Colombia

A Hundred Years of Change

A hundred years ago, Colombians had at least one reason to be happy: the end of a three-year long civil war that concluded in 1902. However, in general, the life of a typical Colombian was not easy. He was an illiterate peasant whose wife, who had borne him six children, worked from dawn to dusk at home and on the family?s small agricultural plot. Their children had a life expectancy of fewer than 30 years. This average citizen was very religious and knew the outside world only from what the parish priest or some rich folk said, talking about the Pope or modern sins?of which a place called Paris was a prime example. Colombians paid few taxes and received a few state services such as schools, roads and railroads.

The statistics are clear. In the first decade of the 20th century, only 12 percent of Colombia?s four million people lived in cities with more than 10,000 inhabitants. Only 25 percent of the population could read and write; only one out of six children attended school. Furthermore, typhoid, measles and gastrointestinal ailments killed one out of every six infants before they reached their first birthday.
Women, at least in theory, stayed home. They had no political rights and, according to law, had to submit themselves to their husband?s authority. In practice, many had small businesses, made handicrafts or planted the earth. The closest thing to professional women were the female teachers in rural schools and nuns working in orphanages and asylums.

In one hundred years, many things have been transformed. The 20th century was one of accelerated change. What was the most important change? Economic transformation, the coffee boom that opened us up to the world, the development of a national industry or the urbanization sparked by the mass exodus of peasants to the cities?making Colombia into an urban nation? Was it general schooling that enabled all children to attend primary school, with one out of every four Colombians now entering the university? Was the biggest change the eradication of epidemics? Or was it the development of the mass media, replacing the word of the priest or the teacher with newspapers, radio and television that brought us rancheras and rock, newscasts and evangelical preaching?

In my opinion, the fundamental change has been in the relations between men and women. Already, in the 1920s, girls were going to primary school at the same rate as boys. Women were filling lowly positions in factories and stores. By the1940s, young women were getting their doctorates. Today, men and women hold roughly the same number of midlevel positions in business and institutions and some high political posts. This generation, the first one with more women than men graduating from the university, will almost certainly achieve equality in the workforce. The inertia of machismo and the burdens associated with pregnancy and maternity still linger on. But even peasant women have managed to somewhat liberate themselves from their machos?something that seemed impossible fifty years ago.

Obviously, some things have not changed, at least in relative terms. Colombia is a more egalitarian society today. However, although today?s poor have access to medical services and their children go to school, they may actually receive a smaller proportion of income than in the beginning of the 20th century. Despite highly increased individual productivity, the proportion of the overall product that goes to each economic stratum is similar to that of a hundred years ago.

And one thing has changed for worse. A hundred years ago, the end of a bloody war brought a 40-year period of peace. If we now had the same homicide rates as in the 1920s or ?30s, Colombia would not have 30,000 dead per year, but barely 2,000. Colombian society substantially improved its quality of life due to talented bureaucrats performing despite bad presidents and unfavorable political conditions. However, the Colombian State and ruling class have, at least since 1947/1948, let themselves get tangled up with the demon of violence and have never found the way to confront this violence effectively. At times, they even fomented it by promoting intransigent, sectarian political models. Intellectual discourse also stimulated violence on occasion by proclaiming armed struggle as the only solution to problems of inequity. It is quite likely that the country is still paying for its inability to carry out agrarian reform in the 1950s and 1960s.
With the idea of changing an unjust country, the guerrillas declared war fifty years ago. The violence of this war?and the demonic responses it has generated?has made Colombia more unjust, poorer and more rigid, but much has still been transformed. If peace should be declared today, more open political institutions and the emerging richer and more democratic civil society culture would enable Colombians to finally come closer to achieving the type of country we all desire.

Jorge Orlando Melo is a historian and the director of the Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango in Bogotá.