Political pandeyucas.
By: Juan Carlos López Castrillón.
I park two blocks from Caldas Park, attracted by that delicious smell of some pandeyucas fresh from the oven. I enter the cafeteria and meet three friends. I sit down with them, order a red wine and 20 pandeyucas.
I ask them, “What family are you in?” and they tell me that they are doing calculations of what it takes for a candidate to be elected to the House of Representatives in 2026.
– “That is very far,” I tell them.
– “Don’t believe, Pollo, this has already started.”
I start to think and it’s true, it’s already started. Or rather, it has never ended. In this city, those who are close to the public always live thinking about making elections. It kills their heads. I conclude that here we live in two parallel universes: the real one and the political one. In reality, Propal and the La Cabaña Sugar Mill are fighting alone today to survive, so that more than 4,000 families are not left without a livelihood.
In real terms, shortages and unemployment rise; Violence and conflict have returned to situations from 25 years ago. In politics, the priority of my friends is to locate “some leaders.” A service provision contract is important, but a staff appointment is the best. “It kills everything” they tell me as they go around hitting the pandeyucas.
At this point and time is when I ask you:
– “Well, why do you do politics?”
They answer me in one:
– “In these lands, people do politics to look for an opportunity; “some to resolve a personal or collective situation and a few to move forward in ‘trying to change’ the world.”
I complement your answer by citing the book “The End of Power” by Moisés Naím, which states that politicians had more power a few decades ago. Today this has been redistributed. Social networks and organizations have conquered new spaces. They are the Small Modern Societies that Boaventura de Sousa talks about. Today they are much more powerful than before. Indigenous people, peasants, Afro people, animal rights activists or housing activists (to name just a few examples) do not need parliamentarians to sit down with a government to talk face to face. Of course, if in addition to that you have congressmen to help, then much better.
My friends do not share my reflection much and they tell me so while they are finishing the red wine and the pandeyucas. I order another twenty to go and say goodbye to them, who are going to stay a while longer. In their talk they still have several municipalities to analyze.
I get in the car and I’m thinking about this gathering downtown, and I simply confirm that we all have different priorities. Now the important thing is to make those universes coincide, at least temporarily. It is valid and that is how it has happened. The serious thing is when that doesn’t happen.
To finish, I do believe that things are happening throughout Colombia today and more rapidly since the pandemic; both in reality and in politics. Some call it the Shift. But we must keep in mind that, for the vast majority of people, from those who work informally on the street, those who struggle to support their families, those who suffer because of a medical appointment, to those who walk with their resume in search of a job option, in general terms he has only been interested in electoral politics in the last three months. Now what they care about is having an income and not being robbed.
Today those same people, who are the vast majority of the Colombian people, feel more frustration and uncertainty than hope. I hope my coffee friends are interpreting it, because the real universe always ends up devouring the political universe, like us pandeyucas.
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