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President Uribe with his former Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos.
President Uribe with his former Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos.

Is this the time – or the place – to run the risk of becoming a glaring target for the institutionalised intellectual elite that has come to personify the Colombian mainstream media? Do I dare challenge the authority of the media and the political class with what can easily be perceived as “amateur” research and pandering to lightweight and trivial conspiracy theories? Yes, this is the moment to take on the so-called gatekeepers that are filtering information in order to protect the public from what is imagined as “unsuitable”.

So, in a move that would have had Nixon’s plumbers scuttling to destroy my hard drive and shredding my notebooks, I am going to suggest that, after careful consideration of all of the news pieces reporting the issue, something far more sinister than the rattling of quilled pens in the one-sided war of words currently being raged across the ether between Senator Alvaro Uribe and President Santos is taking place.

What if I were to suggest that these former boon companions are still anything but enemies and that the pantomime behaviour of Senator Uribe spraying vitriol to eager reporters is nothing more than a dastardly (yet successful plan) to isolate the left, therefore ensuring that the power, influence and airwaves are flooded, manipulated and therefore controlled by this unscrupulously colourful diversionary tactic?

Based on past alliances struck up between the former President and his Minister of Defence and the family ties between the U Party and the Centro Democratico, it really doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination to conceive this conspiracy as a distinct possibility. When Senator Uribe opens his mouth and expels his vernacular is anyone really afraid? Does anyone actually tremble at the utterances of this gargamel of the senate floor? He’s about as terrifying as Anne Robinson (UK) or George Gray (US) on their respective versions of television’s now mercifully defunct quiz show “the Weakest Link”.

For the political ruse to be executed effectively, there needs to be a game manager who oversees and designs the shape of the conspiracy defining the players’ roles. The more people who participate, the more complex and interesting the game becomes. Clearly Senator Uribe is Colombia’s most divisive politician and for this reason he is the game manager in this circumstance. The foundations for the Santos era as president were laid long before 2008’s Operacion Jaque; and were hammered home by a need to create an atmosphere of fear, dread and indeed manufactured paranoia.

The most recent example of this was indubitably the chasm rifted by the two political parties, both on the right, in manipulating the outcome of the most recent presidential elections. And of course the actions of a conspiracy theory in this vein ensure that the tangle of intrigue becomes all the more interesting with an unsuspecting participant used as a recusant counterbalance. Step up Mayor Gustavo Petro as the least endearing, yet most effective version, with his rebel past, his conflictive locution and his complete failure to govern Bogotá. It’s a perfect match.

All of this may sound ludicrous and extraordinary, but if we are to consider the complexities such as propaganda mechanisms, the manufacturing of consent and conveniently positioned scandals such as that surrounding Andrés Sepulveda and the election period hacker-gate, then perhaps, just perhaps I may be getting at something. Should the mainstream media pick up these suggestions, the backlash would presumably be represented by some unbridled ridicule indicating, of course, that the main media companies – some of which were run, edited and produced by top families – are still in the hands of the elite therefore are compromised. In a society where the media is free and the society is open and democratic, an appropriate assumption would be that any conspiracy would be exposed. However, many societies that claim to have a free press actually have a corporate-controlled press. What of the Colombian press?

It just all seems all too strange to have Francisco Santos, President Santos’  first cousin – on both sides – and a graduate of the same alma mater “Go Jayhawks!” openly undermining the President in the press and on the airwaves. Maybe I am underestimating the soap opera value of drama in Colombian politics, but even these rivalries seem too far-fetched. Where and when did they occur and why did they become so entrenched? In a culture where family is everything, to have first cousins battling it out in public is far from normal. I have long believed that Colombians do not have close friends and that every event is little more than an extended family reunion fuelled by carton after carton of aguardiente and all conversation drowned out by vallenato, salsa or joropo depending on the region and the hour.

If, in years to come we are permitted a reflection on this period in Colombian history and indeed the marginalisation of the left has been revealed to have been a carefully orchestrated plan, then we can say without doubt that it has been a conspiracy worthy of the word “racamandaca”. The nation’s narcissists and sociopaths have been able set aside their quibbles to exaggerate Colombia’s idiosyncrasies in a cynical abandonment of the profound political realities and merely reaffirming the dominant political order.

If this is the case, then these actions have been effective in prohibiting any or all democratic and political activism in Colombia. Is there a trisito of logic to my narrative stream of consciousness or am I a victim of my own imagination pursuant to too many conspiracy theories?

 

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