March 7

Oligarchy in Colombia in the 20th century 

Oligarchy: A form of government in which all power is vested in a few people or dominant classes/cliques.

          In the 19th century, the landowning elite used its land to start developing agriculture and cattle ranch businesses. The economy stayed small and undeveloped, with very low levels of export which focused around gold. At the beginning of 1850, tobacco and coffee exports helped create a class of merchants. However, this slight economic boom disproportionately benefited those who were part of the economic elite- landowners and commercial dealers. All of Colombia’s coffee was grown on small farms, while the industry was lead by the wealthy elite distributors who controlled the sale and export of the crops.

As Colombia’s economy grew and began to modernize in the 20th century, the old landowning class joined forces with the commercial class created by the economic boom due to coffee exports.

Colombia’s elite has always been made up of predominantly of Colombian nationals unlike other Latin American countries, where the export industries were largely foreign-owned. The country’s economic and political elites have a large influence over political power.

In Colombia, the political life consists of an unending clash between Liberal and Conservative interests. Both represented the interests of the elite. Broadly speaking, Conservatives defended the Church and were closer to the landowning class, while Liberals favored a secular state and were closer to the commercial class. The Liberals and Conservatives fought a series of bloody civil wars from the mid-19th century, as the elites battled each other for the spoils of government via peasant farmers recruited into the militia of their local party boss. Clashes between supporters of the two parties were particularly fierce from 1930, after the Conservatives lost grip of a 45-year hold on power. This political fighting was accompanied by unrest in the countryside over unequal land distribution, and violent repression of collective action, most notably with the army’s massacre of hundreds of striking banana workers near Santa Marta in 1928.

The most extreme period of this conflict (lasting from 1948 to 1957) is believed to have resulted in at least 200,000 deaths and has become known as la violencia. This occurred mainly due to the unresolved crisis of land distribution- there were mass numbers of people displaced, as armed groups took those against them from their land and other landowners took advantage of the fighting to take land for themselves.

Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, a Liberal politician, rose to national popularity after presenting powerful speeches that rallied against Colombia’s “oligarchy”. He accused the two parties of taking over the political system for their own needs and doing what they could to prevent real reform. Gaitán gained popularity all over the nation, particularly with the peasants and the urban working class, as he promised land redistribution and an end to the power of oligarchy. However, violence erupted throughout the whole country in April 1948 after he was assassinated in broad daylight on a street of the capital, Bogotá. The violence continued to escalate, with extreme brutality from both sides, during the regimes of two successive dictators (Laureano Gómez 1950-53, Gustavo Rojas Pinilla 1953-57), until a military junta took power on an interim basis in 1957.

As the violence continued, the two political sides of the elite saw that the turmoil in the countryside would threaten their positions. Therefore, the parties joined forces to support a military coup in 1953 against Conservative President Laureano Gómez, to replace him with General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, who promised to end La Violencia. This period was followed by one in which the Liberals and Conservatives agreed to collaborate to form the National Front government in 1958, which stated that the parties would take turns holding the presidency and would share all the government jobs equally between them for the next 16 years.

The next decades of power sharing, which excluded every other movement and gave an advantage to the elite fueled Colombian rebel groups. They made guerrilla groups scattered across the country, changing the conflict in Colombia from the Liberal-Conservative one, to a class war between the government and communist guerrilla groups. A number of guerrilla groups joined forces, to fight Colombia’s elite.

  1. The first called themselves the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, (fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia or FARC).They were Marxist and pro-Soviet, and many of those who joined were peasant groups who fought during la violencia.
  2. The second was made up of middle-class citizens who were closely aligned to Fidel Castro’s Cuba, and called themselves The National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional — ELN).
  3. The Popular Liberation Army (Ejército Popular de Liberación — EPL), was Maoist (following Mao Zedong) group based on peasant fighters.
  4. The 19th of April Movement (Movimiento 19 de Abril — M-19), an urban guerrilla that carried out high-profile actions to attract students and other disaffected youth.

Organized crime began to spike in this era, due to the lack of government presence in the country. For example, failure to distribute land forced people to colonize remote areas of Colombia where illegal crops were the only way to make a living- such a marijuana and poppy. Illegal drugs created regional economic booms in the 1970s and 1980s, kick-starting certain industries, such as construction, bringing a flood of illicit dollars into the country, and creating massive wealth for some of those involved in the industry.

 

March 1

Social Class structure in Colombia in the 20th century

There have always been marked distinctions of social class in Colombia, although twentieth-century economic development has increased social mobility to some extent. Colombians tended to be extremely status-conscious, and class membership was an important aspect of social life because it regulated the interaction of groups and individuals.

Classes distinguished by:

  1. Occupation
  2. Family
  3. Lifestyle
  4. Power
  5. Education
  6. Wealth
  7. Social status
  8. Race
  • Were very influenced by the Arab culture.
  • The arab culture was prominent because of trade and expensive agricultural products
  • Egypt was thought to be the most popular destination in that era.
  • We observe this in the story through names and arabic terms (ie: Naser)
  • The spanish language is heavily influenced by the arabs. It has Arabic roots.

THE UPPER CLASS:

The Colombian upper class largely consists of a wealthy white elite, some of whom trace their lineage to the aristocracy of the colonial era. The wealth of this privileged group is based mainly on the ownership of land and property. They were very successful in maintaining exclusiveness. The upper class also includes some people who accumulated wealth more recently, through commercial and entrepreneurial activities. The middle class grew as a result of industrialization and economic diversification in the 20th century. Historically, the middle class was small and politically passive, made up largely of those who had fallen from the aristocracy through loss of wealth and property. The newly rich people were not accepted in society as they were thought to be uncultured and uncultivated. 

THE MIDDLE CLASS:

It had developed since the 1920s. As a class, the various middle groups distinguished themselves from other members of society by regular employment in occupations that generally did not qualify them for membership in the elite. The members of the upper middle class tended to share a concern for culture and outward appearance, exhibited by conspicuous consumption. The middle class grew as a result of industrialization and economic diversification in the 20th century. Historically, the middle class was small and politically passive, made up largely of those who had fallen from the aristocracy through loss of wealth and property. During the 20th century, however, the middle class grew to include people who rose from the lower class by bettering themselves economically, including small-business owners, merchants, professionals, bureaucrats and government workers, professors and teachers, and white-collar workers.

THE LOWER CLASS AND THE MASSES:

Them and the masses together constituted the largest sector of rural and urban society–about 75 percent. The line between the lower class and the masses was fine; it was based more on an increased awareness of the social, economic, and political systems among members of the lower class than on any other criterion. Those at the upper levels of the lower class–organized labor, small farmers, merchants, and some white-collar workers– were in a transitional stage and possessed some attributes of middle-class status. The greatest portion of the population consists of the politically powerless lower class. Its members are poorly educated and do not have adequate housing, health care, or sanitation. Those who have jobs are low-paid manual laborers. Few of the benefits of economic growth have reached the poor. Rural areas have an agricultural system in which the wealthy elite owns estates.

March 7

Sons Of Oscar

Our sassy and fabulous overlord Oscar Wilde, (though being a homosexual) has fathered two children within his lifetime,  both male. The eldest being Cyril and the youngest called vyvyan (yes that’s how its spelt apparently). Though little is known about their childhood,  but it is known that while attending school they both had to hide their relationship with their father to the public even though they didn’t know why, their mother and Oscar’s wife Constance took the children to Switzerland following Oscar’s disgrace  in England  and changed the family name to Holland.  They were then enrolled within an English speaking school within Germany. A few years later she died in the year 1898, following this they were then brought back to England but separated from one another. As they grew older, they both eventually joined in the first great war with Cyril being killed in 1915 while vyvyan lived and wrote the book “wilde3sSons Of Oscar”