Colombia has certainly had a lot of problems over the past 40 years, and still suffers from a pretty bad reputation in most of the world. Most of us who live here or have visited recently know how undeserved this is, of course. On the other hand, I’m glad the place isn’t overrun with Americans and Europeans, so that the type of people who come here to visit aren’t the typical “Ugly American” tourists.
I will eventually write some posts about the image problem Colombia has and has had over the years, and some of the political implications. But for now I have to comment on what I’ve observed about how Colombians seem to think about how the rest of the world views them.
Colombians Have Huge National Pride
People here are mostly proud to be Colombian. I think their pride is more evident than pride that US citizens have in their country. At the same time, many, many of them would love to live somewhere else (anywhere else?). Lots of the rich people can do this, and they do so, in droves. The poor people would like to, and they used to be able to find ways out, but that’s not so easy anymore, especially if they’re thinking about trying to live in the US (we only want the rich ones, it seems).
But, the people are still very patriotic. Any Colombian, even ones who seem to have really difficult lives, will list all kinds of things they loves about the country. They talk especially about the natural beauty (even if they’re city dwellers who hardly ever get out of town).
The Low Self-Concept
But Colombians know that lots of folks in the rest of the world are scared of their country. So they’re often surprised when foreigners actually like Colombia. When I was here the first year, everybody was friendly and polite at work, but when they found out I was coming back for another year, the reactions were almost ecstatic. People would say things like, “Wow, you really DO like it here!” They seemed actually surprised when somebody would want to be in Colombia forlonger than necessary.
It also seems like Colombians write off difficulties and problems with an attitude that’s something along the lines of, “Yeah, things never happen right in Colombia.” This happens especially in businesses, when people get treated badly or don’t get the service they pay for or are entitled to. When a utility or the cable company screws a Colombian, they’ll mostly just accept it and say that’s how things work in Colombia. See the entry on the horrible service I and a couple friends got on Copetran buses–a Colombian later apologized for his country and said he knew that, as Americans, we were used to better businesses.
I hope this doesn’t come across sounding like I disapprove of this Colombian attitude, and, like I said, it’s mixed with a strong love of the country and pride in what the country has to offer. But the kind of resignation that a lot of Colombians express I think makes them not really exercise the power that they could have over their own lives and the life of the country if they had sightly more hopeful attitudes, and believed that they could actually accomplish changes.
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