No ASBOs in Colombia

ASBOs -- Anti-social Behaviour Orders. As quintessentially British as tea, cricket, the village green, and, well... anti-social behaviour.

Despite the fact that statistics indicate that crime, especially armed crime, is more of a problem in Bogota than in Brighton, I have to say the experience on the ground is rather different.

Consider this common scenario in any town-centre in Britain: you are walking down the street minding your own business when you spot a group of young males coming the other way. You avoid their eyes, or cross the road because you don't want any trouble. Are they drunken yobs on their way home from a night on the lager looking for a fight? Are they a group of teenagers in tracksuits with nothing to do and a bad attitude? Or school-kids waiting for the bus, who will probably shout abuse, and might pull a knife on you to prove their machismo? Best, in any case, just to keep out the way.

I had just learned to live with and accept this as normal. But living now in a country and city with far bigger social problems, scandalously unequal wealth distribution, and a generally poorer populace, where I just do not see this happen, has made me realise that it is not inevitable, and that something must be seriously wrong with British culture for this to be the norm.

I get buses quite often here. They are always full of hard-working, normal people -- young and old, males and females, usually alone or in couples, going quietly about the business of their day (or night). They are not dominated and terrorised by groups of odious teens.

Often, someone will get into your bus and try to sell trinkets, sweets, prayers printed on paper as bookmarks -- anything, just to make an honest few pesos. Or they will get in and sing, do anything. They are very poor, often probably through no fault of their own, and may have been through horrific things (1.5 million Bogotanos are living in shanty towns, displaced by the violence -- that means they have probably lived first-hand through the kind of terrible violent acts that Britain's bored teens have only seen in their tasteless video games). What makes the biggest impression is that they are without exception respectful to all. They ask the bus driver if they can get in and make their pitch, and accept it if he refuses. They are unfailingly polite to the passengers, and simply provide the opportunity for one to help, without pressuring or being in any way anti-social.

Or people (often women) will turn to making and selling arepas on street corners, charging just a few hundred pesos (10p) for each one. Even though they know that business people or tourists have much more buying power, they are honest and charge the same price to everyone. Squeedgy kids clean windscreens at stop-lights. Old crippled men beg for change at street corners. But they never threaten, and they don't get anti-social if you say no -- despite the fact that they probably need that money to eat.

Of course, crime does happen. A couple of straggly-looking kids tried to rob us a while back, Henry got his cellphone taken off him in a bus by a man with a knife, and the British Embassy reports that people have been stabbed when refusing to cooperate with robbers. But when it does happen, you can't help but feel that at least it was in some way justified. With such a vast discrepancy in wealth, and very few safety-nets for the poor, it is not surprising that some out of desperation turn to crime. It is more remarkable that so many do not, and have a genuine work ethic and respect for their communities and fellow Colombians.

In Bogota, walking down a quiet street at night, you might want to be wary of people who look very poor. They almost certainly won't, but it is possible that they might rob you. You might get stabbed in the process. But at least they have a reason to be attacking you! They need the money more than you do. So much more, that its almost criminal for you to have it in the first place. In Bogota the sight of groups of young males is rarer, because the culture encourages people to go out in mixed groups anyway. But when it does happen, they are not yobs out for a fight, a stabbing, a proving of their masculinity.

In Britain, no-one is really genuinely poor to the same degree, and even those without money have access to a good infrastructure. What gives those yobs the right to go around terrorising people with their anti-social behaviour?

Whenever someone mentions Colombia's "culture of violence" I am reminded of Britain's "culture of yobbishness".