it seems to me, after a while in latin america, that there are two kinds of people here: those who don't have much money but who would like to have some so that they can buy into the "consumer goods" dream, and those that have plenty of money and are glad about that because it allows them to buy into the "consumer goods" dream.
this feeling of unease, you may remember, started in monterrey, mexico, my first destination in latin america. people seemed to think it odd that one might have money and yet not use it to demonstrate status, and that perhaps one's life goals were not perfectly aligned with those of the actors in a car commercial. living in bogotá has made this point even more obvious.
we rich westerners like to perpetuate the fantasy that the rich countries, usually headed by the USA, are big bad boys who mess up the rest of the world with their dysfunctional cultures of individuality, workworkwork, and consumerism. but in all my journey through the US, it seemed i was never far from a grass-roots environmental movement, mothers against nuclear power, or students complaining about multi-nationals' treatment of poor workers in el salvador. and the same can be said about brighton, too.
now i should say right now, that of course my impressions are entirely personal, and i make not even the slightest attempt to gather a representative sample. however, my impressions are at least based on actual interactions with actual citizens of the country, rather than any form of conjecture. and i have to say that i have yet to meet the socially-conscious latin american. if there is a barrio of bogota where everyone eats granola and meets every wednesday in the vegan cafe to read poetry and watch films about the wall in israel, i have yet to encounter or even hear of it.
perhaps unsurprisingly, there are a lot of slogans scrawled on walls, along the lines of "don't vote: organise and fight!" however, not a single person i've mentioned these to has said "yeah, that's right!". everyone is like, "oh yeah, those", a bit ashamed that their country is uncool enough to have such graffiti, not realising that i am proud of the graffiti in my home town! "destroy your TV"! yeah! to me that shows that i live in a place that is socially conscious.
i met a really nice girl a couple of saturdays ago in the kind of swanky restaurant/bar/club that would never admit me in london. she was there by accident, she isn't a regular shallow party girl, she was at pains to point out when we met up later in the week. and indeed, she had moved away from her family in cali, come to bogotá to follow her career as a programmer, was also studying auditing, lived in her own apartment, and seemed happily unmarried and unchildrened at the age of 27. a pretty intelligent and independent girl, and not afraid of bucking those latina traditions. but guess what, when we started talking properly, it was like we were from different planets:
me: "so what do you like to do? what are you into?"
her: "oh, you know. going to the mall. talking to my friends on the phone."
me: "oh. you like films?"
her: "yeah, i loved x-men III and mission impossible III! i love hollywood!"
me: "oh. read anything good recently?"
her: "i don't really read."
me: "and so what is your dream? where are you heading in your life?"
her: "well i'd love to have my own place, and i want to have a nice car."
as we walked through the gridlocked traffic to get to the highly efficient public transport system home, i tried some of the regular anti-car arguments on her. look at all the people trapped in their silly tin cans! sat in traffic! destroying the environment! destroying social cohesion!
she was like "what do you mean? think how comfortable it is, and without all those other people bashing into you." i didn't pursue it further.
i don't mean to pick on this one girl, but she does conveniently illustrate the more general point. everyone here is SO much more consumer-driven, and the idea of a sort of counter-culture, a non-acceptance of that basic 50s american goal of "more and better appliances lead to happiness!" is mostly just met with blank incomprehension.
perhaps it is because the UK and the US did have a counter-culture in the 50s - 70s, and Colombia did not. to be fair, they were probably too busy being mired in an everlasting civil war. indeed, if those people who can escape such things decide to just close down their focus and concentrate on shiny things, and the getting of them, who am I to blame or question them? and i don't. i merely bring this surprising cultural difference to your attention. perhaps it isn't what you would have expected either.
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5 comments:
Thanks for the interesting and thought-provoking observation. I don't know the answer! But I wonder whether a social conscience is a bit of a luxury associated with affluence, choice, and relative security.
It may also be a product of the hard-won (by our ancestors) freedoms of speech and dissent that we take so much for granted. I don't know enough recent history but my impression is that the US and UK governments have not been notable in encouraging these freedoms throughout the world! (Guarded understatement!)
paul, I gotta say I disagree with some of what you said there...kinda, you have a point...and i can only speak of Colombia and Argentina to be honest...but the fact is when you met that girl we were in salto de Angel, a club for well off people who can pay the equivilant of an average days wages in Colombia just to get in the door, and some of the Colombians you know here go to Los Andes, one of these most expensive universities in South America.... and Im pretty sure that a large percentage of well off Europeans and Americans are no less consumer driven and than the people we meet in those places,.... sure there is a consumer culture in Bogota, and Id agree that many of the people here with money are very very shallow, its exactly like BA in Argentina or Santiago in Chile..., but bear in mind only 7 percent of this country go to university and get jobs that reflect that (ie make more than 200 dollars a month), over 60 plus percent are considered poor and make an average of five dollars for a 12 hour day, that is if they are not one of the millions that are either unemployed or underemployed...the majority of this country are poor (relativly, 300 dollars a month here and you are doing well!), but amazingly, in that survey published by Time or whatever each year, Colombians rank as the worlds second happiest people when it comes to happiness with their general standard of living, and for me, having somehow spent time living in Capitanejo, one of Colombias poorest towns, you find that once you get away from the (relativly) rich people in clubs like Salto or Gottica, who are a severe minority, you find a people who value their family and friends more than anything, are content if they have enough money for food and the odd rumba, happy to have 25 holiday mondays a year, to live in a great climate...the people in these towns outside bogota, maybe 30 million people are the majority of Colombians and not anything like the executives and Los Andes students who i agree are generally incredibly materialistic....and I probably misunderstood what you were trying to say, but the ability to spend time protesting and taking part in cultural activities is a first world luxery...who has time here to watch films about problems on the other side of the world, when the average working week for a poor person, such as a security gaurd, can be anything up 100 hour a week, and anyone with a decent job, such as an engineer or doctor, works about 70 hours a week, ofton more. This is not 35 hour a week France....mothers here havent time to bother protesting against nuclear energy, no more than they do in any developing country, there most important concern, and something that we in the first world never even think about, is feeding their family!! In cuidad Bolivar just outside Bogota there are about one million refugees displaced by the war living in shacks, if i was them poetry readings etc would the last thing I cared about, the same of i was one of the majority not only in Colombia but throughout latin america who has to live on a few dollars a day !!! Anyway,...I probably read your blog arsewys as Im hungover...and I could have said this to you in person, you only live down the road...but you left me to go party in Ibague this weekend!!!!!
I think you can argue that consumerism everywhere does provide an alluring alternative to poverty (where poverty is relative of course) - I'm sure that a chunk of it occurs because of genetically pre-programmed stuff.
Of course you can also argue that the cause is that the counterculture doesn't spend the same amount on advertising as the companies which produce the consumer goods, or for that matter that the anticonsumerist messages are more difficult to put across (they are in some ways counterintuitive, or at least less obvious).
Tim.
hmmm. i think denis you are responding to the wrong thing. here is the thought again, put succinctly:
in england there are rich materialistic people. these exist here too, and everywhere: it is to be expected. there are also poor materialistic people, both here and there. however, what about non-materialistic people, both here and there, both rich and poor? these are the group that i find missing from here. perhaps as you say poor non-materialistic people have more on their minds than saving the world. that could be argued (although i would point out that it is equally arguable that it is often the poorest that have the biggest hearts. another conversation.)
so we are left with the rich non-materialistic people. those who have the funds to give them the luxury of considering saving the world. well they certainly exist in the West. do they exist here? well, maybe. but if they do they are hiding from me...
thanks for the link to the IES in bogota beth :). will check it out!
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