Ascention Day in Colombia

Today was a public holiday in Colombia. Today Colombians were taking a day to recognize Ascension Day (which was actually last Thursday). While this may seem like an act of devotion that we in Canada have dispensed with, like many holidays everywhere, the original meaning seems to be lost on many, and it simply becomes a day to take off from work. As a result it was difficult to find people who were willing to meet with a bunch of Canadians rather than take a day off. So we too spent much of the day not in church or touring sites relevant to refugees, but in the town of Zipaquira which a charming town about an hour north of Bogotá. There most of us went to see a Catholic Cathedral and a pathway with the Stations of the Cross carved out of a salt mine.

As I went through the Stations of the Cross and listened to our guide talk about what the sculptors were symbolizing in the crosses that they cut out of the salt walls, I wondered what Colombians (who are overwhelmingly Catholic) thought about suffering. When we got to the twelfth station, the station of the death of Jesus, the guide pointed out that the cross was much more discreet-- almost hidden--compared to the crosses at the other stations. He said that people often found this the most difficult station.

What is the response to suffering? Is it something that we confront, or is it something we avert our eyes from? I know the temptation is to turn from it, but at a certain point it certainly must be confronted. Today I got the sense that the Colombian government is not willing to confront the suffering, or perhaps they confront it with a heavy hand. For example, yesterday Bonnie said that one of the ways that the government has responded to the violence is to put a solider every 50 meters on roads to make them safe to travel. I thought this must certainly be an exaggeration, but today I saw this on our drive from Zipaquira. What a huge waste of resources this seemed to be. What more productive activities could these young men be engaged in rather than standing next to the road in the rain? It boggles the mind.

In other ways the government is clearly not willing to recognize the scope of the problem the country faces. This is especially true in the reporting of the statistics of Internally Displaced Peoples (IDPs). While the government says that there are perhaps two million IDPs in the country. Other groups say that there are perhaps two to three times that many. The government seem to averting their eyes to the suffering of millions of Colombians.

Later, we had a wide ranging session with Nelson Berrio on the social political context of Colombia. I think that his discussion came down to several points. Drug trafficking is the central problem in Colombia and the current (and previous) government’s strategy of a heavy military presence with a huge influx of American military support will never eradicate all of the coca production or bring an end to the guerrillas’ activity. This is backed up by the International Crisis Groups recent report on the drug problem in Latin America. There needs to be a political exit, rather than a military one.

I think for me this year Ascension Day is a day of waiting and hoping for change.