One of my Colombian colleagues came up with this today:

Rich Colombians see themselves as English.

Colombian intellectuals see themselves as French.

The Colombian Middle Classes aspire to be American.

And the poor see themselves as Mexican.

Then he added, But I’ve learned to be proud of being Colombian.

I was in Glasgow when six people were killed in a tragic accident in the city centre just before Christmas. I was struck and touched by the outpouring of public support and grief but couldn’t help comparing the Scottish reaction with what happens in Colombia. If the Colombian public were to mobilize itself to empathize wholeheartedly with every incident with multiple victims it would have to do it every day.

Today in Colombia 3 people died in a bus crash, last week 3 soldiers died in a minefield and a mother killed her 3 children and tried to kill herself, in January four children aged 4 to 17 were executed by hit men sent to kill their parents, last year 32 children died in a bus fire.

Finding a way to keep a compassionate heart without being overwhelmed with grief every time there is a tragedy is the great challenge of living here.

I’m reading a fascinating book called Pa’ Que Acabe la Vaina by a Colombian author called William Ospina.

It’s a sort of history and social commentary of Colombia and Ospina is very clear where the blame for Colombia’s fractured reality should lie: with its leaders.

Here’s a quote:

All those efforts to find who is guilty of our plagues avoid the central problem: who pushed the guerrilla into the insurgency, the criminals into crime, the poor into poverty, the mafiosi into trafficking, the paramilitaries into combat, the assassins into their grubby trade, if not a way of governing the country which shuts the doors to all who do not belong to the order of the chosen few.