Liberal law to conservative pragmatism
Contrary to what the above title might imply, this section does not wish to suggest that the plethora of legislature that came to be passed under the Liberal parties extended reign in Colombia (1986-1998) has been sequentially undermined by the Presidents that have followed. Indeed, what we cannot help but notice is that much that has been said about Colombia post-La Violencia makes itself evident when we consider the growth of the palm oil industry in Nariño.
The undeclared civil war that began in Colombia from 1948 following the assassination of the Liberal and populist movement leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, commonly known as La Violencia, imbued the country with a deep-seated trauma that would dog the optimism of the heady sixties. Between 80 000 - 400 000 are estimated to have died in a war where killing became ritualistic to the point of being creative and whose culmination is still being debated to this day14.
The immediate post-Violencia period can be analysed as a moment of stasis in which the political elite instigated the Frente Nacional (1958-1974) – a symbiotic rotating government between the only two legitimate political parties, Liberal and Conservative to prevent any return to the atrocious levels of violence and suppression that had been experienced. Although the conflict was fought with an even larger popular presence than the celebrated Mexican Revolution, it concluded in a return of the conservatism that had always prevailed15.
Colombia did not experience –nor has it ever– a prolonged and effectual social revolution, through which most Latin American countries, and their oppressed, have established a contestatory voice. The Frente Nacional was handed the guise of an outward pacification; instead, it was a strategic gesture of solidarity between the two legitimate plutocratic parties. For the poorest and majority of Colombians this bipartisan amalgamation meant nothing. For others it was political treachery and it also meant the gagging of any viable political alternative as they were made illegal.
Whilst we should not solely attribute the gravity of the current situation to a lack of social revolution or the „deletion of the past‟ carried out by the Frente Nacional, the spirit of these marked shifts in political dynamic are still felt in the country‟s zeitgeist16. According to sociologist William Ospina the Frente Nacional never represented modern Colombia and continued,
Liberal law to conservative pragmatism
Contrary to what the above title might imply, this section does not wish to suggest that the plethora of legislature that came to be passed under the Liberal parties extended reign in Colombia (1986-1998) has been sequentially undermined by the Presidents that have followed. Indeed, what we cannot help but notice is that much that has been said about Colombia post-La Violencia makes itself evident when we consider the growth of the palm oil industry in Nariño.
The undeclared civil war that began in Colombia from 1948 following the assassination of the Liberal and populist movement leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, commonly known as La Violencia, imbued the country with a deep-seated trauma that would dog the optimism of the heady sixties. Between 80 000 - 400 000 are estimated to have died in a war where killing became ritualistic to the point of being creative and whose culmination is still being debated to this day14.
The immediate post-Violencia period can be analysed as a moment of stasis in which the political elite instigated the Frente Nacional (1958-1974) – a symbiotic rotating government between the only two legitimate political parties, Liberal and Conservative to prevent any return to the atrocious levels of violence and suppression that had been experienced. Although the conflict was fought with an even larger popular presence than the celebrated Mexican Revolution, it concluded in a return of the conservatism that had always prevailed15.
Colombia did not experience –nor has it ever– a prolonged and effectual social revolution, through which most Latin American countries, and their oppressed, have established a contestatory voice. The Frente Nacional was handed the guise of an outward pacification; instead, it was a strategic gesture of solidarity between the two legitimate plutocratic parties. For the poorest and majority of Colombians this bipartisan amalgamation meant nothing. For others it was political treachery and it also meant the gagging of any viable political alternative as they were made illegal.
Whilst we should not solely attribute the gravity of the current situation to a lack of social revolution or the „deletion of the past‟ carried out by the Frente Nacional, the spirit of these marked shifts in political dynamic are still felt in the country‟s zeitgeist16. According to sociologist William Ospina the Frente Nacional never represented modern Colombia and continued,
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