El Dorado

These days there is a controversy in Colombia concerning the name of the main airport of the country. In fact, the controversy arose because of a recent law which decrees that the airport of Bogotá should be called Luis Carlos Galán, in detriment of its current name: El Dorado. So you might wonder, what's with these names?

Let's begin by commenting on El Dorado. The associated wikipedia entry explains it reasonably well:

El Dorado (Spanish for "the golden one") is the name of a Muisca tribal chief who covered himself with gold dust and, as an initiation rite, dived into the lake Guatavita (near present day Bogota, Colombia). Later it became the name of a legendary "Lost City of Gold" that has fascinated - and so far eluded - explorers since the days of the Spanish Conquistadors. Imagined as a place, El Dorado became a kingdom, an empire, the city of this legendary golden king.

Hence, calling the main airport of the country El Dorado represents a way of remembering the Muiscas, one of the most remarkable native cultures that populated what nowadays is known as Colombia. (Notice that rather than having a huge, well-known native cultue ---such as the Aztecs in Mexico, or the Incas in Peru--- Colombia was populated by several smaller cultures. The Muiscas were one of them.) In fact, El Dorado feels like a connection to a glorious, prosperous past, a past that many Colombians ignore, do not completely appreciate, or simply despise. From this perspective, changing the name of the airport would mean losing one of our last connections to a significant part of our history.

But then you may ask, who was Luis Carlos Galán? Galán was a politician who was killed by the mafia in 1989 because of his strong positions against drug lords ---and the politicians representing them in the parliament. (Back then, mafia intended to take over the government through corrupt politicians. In fact, it is well known that it was a rival politician who convinced drug lord Pablo Escobar to order Galán's assassination.) Galán's death not only was a terrible crime in itself: it represented the death of the hope of a whole country who trusted him to clean up politics and shape a better future. As a vague analogy, back in 1989, Galán was able to convey the same hope and optimism as Obama did in the US. Everyone knew that Galán had enough popular support so as to be elected president in 1990. The drug lords knew that a "political infiltration" into a Galán government would not be possible, as he was too decent to allow that. So he was murdered on a Friday night, during a public act near Bogotá; I still remember the collective sadness of the following Saturday. I think it was the first crime I was able to understand---I was 6 back then.

Luis Carlos Galán (1943 - 1989)

[A digression here is in order: The 80s-early 90s were particularly tragic in Colombia's history. Galán was yet another one in the list of promising people killed by the so-called fuerzas oscuras (dark forces), that is, mafia often in collaboration with extreme right organizations. A whole generation of decent, bright Colombians was literally wiped out by the mafia during the 80s: judges, attorneys, police officers, ministers, left-wing leaders, journalists, presidential candidates such as Galán. Their crime was to denounce the truth about the danger of mafias, and/or to fight against their power and their role in the society.]

So we are talking about two very meaningful names in the Colombian culture. One represents our ancestral origins, a mystic link to our past and history. The second name represents the hope that couldn't be and most likely will never be. El Dorado is now such a traditional name for the airport, that changing it sounds so strange to me. I am of the opinion of leaving the name of the airport untouched; of course this doesn't mean that the ideals of Galán should ever die. Perhaps better than naming the airport after Galán, a more useful thing would be bringing his murderers into justice.