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EL ESPECTADOR

Adios, Santos: An Appreciative Send-Off As Colombia's Peace President Steps Down

The peace process he helped guide in Colombia isn't perfect. Nor is it complete. But by ending the decades-old war with the FARC, outgoing President Manuel Santos definitely made his mark.

President Santos posing with soldiers in August 2017
President Santos posing with soldiers in August 2017
Daniel García-Peña

-Op-Ed-

BOGOTA After eight years in office, Juan Manuel Santos Calderón officially completed his tenure today as president of Colombia, and though it may be early to discuss his legacy, a preliminary assessment is pertinent.

Foreigners often ask how Santos, who signed an historic peace deal with the FARC guerilla army and won the Nobel Peace Prize as a result, could nevertheless have such dismally low approval ratings at home. The answer, I would say, stems from just that: the peace process.

For the political right that chose him as their president in 2010, Santos, with the peace deal, betrayed his immediate predecessor, Álvaro Uribe Vélez (2002-2010). They accuse him of surrendering Colombia to the FARC and to castrochavismo — socialism as espoused by the late Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez.

For the left, which was decisive in his reelection in 2014, Santos came up short with regards to how the peace deal was implemented. He failed, for example, to deliver a comprehensive rural reform program. Nor did he follow through on certain political reforms, plans to develop special peace constituencies, and voluntary crop substitution (of coca and other plants used to make drugs). In other words, he's a traitor to some and inadequate to others.

This is significant progress.

Still, there's no denying that peace with the FARC is a huge turning point in Colombia's history. It closed a long chapter and sets the stage for the next, and it was President Santos and the FARC — with their resolve, leadership and persistence — who made it possible.

Sadly, community organizers are still being killed, and the ELN rebels remain active. Peace is not yet complete. But one need only observe the absence of mutilated soldiers in the Military Hospital, or the fact that FARC commanders are now debating in parliament rather than planning attacks in the mountains, to conclude that this is significant progress.

There's no denying that peace with the FARC is a huge turning point in Colombia's history.

And rather than cede the country to castrochavismo or the FARC, Santos is in fact handing power over to a conservative, Iván Duque of the Centro Democrático (Democratic Center, CD) party.

Colombia's President-elect Ivan Duque — Photo: Centro Democratico

The accord has had some very important, and often overlooked, effects, starting with the 2018 elections. For the first time in a long while, the elections played out calmly and peacefully thanks to FARC disarmament and a unilateral ceasefire with the ELN. That allowed for broad, serious debate on things like education and healthcare, and on Colombia's oil- and mining-based development model — issues that had formerly been overshadowed by the war.

Once again, the public arena became the preeminent venue for selling arguments, something unthinkable in all the years when candidates were confined to their headquarters for security reasons. Voter participation, as result, rose to its highest level in the past 20 years.

We are seeing the opening of new spaces for democratic competition and social struggle.

But the most significant impact of the peace process is the reconfiguration of political forces at the national level. The CD, led by former president Uribe, established itself, in a very short time, as a new and dynamic party. It was the biggest winner in the elections, but now faces challenges due to Uribe's serious legal troubles. At the same time, the 51% of all votes cast that together, candidates Gustavo Petro, Sergio Fajardo and Humberto de la Calle won in the first round of the presidential election, is evidence that the political map changed for good in 2018. That Petro, a leftist and former Bogota mayor, won 8 million votes in the June runoff makes that even more apparent.

In these last eight years, Colombia has begun to move and shake off years of restrictive ties, immobility and violence. And that is very good. Social movements, peaceful protests and public consultations to defend local territories are all clear signs that citizens are increasingly demanding and conscious of their rights.

Some of these have happened because of things Santos has done; others in spite of them, or because of the things he failed to do. But ultimately, we are seeing the opening of new spaces for democratic competition and social struggle. For those of us dreaming of real transformations, there is no doubt that things have begun to change these last years. Yes, I started off by saying it's too early to weigh Santos's legacy, but let me venture to say that his years in power will be valued as important and positive.



*The author was Colombia's consul-general in Paris in 2012-15, appointed by President Santos.

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Society

What's Spoiling The Kids: The Big Tech v. Bad Parenting Debate

Without an extended family network, modern parents have sought to raise happy kids in a "hostile" world. It's a tall order, when youngsters absorb the fears (and devices) around them like a sponge.

Image of a kid wearing a blue striped sweater, using an ipad.

Children exposed to technology at a very young age are prominent today.

Julián de Zubiría Samper

-Analysis-

BOGOTÁ — A 2021 report from the United States (the Youth Risk Behavior Survey) found that 42% of the country's high-school students persistently felt sad and 22% had thought about suicide. In other words, almost half of the country's young people are living in despair and a fifth of them have thought about killing themselves.

Such chilling figures are unprecedented in history. Many have suggested that this might be the result of the COVID-19 pandemic, but sadly, we can see depression has deeper causes, and the pandemic merely illustrated its complexity.

I have written before on possible links between severe depression and the time young people spend on social media. But this is just one aspect of the problem. Today, young people suffer frequent and intense emotional crises, and not just for all the hours spent staring at a screen. Another, possibly more important cause may lie in changes to the family composition and authority patterns at home.

Firstly: Families today have fewer members, who communicate less among themselves.

Young people marry at a later age, have fewer children and many opt for personal projects and pets instead of having children. Families are more diverse and flexible. In many countries, the number of children per woman is close to or less than one (Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong among others).

In Colombia, women have on average 1.9 children, compared to 7.6 in 1970. Worldwide, women aged 15 to 49 years have on average 2.4 children, or half the average figure for 1970. The changes are much more pronounced in cities and among middle and upper-income groups.

Of further concern today is the decline in communication time at home, notably between parents and children. This is difficult to quantify, but reasons may include fewer household members, pervasive use of screens, mothers going to work, microwave ovens that have eliminated family cooking and meals and, thanks to new technologies, an increase in time spent on work, even at home. Our society is addicted to work and devotes little time to minors.

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