers I discovered later.
But, however, some things about latin america are certainly pintoresque. And I am going to talk about one of them.
Some weeks ago, on sunday 29th of January, there was a mass in the primary cathedral of Bogotá, on behalf of the health of commander
Fidel Castro, leader of the cuban nation, confessed atheist and beligerant defensor of the communist ideas (or let us say, a certain version of them). Given the fact that the colombian church is mainly conservative (very conservative, indeed) and the
cathedral is such an important Catholic venue (I guess, even thought I do not know a lot about the Catholic scene) I found the fact rather intriguing.
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