COLOMBIA, A MORE PEACEFUL COUNTRY?

COLOMBIA,  A MORE PEACEFUL COUNTRY? 

Colombia is a worldwide country known for being violent. As the usual situation here in Latin America, we have been struggling with wars with other countries and ourselves since independence. 

Since we became independent from the Spanish Crown, we haven´t had a truly stable government. We don´t know what we want or where do we want to head as a country. I believe that the reason for that, is that since the Spanish came, a whole of different races got mixed, mingled, and mistreated, resulting in  a great deal of resentment. Now, that could have been a factor for our lack of sense of belonging for our land. 

Our identity got lost in time. So many genocides and atrocities happened here more than 200 years ago, so as a consequence, the scars of those nasty events still remain in our collective consciousness, making us feel remorseful with ourselves.

We are such a violent country, that we don't care many times

about our own neighbors. There are drug cartels, organized crime, street crime, governmental crimes called false positives, gangs that draw invisible borders, and all of that happens throughout the country. If we cared more about each other and see ourselves as a family, this wouldn't happen, as it is occurring in Colombia nowadays, not forgetting that a divided country is a lost country, especially when corruption has been enrooted in the highest spheres of our country's government. 

One way I think we should try in order to change that, and therefore make from Colombia a more united and less violent country, is  to change our frame of mind and start thinking about ourselves in a different way. We need to see each other as a family, like other countries do. Not only that, but also take care of it as if it were really our home, because it is our home indeed.


 Yet, we  would act

like if it weren't ours or as if we didn't appreciate it enough. Just how we treat others and foster violence with our attitudes, the same way we treat nature, and that's why we're losing the war on crime, remarking the fact that we do not have an always transparent judicial system. 

We need to go back and look into the history of our country and see what we don't want to repeat, what do we want to see better, and what can be done right now, but we need to do it united and think about ourselves as a country and as a really big family who looks together for strengthening human rights, truth, justice, reparation, and guarantees of non-recurrence, for social justice to become a reality that could lead us into more peaceful targets, so that Colombia would have a more balanced government.

By Natalia Baute, Step 11