This is a very subjective review on the documentary El Bogotazo: la historia de una ilusión ("El Bogotazo, the history of an illusion"), which premiered Wednesday night on Colombia’s Caracol TV and History Channel Latin America. You can watch some excerpts of the documentary at El Espectador’s multimedia special on Gaitán’s murder 60th anniversary by clicking on "Videos"

I think Natalia París is a smarter, more settled down woman than the cliché may suggest. She’s our local, postmodern Jane Mansfield, so it does not fit with her role if she answers correctly questions as what’s the error on truncating a Maclaurin series in the nth term? That is why is also naïve to expect that a Caracol TV, a broadcasting network, production in association with The History Channel comes full of accuracies or wise lectures, or at least made up coherently. That would be like getting blood out of a mountain. But for purely aesthetic reasons, I allow myself to question last night’s blunder.

[continued…]

Este artículo está disponible en ESPAÑOL

An engraving in a COP$1,000 banknote with Jorge Eliécer Gaitán’s image

Colombia is one of the world’s most violent countries, and has paid a burdensome price in dead, orphanhood, widowhood, pain, and human misery. Amidst this turmoil of blood, some extraordinary events manage to break sometimes the usual collective silence of a people increasingly used to protest in private.

On 9 April 1948, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán’s murder, and the violence this crime unleashed, divided Colombian history. The disappearance of the caudillo, who at the time represented the vindication of popular wishes, increased even more the gap between rich and poor people, leaving on the latter an indelible mark of political dissatisfaction, frustration and impotence, reflected in modern times through electoral abstention.

Damages, fires, and looting resulting from the so-called Bogotazo, which were about to destroy Colombia’s capital city, were the physical manifestation of the rage in the heart of a flushed people. The life of the one who preached peace and social justice, the one who had lead the Silent March, was brutally and inexplicably cut by criminal shots, an event which became the start of an endless series of assassinations, political attempts, massacres, attacks and disappearances of people, many of them unresolved until today. Violence spawns violence.

Sixty years later, 4 February 2008, another event which, without exaggeration, could also divide the history of Colombian civil society, happened. The 4-F would be something like an awakening. Massively and worldwide, we Colombians went out to the streets to express our contempt to the historical violence, embodied in a good way in the surge, development, and deviation of the guerrilla movement self-denominated FARC-EP, an initial product from the social differences and the intolerant Colombian idiosyncrasy.

[continued…]

Colombian legendary actor Edgardo Román, impersonating Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, as he did in the 1980’s TV miniseries Gaitán, during the commemorative acts in Bogotá. Mr Román’s resemblance with Mr Gaitán is striking (Photo courtesy: © Víctor Solano / Flickr)

Most Colombians believe that if charismatic Colombian Liberal Party leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán had not been shot on 9 April 1948, at 13:05, in front of the Agustín Nieto building, where his lawyer’s office was located (today the Bank of the Republic building), he would have become President of Colombia in 1950, and maybe the fate of this troubled South American country would have been quite different.

The local blogosphere also remembered this important day. Left-wing political blog Colombia Hoy [es] says:

The truly important thing on the 9 April 1948 is the events which unleash since that moment. And, furthermore, the implications that event has over our current life. To say it briefly: Gaitán was the closest chance the outcasts have had to take to the Presidency a person who genuinely represent their interests. (…) He was, in any case, a figure uncomfortable for the traditional political elites and, undoubtedly, for the plans of continental political order. (…) The political message vindicating the interests of the marginalized people is still valid in a country where around half of its population lives below the poverty line and where one of the worst indicators of wealth distribution in the world is found. Since 1948 we have not had a president outside the Liberal-Conservative (parties) model, who represents interest outside the ones of the traditional elites associated to the transnational capital or, more recently, the mafia.

As most Colombians know, Gaitán’s murder unleashed several riots that day and during the weekend, known as the Bogotazo. Miguel Carrillo, from Populachero [es] questions the way some people mark this "revolution":

What is the myth of El Bogotazo? Are we really "celebrating" the destruction of a entire city? Since the year dot we are told that on 9 April the violence which wears us down started. It’s so comfortable. I refuse to believe there is still a single Colombian who buys that story (…) A lot of people will say that remembering El Bogotazo and boasting it is a way to remember that our deep social issues who existed at the time haven’t been solved yet. I say it’s exactly the opposite, because saying "that was since the Bogotazo" is a way to cut the painful, necessary discussion about what the hell went wrong in this country.

Lines before Populachero wonders why there are not T-shirts carrying Gaitán’s image as there are all kinds of memorabilia with Ernesto Che Guevara’s face.

American Blaine Sheldon at Ojo gringo remarks Semana magazine website’s multimedia special on El Bogotazo, and leaves his two cents:

This anniversary comes as a timely reminder that these tensions still carry overtones that echo deeply in contemporary Colombian society. The dichotomies of class and political orientation remain today just as real sixty years in passing. Even so, the history plays out as much in its epic nature as its conspiracy. To this day it is not known whether the would-be assassin, Juan Roa Sierra, actually perpetrated the incident, or whether he was merely a scapegoat beaten to his death by those thirsty for vengeance.

Every crisis charges a pariah, but perhaps as evidence enough today in Colombia, this zeal often perpetuates tomorrow’s conflict.

Personally, I recommend weekly newspaper El Espectador’s website multimedia special, featuring articles, audios, pictures, context information, and video excerpts from a Caracol TV / The History Channel co-production which premiered Wednesday night.

One of the pages of 1949 graphical novel La gran mancha roja, which provides the Conservative Party’s view on El Bogotazo. Mr Gaitán is shown at the first and the third frames.

At Juglar del Zipa [es], Miguel Olaya shares with us La gran mancha roja ("The big red stain"), a 1949 graphical novel, presumably written by "a militant of the Conservative Party who mantains that Gaitán’s murder was result of a communist conspiracy against the Pan-American Conference [which was being held at Bogotá at the time of the crime and ended with the creation of the Organisation of American States] and, of course, the institutions of the Republic and the party", which was ruling the country at the time, with art by R. Scandoglio.

A small crowd gathers around a flower arrangement with the image of political leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, murdered on 9 April 1948, during the commemorative acts in the 60th anniversary of the crime (Photo courtesy: © Víctor Solano / Flickr)

Finally, journalist and blogger Víctor Solano [es] attended the commemorative acts held downtown Bogotá on Wednesday, taking pictures, videos, and sharing with out his impressions of what happened:

Today, several of the supporters of the Colombian caudillo raised their fists to cheer and emulate the grandiloquent and, of course, demagogic tone of the top natural chief of the ‘red cloth’ in the 1950s (sic) […] I remained there another 20 minutes, so I had a chance to see a performance by some college students, where they represented Gaitán and his Silent March, before the disconcerted look of the peasants. (…) When I was leaving the place, after having completed 40 minutes there (…) I could see Edgardo Román, one of those theatre actors who seem have not being "formed" but  "forged" on the rudest of the fires.