Colombia Is Awake

A country that has grown tired of almost 24 years of tyranny, corruption and new forms of enslavement.

Photography © Christina Noriega

Colombia took to the streets, the tricolor flag has been worn for the most part by young people tired of suffering so much injustice and inequality, tired of seeing how their mothers and/or fathers must strive every day to make money for food since the vast majority depend on the informal economy, live without social security, or public benefits and live without many possibilities, for many their salary is equivalent to $908,526.00 Colombian Pesos ($237.13 USD/R$1,288.31 BRL) with this they must pay for public utilities, housing rent and food; while a person in congress earns $34,417,000.00 Colombian Pesos ($8,982.84 USD/R$48,837.72 BRL) equivalent to 41 times the minimum wage determined for the Colombian working class, an issue that has furthered the tastelessness of people in Colombia and led them to march. The government instead of lowering the salaries of those elected officials preferred to raise the Value Added Tax (VAT) to 19% for the people and impose taxes on everything that until now has been difficult to access even more when you are a single mother. The Increase in the costs of the family basket, of basic public services, furthered not being able to access a decent life due to the fact that the internal economic distribution is so unbalanced that impoverished people continue to be even more impoverished than they already were a year ago; in addition the lack of opportunities for the youth which force their lives to be skewed at an early age. And all this within a global health pandemic.

Despite the fact that today the mobilization is of national confluence, it should be noted that one of the most oppressed peoples in Colombia are Black People. Five hundred years of enslavement history where discrimination and the withholding of resources for the realization of a good life are the most faithful evidence of it. If in Colombia the Tax Reform proposed by President Iván Duque and the Ministry of Finance were to be approved, social inequality would be further framed; endangering the basic survival of the Black people, a dispossessed people, without even access to basic services, access to health and their self-sustainability has been interrupted due to the interference of holders of bad faith. All our basic needs are currently unsatisfied and our collective territories that have resisted are part of a constant deterritorialization process, forced displacement, confinement and harassment as part of a plan of ethnic extermination, looting and expropriation are part of the same plan. Women, who are championing hope, desire and faith that any act of vulnerability that involves loss of life or the like will have justice. Due to the above, the Black community came out and will continue to take to the streets against those neocapitalist, neo-class and patriarchal policies that completely violate all of our rights, both individual and collective and frame us in a setback of everything. That we have been able to win as a people, with our own organizational effort.

The full indignation felt by an overwhelming people full of pain for so much injustice, governed by bureaucrats for whom life means nothing. In these moments the considerations of whether the Black People are discriminated against, then let me tell you that yes, even in highly complex situations such as protests, discrimination becomes evident, an example of this is the way in which the people are attacked. Points where mostly the black population and the rest of the impoverished communities are settled, the attack has been frontal, without any possibility of safeguarding life, without any other tool other than with the word, while in the points of concentration such as that of "la Loma de la Cruz" populated mainly by a mestizo community stratum six, the manner of intervention was totally different, musicians, guaro, etc. It is necessary to say that the vast majority of fatalities correspond to young people from the black community and that their names have not had the relevance they should have because they are not mestizo and because they are not children of wealthy families. The above is not to generate destructive discussions, but on the contrary, it is for all of us to reflect on it since we continue to build a town where the territories of life, love, hope and freedom are daily living, detaching ourselves from everything. What colonialism has intentionally instilled in us.

“Today I feel great joy, but at the same time sadness, because there is a son or daughter who will never see their mother again. Calm down, mother, we have won a warrior in heaven, standing next to our ancestors fighting for this people to live in harmony and Liberty".

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Sara is part of the AfroResistance Team. She is also an activist for the Black Communities Process and was elected President of the Alto Mira y Frontera Community Council in 2014, in Colombia.

He has denounced different types of violence in his country of origin and has suffered persecution and threats by armed groups. After denouncing the constant threats and being forced to resign as vice president of the Alto Mira y Frontera Community Council, Sara was politically persecuted by the Colombian State and deprived of liberty from April 2018 to July 2019.

Due to all the situations of persecution and threats received, Sara did not assume her position as vice president of the Alto Mira y Frontera Community Council, where she was elected in 2017.