Third round of the podcast with Alejandro Gaviria and Ricardo Silva Romero, a podcast
from the locutorio arroba the speakerio of that The President seems to be on another
topic. He goes through it every once in a while, but I dare
say he hasn' t read his development plan and he talks about grassland sometimes
agrarian reform and the end of the world. They' re like his three
main themes. With that ideology that revolves around this kind of identity, capitalism
equal death, yes, and the legislative agenda is in social security and there
is no unity. And sometimes he said a while ago reform is change.
But no longer Hello Ricardo, hello Alejandro, we meet again live and live
back after a week or several days, almost two weeks agitated. Yeah,
we had this way and that way. I was thinking that when we do
third lap with message exchange they tend to be a little more literary or spiritual.
If it is one in another way, not in that plane mode,
and now we can practice the presentism speak of that perf our country. There
was over there a narrative essay genre with several compilations in Colombia noventero, with
the title at which time Colombia was screwed. Yes, yes, yes,
repeated, they have repeated it in several countries. Out of conversation in the
house it was Barbalos' you think Colombia is screwed or not. So much.
I don' t like failure very much. Yes, and even a
lot to go to Catastrophism. Neither do I, but I do have like
this idea that the country is spinning about the same thing as it is not
moving forward and the promise of change is staying at that. Yes, I,
too, have that sense of betrayal of a cause, of fraud,
of a cause and I have been, in these weeks writing variations of that
idea, which is the feeling of having grown up even in a family that
expected the arrival of those causes. I don' t know, my grandfather
uncle, everyone was progressive and I was waiting for the moment when social justice
would come. The family and my family full of friends from the left who
counted tortures in the northern canton and good people from the 19th century, who
were very close to the house. Or it' s very close to the
house. And all the time I am thinking of such a struggle, for
more than forty years to swindle that cause. And I' m impressed by
the people of that cause who let so many betrayals and so many scrappings and
so much improvisation go by, so ineptitude for fear of falling off the shelf,
for fear that you have to criticize and say this is not done or
there they are stealing or these people they named is terrible for fear that saying
that would mean a problem for the left or for progressive causes. So that
silence in the face of disaster is understandable, let us say humanely, but
it seems to me that this is precisely the time to denounce it. The
mess. The word you say is very hard. Scam, yeah, I
do, I' m sorry, and you used a word in your last
column, also very hard, with which it starts. The column reconstitutes between
the t of the column, but the column begins with the word fraud.
Yes, and I understand the psychology Ricardo writes once I called her the difficult
task of apologizing illusions. Yes, exactly and I' ve seen even one
interview here aya asking a person who also grew up with the illusion of these
causes and says I' m disappointed by this, these hours, this and
they ask him, I' ll vote for petro and you say yes.
Yeah. I mean, it' s the idea of not giving up that
illusion of change, but it' s hard to keep it. I filmed
a video over there. In November of the year two thousand twenty- one
was pre- presidential candidate who kept it to me several times a week and
had this idea of himself what was going to happen in the government and did
have like this idea of what could happen. I can describe what Petro'
s government is going to be like. He wants me to explain. In
the first year, he appoints a good cabinet of national unity. He doesn
' t make it together. Six or eight months go by. If it
doesn' t happen much, the government is broken up and Petro starts tugging
like crazy. And basically it' s that conflict that creates permanently and the
country' s agenda revolves around Peto' s twitter and nothing is done.
It' s a bit. I recently said that I was more afraid of
inaction than action in a Petro government. Yeah, and it was similar to
what I had seen with trumpo when I said Petro starts tweeting like crazy,
though, tweeting like crazy. What had happened to Trump during the pandemic does
nothing and the country revolves around the petro trills and I think that has been
happening. Here is an issue that has changed, a debate, that puts
an agenda jumping from one side to the other. Meanwhile, the noun almost
abandoned. And that' s what you call fraud or staffa, which is
difficult. There is no discipline of public policies, there is no method that
was I will say clearly already without fear what I found in the government also
yes. There is no performance. No, and there is a divorce between
a chasm, I could put it that way, between what is said and
what happens, that it is five for any government. It' s hard.
Without a doubt, there is a benefit that brings those causes to the
power that is a benefit. I do not know symbolically, that there is
political recognition of certain groups that did not, that the discourse of peace is
repeated. It is important that there be marches without people, that they lose
their eyes, that there be one more public force on the side of the
population. There are benefits that remain for the Government and that would justify re
- voting for the cause rather than for the candidate. And yet that impossibility
of carrying out is exasperating. That' s what that tendency to let go
and let go of ideas that never land and will never land. Besides,
that' s just one of those. They' re already feeling like they
' re ripping me off. This is a fraud you don' t have,
which is a meaning of words is you' re cheating on me.
I was fooled, I was told that this was going to be serious and
that a political agreement would work, for example, to bring forward what is
called social justice. But there are no agreements and no one to execute them.
And it is absolutely dramatic to see mediocrity and ineptitude. It' s
almost in those terms as serious as there' s no talent for this.
These people don' t know how to do this. I would say Ricardo
that there is an issue that is not only the inability to carry out,
to execute or to execute public policies that program after program, project after project,
achieve some goals of government. There is something more serious, in my
opinion, and it is not a vision either. The Government has no clear
idea. What you want to do with your time, and the time you
have left is two years, no more. If you look at the development
plan, the development plan revolves around an idea and it' s like territorial
planning, the multipurpose disaster, the sanitation plans, it' s very much
there. Sometimes it says it in a grandi way The President tells us to
order the territory around the water. That is the idea of the development plan.
The President seems to be on another subject, he revisits it from time
to time, but I would dare say that he has not read his development
plan and he talks about the total past, sometimes agrarian reform and the end
of the world. They' re like their three main themes. With that
ideology that revolves around this kind of identity capitalism equal death, yes and the
legislative agenda is in social security and there is no unity. And sometimes he
said a while ago the reform is the change, but it no longer appears.
Even willing to abandon some reforms, for example, health reform was left
out there, you fell under the very weight of its contradictions and the inability
to show society a viable alternative. Yes, but what is the vision,
what does the President want? It seems to have a vision for the world
more than for Colombia, if aviation for the world is based on its messy
readings. I think because he connects the second. I take Marx' s
capital with a marginal work of an author I think it' s Swedish about
fossil capitalism. So he wants to decarbonize the world and he' s kind
of a prophet and superimposed messiah and that' s complicated. I was at
the bank convention last week. The economy is stalled, private investment is stalled.
He has a collapse that he had not lived in Colombia for about twenty
- five years. Banks had their worst year in decades. It has been
the fourth worst year of the financial system in a hundred years and President Petro
made a final speech, a speech that lasted more than an hour, I
think an hour and a half, and he spoke about this, about his
view of the world, of capitalism, of the fossil of the economy.
There was no vision of our country and there was no good issue. How
we are going to deal with a critical juncture to our planet, which makes
one think that he has one more temperament to be, for example, a
university professor who wanders and who is linking as that his readings, his ideas,
his suspicions, or, for example, to be a reckless columnist as
he says. He ascended the right in Europe is the end of the century
of lights, which in itself is funny, because that is over a long
time ago. Let' s say the century of lights and I think all
that was a bonato. I say it was at the end of the century,
when he won the right in the European Parliament. He said the century
of light. Or the end of the century of lights, a little late.
But this is a prophet, a little bit. This is that he
has an announcement at the end of the century of lights. Humanity had already
closed that chapter two hundred years ago. Well, which would be interesting those
impossible connections to make and which show as a particular way to spin the speech.
Well, whatever it is, it would be interesting in a class like
elective. Not even the inpensum This lord is going to present the twentieth century
or the story according to him, and it would be interesting to hear it
and wander if he were in a school. I repeat, if you'
re not bensuming because you' re not telling the truth, you' re
not explaining anything, you' re going to feel so well conned. This
teacher didn' t teach me anything, but that class would be for him
to teach. I believe that as an exact seventh, as an effort and
tells me well this guy said something Jesus Antonio Berano already talked about the crisis.
I remember an economist who rested peacefully murdered by the year of the seventh
- century crisis. I think it would look good there. There would not
be perfect, because then there are some students who are fascinated, others who
say that good wagon has the same place as columnists. As a columnist,
he talks about the rise of the right in his next column, as it
is questionable, but he is a columnist and fine. But the President determined
on behalf of an entire country that passed in Parliament' s elections half an
hour before the results were known. Well, that' s not what you
do. And with his resounding opinions. When the constituent sank in Chile,
he said he returned an opino chet Pinochet said when Millay won, the Nazism
said the guasmo. Those resounding opinions, which are perfect for a twitter or
a columnist and are even debatable. You tell this columnist what you want to
slow down, what you want to do, I think you' re overreacting,
but he' s a columnist. It' s not right, yeah,
yeah, so gives an audience. That' s provocative and furious and
it' s funny. I am a tempest, as now that he has
done to Ricardo, it seems funny, because it is how I have a
non- extrapolatory word, not as the case goes and extrapolates it to the
end of the world, not to the ground of the world. There is
an event in the present and the world is always checked. Yeah, and
I think he' s having a little shepherding effect. Liar, which is
that some things that says very serious, as Nazism is rising in the United
States, that would be, therefore, to risk the relations of two countries,
like that nothing happens anymore, because they already know that speaks a lot
and that anything can get out of there. He' s still Presidents.
Especially I think it has lost effectiveness in international scenarios and people begin to say
if the extrapolation trend. Here again is a more delicate subject. Ricardo sometimes
when he examined this complex psychology of President Petro and who have this last decision
that one could understand, in the latest decision on banning coal exports to Israel.
If that is a risk that in substance, I find it interesting,
because issues of international trade and the economy always have to decide. They are
such matters have always had pragmatic elements, but he gets into that subject and
gets into it with an absolute moral judgment and basically makes that decision that one
could say ethically and morally, would have some justification. But here comes the
point that seems complex to me, which is that he is his moral status
in the world, which seems to be above the economy of the country.
Today, people' s well- being. If one wants to, then
of course I see a certain moral narcissism, that is, what mattered is
not Colombia' s position, it is the taking of a breast with that
kind of moral superiority respenses of the economy. Now someone might say yes,
pragmatism one applies when there are questions of humanity it seems complex, because he
could say the same, do the other. And there is contradiction because it
is more the same with Russia, for example. Of course, with a
number of countries you could do the same and you start to think already in
diplomatic terms, because that is an international treaty. There' s a FTA
with Israel, now, there' s company contracts, they' re tricks
that you have to compute. The President may make that decision. I don
' t think so, but I don' t know now I wouldn'
t give it anymore, because it' s a FTA. Then we have
to rewind it. And one immediately imagines Israel saying well, because I buy
carbon from other people. Nor is it going to shake that country, but
it is going to be a gesture that will be applauded as by the same
old auditorium. It has no impact on Israel, but they do have a
pact on Colombia. You can' t have a lot of people get into
trouble that well, okay, there' s a moral impulse that you might
understand, but again, there' s a lot of ignorance of the realities
of international relations, which is, then, the same unknown of, for
example, the health system. The same ignorance of everything is to throw ideas,
to make decisions that begin to affect their own people, in the case
of the export of carbona the people who will live of it, in the
case of the cards of the patients who are in vilo. Anyway, there
' s a lot of ignorance of the consequences, which is that it'
s worrying, because I would think that governing is just taking into account all
that. I believe that a ruler to practice a way of calling it with
a word that is sometimes piorative, but utilitarianism, to worry about the well
- being of its people, because of course, there are moral considerations,
but that are carried away in other areas and called mostly in a rhetorical way.
He can go to the United Nations and express the speech. It seems
illegitimate to me and presents his ethical and moral vision of the world, but
how about he presides with a pen ranking the countries from good to bad and
say me, after a line here and trade with these, yes, with
these no. No. To begin with, Venezuela is a case of discussion.
It' s a humanitarian tragedy to be the continent' s biggest in
the last hours, the five quiet. One of the diplomatic relations with which,
moreover, as I personally agree, could be established there, we were
doing for China, because there are many human rights considerations in China. Yes,
it was like when Duke was President and lived indignant with mature, but
he met with the Dogan, who was another judge, authoritarian president, who
one could fear or Iran or anything. So it' s hard and if
we' re tying up our conversation, there' s worries about not carrying
it out. Yes, concerns about the lack of a vision to which the
country wants to lead and these are perhaps the most complete and authoritarian tendencies,
lawlessness using a power that is capricious. Yes, you are afraid of a
tumultuous democratic transition up to two thousand twenty- six. I still tend to
think that there are no dangers of him wanting to stay or being violent.
I don' t think so. I don' t think I see it
yet and I' m not afraid of it, and I think we need
to be less afraid of petru I think we need to face it more and
stop it more and that every time you propose constituent power, remind it that
it is making ambiguity, because it always starts like this. It' s
on one side and then it looks like it wants to change the Constitution,
but then it goes like reforming it and it' s juggling until really what
I was saying is that people have to take care of their destiny, which
is a common place. But, of course, and besides, what people
do before, they spend it taking care of their destiny and leading in spite
of governments. There is one thing that I find delirious and worthy of psychiatric
study, which is the ignorance of the struggle of others, of the struggles
of others, the ignorance, for example, that the Mayor of Bogotá is
the son of Galán, that if you want symbols, because there you have,
you have a symbol and has its symbol is that there are millions of
people in Colombia. I think that is the most verifiable thing that still has
a broken heart, because that man was not President, because Galán was not
President. And that' s a very important struggle that took place. There
were a lot of people who got killed to get to that ninety- one
constitution, that two- tenth agreement. If you say that, it was,
then, five years of discussion, despite the right that bothers Petro so
much and I am very impressed by the ignorance of the struggle of others.
For someone who has had such clear struggles, it seems rich that he wants
to choose himself as the one who represents all struggles. Yeah, this,
they' re all somehow enthroned. There He is the embodiment of all the
suffering, all the madness of the history of this country. If he is
not able to say, there are other people in this present who also personify
that struggle, that struggle that are also paradigms beyond the simple sinucha example.
That' s very fundamentalist. The other day I read an article about the
insults that are thrown from the extremes and as good burguesito, Señorito, told
them the most radical left, cal la calao likes very much. Now it
' s the lukewarm ones. That' s one thing you' re supposed
to be. It' s a great insult and I remember a friend who
is a great artist who in a conversation told me I can' t stand
the middle class. This one, of course, is a middle- class
friend. But of course, the artistic world, which sometimes crosses with the
left, tends to despise the middle class, because it sees it accommodated at
the top, accommodate some medianía, not a certain medianía. And it seems
to me that the contempt of the middle class is very unfair. It is
very unfair from that extremism, because there are struggles there and there are people
parting their souls and trying to take out houses that are projects to more concrete,
to take forward a family And all that and the contempt of that to
me seems to have been the great failure since liberalism on the left, that
is, from a larger progressive bloc. Let' s call him in Colombia,
the yes block. He does to peace. Their great failure is the
contempt of that, of the middle classes of conservatism. Of course, several
of your fears, you, the fears that are legitimate. The last conversion
I have, Petro, I don' t know if there would be this.
I had already told it in a previous episode. That comes from the
case. It was about that, Ricardo. I didn' t call it
middle class. I told him at the time the President is forgetting that portion
of Colombians who think they have something to lose. Yes, of course,
and the middle classes want to move forward, they want to socialize the middle
sentence, because they are represented by social mobility, but they think they have
something to lose and they have fears. If they have that more or less
instinctive conservatism. And there is that conservatism for a person who has been left
and that change, rapid change and social replications have been his great struggle.
He sees this as a kind of obstacle, but these without the middle classes,
it is a difficult society, prograted, that does nothing and without a
pact that we have talked about before with a liberalism one the causes of the
left hardly prosper, they become a pulse among fundamentalisms, it becomes a trigger,
a trigger of fears. It is the agreement with liberalism that makes that
transformation possible and it seems to me and I think that it is the fiasco
of the government that begins in the reluctance to agree with the liberalism that has
to be said, it has achieved transformations. The Constitution of the nineties has
a lot to do with liberalism in it the Agreement of two thousand sixteen And
maybe that doesn' t much like someone radical, because the liberalim doesn'
t like the accumulation of power. Liberalism believes that knowledge and forces of change
and society are fully centralized. They can' t be just one person.
That kind of caudillisms are not welcome between someone who calls himself liberal and liberalism
brings that scepticism too and brings and a hundred those people are already doing a
lot and that force that you will never be able to channel everything for your
political purpose leave it and that is also a force for change, he has
to work tun is liberalism. He believes in this that not everything is reduced
to the government is even skeptical about the ability of politics to transform society,
because in other ways, as societies are transformed also Ricardo, we had a
little reluctance to talk about this issue. Yes, yes, it gave us
laziness, but it' s because I think it' s not very clear
in our mind that our debate was so much involved. I' m a
little more involved than you are, but also how you try to keep that
aceptical distance. But at the same time, he will not be indifferent.
I don' t care about anything that people don' t agree with me.
That is, I find it very feasible to be friends with someone who
disagrees with me. That' s a peace of mind. I try to
say what I think and that' s it and that' s where it
comes to propose what I think and portray it as I see it and I
think that' s already it, that' s my participation. But going
further seems to me to be useless and absurd, because I think there'
s no way to convince, there' s no way if someone answers my
column. I think that, that' s a spiral into nothingness. In
other words, it doesn' t carry anything. No. Instead, I
think that already with the proposal of writing, everyone who reads and uses what
he read in his own way agrees with something, with something else, no,
but I think the most useful thing is that of the rest of the
pulse. It seems to me that it never carries any of the fighting of
those, of some interesting social networks because I was already saying it in the
Macar Commission on Friday I read your column. I was looking at my cell
phone as I started a lecture and I saw President Petro commenting on it,
and then I started thinking to Ricardo whether or not I would answer it.
Yes, I had been tempted to answer him when he mentioned me and I
said hopefully, I will not make the mistake that I made because to hook
up there I was left with an evil envelope in my mouth. I don
' t think he' s carrying anything for what he' s not.
I think she' s not wearing anything because I think she' s not
talking about the same language, that is, she' s just a column
about recognizing them for the progress that others make. Or that pact between liberalism
and the left, because it succeeds and he commented on it. As,
on the other hand, it is a whole discussion in the mind whether one
responds or not, whether one is being arrogant, not responding or doing well.
And finally, it seems to me that this network scenario never leads to
debate. It is always an effort to prevail as already the message he has,
because he has already won because he is the President. He has seven
million followers. Or whatever, and that' s already na everything that I
put a t a train or a message on the social network x what it
' s called now I look at and at twenty seconds there are two spares.
One says naked on my profile and the other is a petro cellar.
Insulting me with that street guy or anything. I don' t know how
to put naked on my profile faster or play petro. I think you'
re talking about the two- spectrum hold all of a sudden in one of
those, but and I' m more tempted to answer the nudes on my
profile and than the other, because thank you so much, oh new,
yeah, that, that' s not it. I don' t think
there' s a debate there. And, on the other hand, I
think that in reading what you write, if there is any debate, people
will think. This guy has no idea or I agree with this and not
with this, and something goes away and somewhere I think he does. I
think fighting and getting stuck in that isn' t worth it. It also
gives me a sense of restlessness. I don' t think so for one
' s own mental health, and so does one like a corner of a
ring And it' s me that you don' t have a problem recognizing
how good the government is or if they do something good or if they pass
a law that' s worth it, that is, for example, bullfighting.
I think it' s good that that discussion comes out and that that
' s already absurd for this time. There are progressive things that continue to
work and remind me of what you were saying about liberalism and how liberalism does
is release leadership. I believe that in these thirty years there have been some
leaderships that exceed the governments, that is, for example, someone like Elizabeth
Castillo in the world of the axis, or Monica Roja in the world of
women or current and reproductive rights, Cristiana Cristina in the world of just cause
or González yes Gana, Cristina González or Carlos González Pucci in football, who
is the man who responds for the rights of the workers in that world,
And so one can see the lady of the EOM, who is fantastic in
the electoral system. One can see in all Colombian issues leaderships that transcend administrations,
presidencies and that are always there and have transformed what they do into an
organization that is called childhood, because they seek them all over the world because
they defend the rights of children, the presidents change, but those people do
continue to make transformations. Change does not depend only on the soro policy of
leadership, and these examples of civil society, of real leaders, end up
being even more effective. Sure, on the other hand, other ways,
you said something now, Ricardo, and the speech still makes sense. I
like to call him sometimes. I don' t know if it sounds pejorative
or insulting. Rhetorical consolations from the leader in that position of being President that
symbolically is so important. Some rhetorical consolations are important, but the concerns that
we have enumerated authoritarianism, the ignorance of other leaderships, the ability to implement
projects are worrying. And the lack of vision of a country that, if
it seems to me a way to waste some causes and one and such irresponsibility
to have come to propose a fiasco, to do nothing of what so many
people fought. There were so many left- wing voices and so many important
leaderships that they could have made a magnificent democratic presidency that convinced people that the
left was not a disaster, but a way of directing democracy towards social justice.
There were so many people who could have done well and come to that,
to waste it, to put people wrong to make the problem of people
' s lives the government. That' s infamy. Unfortunately, Ricardo,
we' re in the moment of tweeting like crazy. Yeah, I think
this conversation doesn' t add to that spiral. Yes, I mean,
if the President is doing that, maybe we' ll have some broad retis.
Yes, someone has to give themselves as an adult in the situation and
is to restrain themselves. That' s what needs to be done. Hold
on and hold on and not fear so well. I believe that I am
surrounded by many friends who fear a lot and who feel that this can end,
because in the dumbest example that is given that it is Venezuela, as
well, ignoring all the historical processes of the countries, I do not think
that goes there. Neither do I, but I do think he' s
making a con. I have only one rich concern and it is democracy.
I also need that we had already said, a certain willingness to lose respect
for electoral rules. Yeah, I mean, I lose and I agree.
Yes, and the populist leaderships trump baganaro have not been able to recognize the
results of adverse elections. No, and I am afraid that in the year
two thousand and twenty- six President Petro will begin to undermine confidence in the
electoral institutions and question the outcome of an adverse election. Now we have to
recognize the fears that do not come from nothing and Petro Yes has sometimes talked
about this place being the subject of elections. It' s worse than Venezuela
' s. He said that phrase. I don' t like that.
That, that' s a phrase that, besides, doesn' t make
any sense to a man chosen for that. Yeah, that' s what
the election system is all about. The electoral system, at least at the
time one compares it with other countries. In Colombia at two and a half
hours we already know who the present is. We know it has never been
questioned, either here or there. But it was a mess but I don
' t think it' s good. The last was a thousand nine hundred
and seventy, but you' re a real moment, that' s true,
but since then I believe Colombia has had a credible electoral system. We
will continue in the struggle Ricardo, we will follow strong embrace gram. It
' s clear we can all write. It is clear that we can all,
with luck and vocation, devote ourselves to the craft of writing. But
lately I think that not only can we, but we must write. Writing
is the best therapy we have at hand. Welcome to fictionary an audio course
on how and why I wrote Take the audiocourse of fictional writing in the locutorio
com slash fictionario with Ricardo Silva Romero. Always pick a good time. Always
choose a good conversation. Third lap podcast. Subscribe now and listen to it
every week on your favorite platform, a podcast produced by the speaker. The
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