Today we continued educating ourselves about the city this time going on the tour in the city center. The city is unique in a way that for ages it was ignored first by the Spanish conquers and later didn’t play any part in the liberation and independence movement thus they feel more like their own region and not as much Colombian. For this reason, the city center practically doesn’t have any colonial-style architecture but has plenty of unattractive (subjective) soviet style grey “modern” buildings.
The guide tried hard to explain the history of Medellin and the recent political developments of Colombia. He also went through horrific left wing-right wing-drug cartel-government wars that made him witness murders and dead bodies while he was still a small child. He showed places of bombings and shootings which are often forgotten (because of their frequency) or not spoken deliberately by Colombian people. This kind of “collective memory loss”, as he explained, is probably a necessity as it allows Colombians to be easy-going and relaxed in day-to-day life rather than being traumatized and sucked-in recent past. Also, it allowed the government to make controversial and even generous deals with the extreme right and left wing to stop the wars in the streets.
The transformation of the city center from a crime zone to a hope zone (as the guide described) was also a very deliberate city government move. They created lots of social programs to help people and combined them with inclusive infrastructure. They deliberately went to the most crime-prone areas and built parks, libraries as well as moved government agencies there. As the guide was the witness of these changes he told that as a young guy he finally had places to play and spend time rather than being in the streets surrounded by drugs.
This guide also refused to say the name of their most famous criminal, calling him you know who or Voldemort. He explained that for the locals it brings huge anger that some people especially younger and who don’t live here wear t-shirts with his face and almost worship him. For him and his relatives, it represents a traumatic bloody past. It also is a downside of their collective memory loss as refusal to speak about those times or educate about it creates these gaps of knowledge.
In these times, most areas of the city are completely safe. The city itself is incredibly green, beautiful, and modern. The locals are proud of their infrastructure, especially the metro which was built during the hardest decades and represents their resilience. What an incredible transformation!