Violence in Colombian culture: very much in fashion

People that mattered: 2008, Time.com

She was held for six years by her captives, the rebels who call themselves the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The 47-year-old Colombian-French citizen had been campaigning for president of Colombia when FARC soldiers took her in 2002. Her imprisonment eventually became a cause célèbre in Europe, and after a Colombian government operation freed her and 14 other hostages in July, Paris rejoiced. Later in the year, Betancourt toured South America to call attention to the plight of the 700-plus hostages that FARC still holds. It remains to be seen whether she can convert her own celebrity into freedom for others held victim to Colombia's dysfunctional politics.

Pablo Escobar refuses to go away

Painting by Fernando Botero of Pablo Escobar.

Fifteen years have passed since Pablo Escobar’s death on the rooftop of a house in Los Pinos, a neighborhood in the west of Medellín. Yet nobody agrees about the true breadth of his legacy - nor about the impact of his image - now mythicized because of a death that is increasingly distant and blurry.

It’s not easy to define a person’s true legacy. Escobar came to be (and in some countries still is) an immediate reference when mentioning Colombia: a reference for terror and violence. How present is that brand in a country that has witnessed successive waves of violence following Escobar’s death? How much has he made a mark on the country’s ethics and esthetics?

To begin with, the name Escobar holds a powerful appeal on people, whether they hate or love him. The artist Fernando Botero expressed in oils the moment in which the mafia capo fell in defeat to his pursuers. On the silver screen, the list of documentary films and dramas revolving around the character or his legend is endless. At the moment, Hollywood is preparing the mega production “Killing Pablo.” Examples of successful television productions include documentaries based on a book by that name, or on Pablo Escobar’s family archives. Books about his life are still coming out. Last year Virginia Vallejo, Escobar’s former lover, generated controversy with her work “Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar,” a well narrated apology of the mafia head.

In addition, one of the greatest successes of Colombian television in recent years (since “Ugly Betty”) has been “El Cartel,” a series based on the confessions of the drug trafficker Andrés López, alias “Florecita.” In this series, Colombians could see, in one way or another, the point of view of drug traffickers following the death of Pablo Escobar. It was also proof that the world of drug trafficking and the stories of people who are born in the gutter but reach the peak of mafia power continue to fascinate the public.

But the ghost of Escobar also lingers in places far from journalism and the dramatization of his life. Some tourists to Medellín, almost all of them foreigners, ask about Escobar’s tomb and visit Montesacro cemetery in the south of the city, where the epitaph “here lies Pablo Escobar Gaviria, a king without a crown” is carved in the marble tombstone – similar to the pilgrimage made by thousands of tourists in Paris to the tomb of Jim Morrison, at the Père Lachaise cemetery.

Some travel agencies in Medellín have started tours that visit emblematic buildings related to Pablo Escobar (buildings such as the Mónaco, and two examples of so-called “thug architecture” or “narco-deco,” the Dallas and the Ovni), the La Catedral prison in the rural area of the neighboring Envigado municipality, where he was confined and from where he escaped; phone stalls in the city center from where, legend goes, he communicated with his family; the house where he was gunned down in Los Pinos, and of course his tomb. During the tour the operator plays music from the group Los Tigres del Norte and Bob Marley as background music, and there are always some who offer a little marijuana. Some tours also offer the option of a three hour trip to Hacienda Nápoles, Escobar’s ranch.

If there ever were an icon of “Pablo Escobar-ness” it would be Hacienda Nápoles in Doradal, a Magdalena Medio town in Antioquia, with an entrance that features the Piper Club plane that delivered Escobar’s first shipment of cocaine to the United States. There, the trafficker built a zoo and had a collection of antique cars that was a must see for those traveling between Bogotá and Medellín by car. When he died, the zoo was abandoned and, according to hearsay, just over a year ago some hippopotamuses escaped as they looked for females in the Magdalena River.

Escobar’s ghost has lived on in the lives of some fishermen in the Cimitarra area of Santander, whose unexpected meetings with hippos resembled experiences of those exploring the Zambezi River in the heart of Africa.

Escobar also endures as an esthetic icon. His image, stripped of its incalculable evil, or perhaps as a challenge to new generations, adorns t-shirts, like Che Guevara. As what happened with the symbol of the best of the Cuban Revolution; those who wear the shirts don’t profess Escobar’s ideology. People wearing Escobar t-shirts in Europe might just as well use a Homer Simpson or Rolling Stones t-shirt, for they lack knowledge of the interminable trail of blood that he left in Colombia.

Another noteworthy factor is to see how, while the real drug traffickers learned lessons from the past and now keep low profiles, wide swaths of society have been infected with the thug culture of ostentation. It is a trend that some see in decline, like the publicist Ángel Beccassino, a student of the meaning of popular images, who says that “that rabid kitsch culture has also come and gone. With the new trend of local drug traffickers to lay low, the exaggerated kitsch aspect is now seen in Mexico’s drug cartels.”

The same thuggish or “narco-deco” architecture has left a profound mark, not only in cities such as Medellin or Cali, both known for drug cartels that bear their names, but also elsewhere in the country.

Escobar has a more profound meaning among residents of Medellín. For the elites, Escobar was a stigma to be erased from the new Medellín of public libraries in parks, the metro and the Metrocable; but among the poor many continue to see him as a paisa (one from Antioquia) version of Robin Hood, who challenged the establishment, made himself rich, but unlike the traditional rich, shared some of his wealth building homes for the poor or mini-soccer fields. What they don’t see is his diabolical side, and his criminal past of placing bombs on commercial airlines or in a shopping center on Mother’s Day. At Escobar’s burial, some 25,000 people came to mourn the death of a Robin Hood who, they think, stole from the rich to give to the poor.

Different authors consider Escobar to be something like the revenge of the dispossessed. In a country where social mobility is almost nonexistent, characters such as Pablo Escobar (or singer Diomedes Díaz, soccer player Tino Asprilla and now pyramid king David Murcia) claim the resentment of those born without anything and condemned to poverty regardless of their merits.

Lastly, there are those who think that Escobar has not died – like those who think Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha, Elvis Presley and Jim Morrison are still alive. But generally speaking, how much do people still retain of Escobar’s presence? Many anthropologists and students of culture believe that Escobar’s image has become watered down in the midst of the country’s whirlpool of characters and problems.

Alive or dead, present or withering, what is certain is that Pablo Escobar, one way or another, will continue to hold his own in a country that suffered the criminal horror of his megalomania. Yet the country must recognize that the great mafia boss was a product “made in Colombia.”

The making of a magician

Bill Clinton and Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Fidel Castro and Gabriel Garcia Marquez

His father was a philandering telegraphist, his mother bore 11 children, and he was left in the care of his eccentric grandparents. Though always prodigiously talented, he was so poor as a young man that he resorted to living in the attic of a whorehouse (apparently a purely economic decision).

And yet, by the age of 40, García Márquez had written a book, One Hundred Years of Solitude, that caught the imagination first of Latin America, and then the world. As Gerald Martin argues in this official biography, it became the "first truly global novel". Nor was it a one-off: a string of critically acclaimed and internationally bestselling books followed. García Márquez became the best-known practitioner of "magical realism", the style with which successive generations of authors have recalibrated the relationship between developing countries and their former colonisers. Martin argues, indeed, that he is the only indisputably great author of the late 20th century. He has won many accolades, including the Nobel Prize, and men of influence - Bill Clinton, Fidel Castro - have sought his friendship and confidence.

Colombian Rocker Juanes Sweeps Latin Grammys

Colombian rock star Juanes was crowned the new king of the Latin Grammys Thursday night, sweeping the five awards for which he was nominated and becoming the new record holder – with 17 to his name overall.

"It really has been an amazing night," Juanes said when his hit, "La Vida ... Es Un Ratico," was named Record of the Year.

Prior to Juanes's new benchmark, Spanish balladeer Alejandro Sanz had won the most Latin Grammys, 14.

Colombia paid money: So what?

During his current visit in Mexico, Colombian president Alvaro Uribe said that the government paid more than 3 million dollars for information about the Farc camp of guerrilla leader Raul Reyes in Ecuador that was bombed by Colombian military on the 1st of March of this year. He said this campaign was part of the rewards program created by the government and insisted on how important this measure has been for the military triumphs in Colombia.

The action in which Reyes was killed lead to a serious rupture in diplomatic relations between Ecuador and Colombia.

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Shakira doesn't lie

Pop superstar SHAKIRA will take her fight for funds to improve children's health and education in Latin America to the continent's leaders at a political summit in El Salvador this week.The Hips Don't Lie singer has her own successful charitable foundation in her native Colombia, Pies Descalzos, to help the nation's poorest children. She also recently launched the organisation Fundacion ALAS (Latin America in Solidarity Action).

But she wants South American heads of state to do more, and will lobby Ibero-American leaders to start a regional project to pump money into the two areas of greatest need.She says, "There are difficult times coming in Latin America. Thousands and thousands of children will die if governments do not organise ways to distribute food during this crisis."I grew up in the developing world and I have witnessed the lack of opportunities that children have to live with. In a country like mine, when a child is born poor, people die poor. But I'm fascinated by the fact that through education you can transform lives, you can end this cycle of poverty."

And Shakira has vowed to continue in her charity efforts for as long as possible.She adds, "My heart is committed to this cause and it has been there for a long time, since I was 18. I like to think that I can use my public profile to bring attention to more important issues than my own."