Colombia in crisis: The result of its cultural values
Sympathy, the word that has been in the mouth of all Colombians these last few days. Privilege, the condition that makes someone blind to the suffering of others since it has its world unaltered. These are the two words that I most see in social media nowadays and the sentence with these two words is the following:
“Do not let privilege blinds your sympathy.”
https://www.pulzo.com/nacion/carteles-paro-nacional-21-noviembre-PP803351
Sympathy with those who have been injured, suffered,
or killed during the riots and protests these 2 last weeks in Colombia. For
those who are knew to the problem, let´s recap shall we?
3 weeks ago, the government announced that a
new tax reform was about to be released in a few days. A tax reform that is necessary
since, the government has done a lot of spending in trying to soften the shock
of the crisis and buying essential medical stuff to attend to the sanitary and
health crisis. According to IMF, Colombia spent 4,1% of its GDP in measures to
mitigate the crisis. Based on this, the government needs money to keep providing
these services and to fill the fiscal gap.
Getting a bit of economics here, there are
three main ways for the government to finance its spending. Number one is through
debt. Asking for international organization such as IMF or World Bank credits.
Nowadays, the debt of Colombia reaches the 51,8% of GDP (Forbes staff, 2021). Seeing
this, not a good option for Colombia. The next one is that the Central Bank issue
money to finance public spending directly; the thing here is that it will rise
the inflation rate and it will not be accepted. Finally, and the most
controversial one, we have taxes! The target of this (as its name says) tax
reform.
Well, this was not well received by the citizens.
First, the exemption to some goods before “IVA” (VAT) will no longer be
available. The repercussion of this is that the price of the products would increase
and for those who are more sensitive to a change in the price would suffer the
consequences, among these are: lower and middle class. Then, we will have the
expansion of the range on those who need to pay taxes for their income. Now
people who receive an income of $2,5 million COP must pay income tax; who will
be the main affected? Middle class (Kalmanovitz, 2021). In addition, inputs for
food products were also target of taxation, making products to increase, once
again, its final prices. How do this reform touch upper class? Only with some
increase on taxation to dividends received, from 10% to 15% and other types of
taxes to wages. The problem is that almost 90% of total income of upper class
come from dividends or rent, in other words, non-wage income. Upper class,
safe! Middle class, meh, they can keep working hard. This reform promised to be
progressive, but the strike to consumption to lower and middle class, resulted
not to be so silent. This was the straw that broke the camel´s back.
It is unfair! You are going to get us broke! If
the citizens go out in the mid of a virus crisis it is because the government
is way worst than the virus itself! The country situation is that bad that I
even protest next to my ex!
https://www.pulzo.com/nacion/carteles-paro-nacional-21-noviembre-PP803351
This kind of sentences were written in the pacific protests. The first ones
were good, were not so violent to the point of getting killed. Then, it all
started, police brutality, breaches in private property, damage to public and private
goods, women getting violated, people getting killed by police officers and
police officers getting killed by people. Here two sides were set up,
police-government vs. people-citizens. Protests now became a warzone, a no mans
land, where everything was apparently permitted. A field where people with bad
intentions took advantage of hate and exploited it. There have been even days
where people could not go outside their houses at night because they might get
killed on sight. Social media was now flooded of videos of people dying, fights,
people getting shot, screams, pain, suffering. Common feelings that were common
when seeing our cellphones. Now everything was polarized and over informed. The
national news, full of distorted information, trying to cover and ease the
titles and social media full of half-truth, explicit content, and messages full
of hate, fostering to hate more the system and to those who think different from
popular opinion. Social media wanted you to agree with them, and eventually,
everyone was with them. Every single story was at least, with one phrase
related to hate fostering. It was exhausting, worrying. Anxiety, uncertainty, and
worry have been the feelings in the spotlight nowadays.
For me, as a student, was overwhelming. Where I
live, nothing has changed, everything keeps the same. In the restaurant of my
family, sales have been decreased since employees are not sent to their offices
to avoid any type of risk. Apparently, I should not be affected by it. But
social media, social media! The one that has kept me informed of everything. It
wanted me to take position in this crisis, black or white. But I chose a
different one. Which one? That there are shades, there is also grey accompanied
with being cool and see everything critically. To criticize every single piece
of information, search for the sources, the context. It has been hard since most
of the information is without source. The only thing that should be done is:
1) To
spread words of hope, words that encourage people not to hate the state or police
officers, but to know their perspective and see their good and bad actions as
same as the protestants good and bad actions.
2)
Measure
all the parties involve with the same rule. Try to search more about the
context of each situation, see the background, understand but not justify. Try
to see that everyone is good and bad. Try to see that there are shades and not
only two basic colors. As there are good policemen there are bad people who
wants to create chaos.
3) As
I mentioned before, criticize every single piece of information, and manage
over information. Saturation of content is huge. It is good to be informed but
not in excess. Keep your head cool when reading a piece of news, a story of a
friend, videos of what is happening in the streets.
4)
To
speak with your support network. Talk about what is happening, express yourself,
how are you feeling; if you do not want to talk about it, say it too! Entertain
yourself with other things. Very important to take in mind when interacting: Be
open to new ideas, opinions, and positions. Not everyone (must) thinks the same
as you. A solution might come out easier from a conversation of two people that
think different but WANT to dialogue, that from a conversation from two people
that just think the same.
5)
Going
along with the previous idea… TOLERANCE, TOLERANCE, TOLERANCE.
More than ever, tolerance now is the key for
the resolution of this crisis, because now politics is starting to get into the
field. Now the most seen words are Uribistas, Petristas, izquierdistas and more
dissociative words. Some political positions have taken advantage of the
situation, being pro-citizens just get got more votes for next elections. Just
like scavengers.
https://www.transparency.org/en/what-is-corruption
Until now, we have seen that everything started because of the tax reform. What else was behind all of this? The coming health reform, work reform, and the queen of queens, corruption. People is tired that Colombian government uses the tax collection for things that should not be in the priority list. As we all know, corruption is a malady present in all countries of the world, where the government, as they manage a lot of money, tend to fulfill individual interests than social interests. However, this is also a problem in private organizations, and multinational organizations. Therefore, is corruption and egoism inherent from human being? We can discuss philosophy later. In developing countries, corruption is a common pattern. As I expressed before Colombia is not the exception.
In Colombia, everyone hates government corruption. If one is born in Colombia, you will hear your entire life that government is corrupt, they steal money, buys mansions, big trucks, luxury cars, travel to Miami and make a life there, get their money in tax heavens, among other things. Colombian people have a high degree of hypocrisy. How are we protesting corruption if we see social corruption acceptable? We do foster corruption in so many ways, as a society, we love corruption. There would not be Colombia without social admissible corruption. Not a single person practices corruption and sees it wrong. When kids, the one who stole things from others without being noticed was classified as “Mero teso” (Highly skilled person). As we grow, if the cashier of a tiendita gives us more change, yay! Your lucky day to keep buying more stuff. The one who tricks another to take advantage of him in a social or academic context is “el vivo/ el chiras de aguadas” (more words to emphasize more on how skilled a person is). We all have tried to be that person. In the academic sphere, is even normal that people pay for a test to be done, to external teachers. It is normal as well, in the context we live nowadays, that take out your notes to solve an exam is normal. The teacher will not notice. How can he know if I have my camera and microphone off? When exams are supposed to evaluate the skills and knowledge of a specific topic (in most cases taking notes out is not permitted).
If in something as simple as to have a desired grade, or do not give the extra change back, how can we as society demand a straight and transparent management of fiscal finances if we do not do it either in our daily lives!? Corruption will carry on and be present in all the future generations until parents do not teach children that the best thing to be in life is “el vivo”. We must teach about ethics and morality, something that seems to be rotten in the Colombian society. A behavior that has come in all the history. Was Hobbes, right? Are we humans not able of self-regulation? This means need a Leviathan to control us all and not getting killed among each other? Does the church have to raise us once again in the fear of God, because If not he will punish us? Do we have to be always overwatched to do the right thing? No. Everything starts at home, and if one home at a time follows the same values and ethics, Colombia will finally be a better country. When I said no one, is literally no one, that got saved here. We are all guilty. We are guilty of us getting killed. Colombia has permitted its actual crisis, it is worng to blame the government entirely. Yes, because we have fostered this behavior all our lives, we have even celebrated.
Thanks for getting along all over my post, and
keep in mind to be the change you want to see in the world, a very cliché phrase,
that is truer than ever to ameliorate this situation.
Sources:
Kalmanovitz, S. (2021). Reforma Fatal. Retrieved from: https://www.elespectador.com/opinion/reforma-fatal/
Pardo, D. (2021). Reforma tributaria: por qué la eocnomía de Colombia es tan conservadora. Retreived from: https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-56795320
Forbes. (2021). Deuda externa de Colombia sigue creciendo: llegó a US$156.834 millones. Retrieved from: https://forbes.co/2021/04/12/economia-y-finanzas/deuda-externa-de-colombia-sigue-creciendo-llego-a-us156-834-millones/
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