Also a Saturday, 28 years ago

Today could be considered the first day of summer vacation. Bologna has been in "summer mode" for some days already: the streets are considerably emptier, the lessons and exams are evidently finished for now so there are no students around, and many business have closed. In spite of the unbearable humid weather, I find this a very enjoyable atmosphere of relax. Many have already escaped from Bologna or, as in my case, are close to do it.

This atmosphere is, unfortunately, very convenient to forget that the worst terrorist attack in the recent Italian history took place in Bologna, exactly 28 years ago. I kind of knew about the Bologna massacre (strage di Bologna, the "official" name given to the attack) but only now I cared to read a bit more about the issue. It is very difficult to me to assimilate that the Bologna train station ---a place that for me only evokes happy, positive memories-- was destroyed by a terrorist attack that took the life of 85 persons and wounded more than 200.

It is weird, but somehow I feel "attacked" only to read about the subject. (Yes, perhaps I have learned to love Bologna.) The thing is that I have been so many times in the very same waiting room in which the bomb exploded. I can easily imagine the people, waiting for their train at 10:25 am. For them, what it was supposed to be the beginning of a promising summer ended up being the end of their lives. Not only people in the waiting room died; also people in the train that was waiting in the platform next to the room suffered the explosion. Indeed, the west wing of the station collapsed, and a substantial part of it fell over the train. The blast was heard for miles.

One remarkable aspect here is that Bologna people has managed to keep the awareness about this tragic event. I am extremely glad that occurs, as civil awareness for such a long period is something that doesn't exist in a tragic country as Colombia. You can see it in the station: apart from the usual commemorating stones, the hole the explosion left in the waiting room, and a clock signaling the time of the attack, are preserved. I understand that several civil manifestations will take place in Piazza Maggiore. Besides, civil organizations created after the attack were crucial to demand objective investigations of the responsibles for the attack,

Even if I am tempted to comment on the politics behind the attack, I prefer not to do so as those are pieces of history that I know only very superficially. Perhaps when I have read more about the violence and political tensions of the time I will write about them. For now, I will only say that it was determined that the attacks were planned and executed by neo-fascist movements, and that the two main responsibles (a young couple) are serving life imprisonments.

Independence Day

Today Colombia celebrates the first of the two annual festivities related to its Independence Day. This year the celebrations include yet another massive manifestation against FARC and kidnapping. This was done in each Colombian municipality as well as in a number of major cities in the world. I find this remarkable as the fragile unity of Colombian society was demonstrated around the world. Even if I could have joined the celebration in Milano, work and money reasons prevented me to do so, even if the idea of tasting Colombian food was very tempting ;-) Instead of travelling four hours in train and spending some money, I decided to celebrate this day by doing a small contribution in tracing back the origins of the fragility of Colombian society. Indeed, in this post I will give you a super summarized account of Colombian history.

As I mentioned before, to discuss the independence of what now is known as Colombia it is indispensable to mention two dates in history: the 20th of July 1810 and the 7th of August 1819. Let me start with the first one. As you might know, the Spanish empire had ruled America after 1492. Around 1810, the political instability in Spain, and of a number of social, economic and political factors in America were the trigger to a number of separatist movements. Back then, what we now today as Colombia was only a part of "The New Granada", a huge country that --more or less-- compressed today's Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia and Panama. The already mentioned problems in Spain made an Independence declaration rather easy and peaceful. This took place the 20th of July 1810 in SantaFe (what is known today as Bogota).

After this declaration, the perspectives were everything but clear. The society of the time was divided between people loyal to the Spanish crown and people wishing to cut every link with Spain. The second group prevailed, but then a new division arose, this time concerning the structure of the new government (federal vs. central). This caused a civil war, after which a guy called Simon Bolivar entered into the game. He had commanded the separatist movement in Venezuela in a rather short war. He then went to Santa Fe to try to organize the mess there was there.

Shortly after, there's a new king in Spain who orders to conquer again all the territories in which Spanish troops had been defeated. The mission sent by the king (leaded by a guy called Pablo Morillo) put some order and returned things as they were in 1810; this was around 1816 (more or less). The leaders of the separatist movements and armies were executed. This wasn't the case for Bolivar who escaped to Jamaica. It took little time for new separatist armies to reorganize; key in this process were Francisco de Paula Santander in Colombia and Jose Antonio Paez in Venezuela. Bolivar managed to return in 1817, assuming the leadership of the armies. Together with Santander, Bolivar fought against the last Spanish troops in a very famous battle, the Battle of Boyacá. This battle took place the 7th of August 1819, and consolidated the rather weak independence an incipient group of people had achieved back in 1810. The freed country was then called "The Great Colombia."

As you may imagine, both dates are important and meaningful. Unfortunately, few people in Colombia understand the history and politics behind them. Colombia's independence was a long, hard process that had to overcome external and internal disputes, in which political and military actions were crucial for the final outcome. In case you are wondering what happened after the 7th of August, here's a mini story. Yet another division took place on how to order the free countries. Now the sources of division were Santander and Bolivar, and they formed their respective political factions. The Great Colombia itself was very fragile and the leaders of the army in Ecuador and Venezuela started a division process to the countries we know nowadays. Several other interesting events occurred in Colombia, including: yet another war, the independence of Panama (technically Colombia sold it to the US in 1902), and the political violence that arose after that (around 1930-1960), and that in the last 30 years has evolved into the war against drugs Colombia still suffers today.

Colombia has only seen very short periods of peace. In this sense, we are independent in theory, but in practice this is not quite true. On the one hand, the myriad of cultures and social groups in Colombia have made difficult a real independence from ourselves. On the other hand, today we have a strong dependency on the current empire (USA , that stimulates our war), and --oddly enough-- also a rather implicit dependency on the old empire (Spain, that owns pretty much the whole financial and media systems in Colombia.)

To conclude, the recent euphoria of the "almost won" war against FARC should not confuse us: there are a lot of divisions and inequalities in Colombian society. They come pretty much since the very moment in which we started to exist as a country. I think it's a good idea to keep in mind our past to understand the lame present and to be prepared for a (hopefully not) also sad future.