The class war in Colombia has many facets, but the more noticeable, every-day side is monetary. The middle-lower classes who are working hard to improve their conditions are constantly faced with infinite barriers to even the smallest attempt and I truly believe this should be a priority for developing more prosperity and equality in this country.

Banking and taxes

The banking system in Colombia disproportionately discriminates against the middle and lower classes. Colombia's inflation rate in 2015 was around 4.5%. However, it is incredibly difficult for regular families to obtain bank loans and those who do get given extortionate interest rates often over 20%. It is clear to see who the winners and losers are in this equation. Many families are stuck between a rock and a hard place, not applying for credit and living with rising prices and inflation but with stagnating salaries, or get credit and be faced with almost impossible repayment rates. 

Colombians are taxed 0.4% on every single type of bank transaction, including withdrawing money from cash point, promissory notes, wire transfers, internet banking, bank drafts and bank checks, money on term deposit, overdrafts and installment loans. In addition, Colombians are charged around $9,000 a month to just have a debit card and withdraw only 4 times per month from a cash point and this increases if you want to withdraw more. This is why most people simply don't have debit cards so have to spend hours every week queuing in the banks to see their statements and withdraw or move money. I have seen on countless occasions hoards of manual labourers sat outside banks for hours on end just to access their weekly salaries. In addition, paying household bills and phone bills requires you to physically go to a supermarket and queue up for ages to pay them. Even if you can pay online, most do not due to the charges for having a debit card. So, not only is the class war directly monetary, it also indirectly affects development and wellbeing as it takes up valuable time that could be spent working or looking after family. 

Similarly, getting your tax code sorted or changed, or applying to start up a business requires several physical visits to a DIAN office, the national tax authority. Not only does this take up a lot of time, as you may have to wait hours or an entire day to be seen (I have had the pleasure of such visits), these offices are only located in the major cities meaning that for the poorest or most remote rural communities, this is an incredible expense of time and money. Thus, the class war is not just between strata, but also shows the strong urban bias. These taxes, whether official or unofficial, exacerbate the wealth gap and do not affect the rich who can afford to pay the fees to save themselves time, and money in the long run. The poor, however, do not have the luxury of long-term planning, so are faced with these small, but significant, every day costs. Mortgage rates are also extortionate and I know people who, in the 80s and 90s has interest rates of up to 25%. Nowadays, rates are up to 12% which is over 10 times higher than in most of Europe. It doesn't help that, in Colombia, 3 banks own 80% of the mortgage market. A monopoly that is common in the country, ranging all the way from banking to nappies and toilet paper.

One of the factors exacerbating Colombia's inequality and class divisions is the lack of proper regulation. The whole economic system needs reform from the bottom up, decentralising the tax offices and fairer, more pro-poor banking regulations would be a start to enable easier access for the non-rich to not only credit, but their own hard earned cash. In addition, interest rates must be tied to inflation. There needs to be a long-term vision that acknowledges the benefits of having more financial empowerment for the middle and lower classes. Having a stronger middle class, less inequality and poverty would mean a stronger consumer base who purchase more products and invest in their children's futures, in addition to more taxes being paid that could be reinvested in infrastructure and education.

Pensions

Apart from the banking system, there are numerous ways in which financial mechanisms are designed unfairly to benefit the rich. One that I feel is the most shocking and exemplifies this and the corruption in Colombia is the pension system. 

Only 1/10 Colombians of working age have a pension fund, due to high levels of informality, and unemployment, and of those, many are never able to receive their money and, therefore, can never retire. In order to access your public pension, you have to have logged 1,300 weeks of work (or 25 years), meaning that many people, mostly women, who end up working less due to childcare responsibilities, or people who suffer from medical problems in middle age, could work for 24 years, for example, and pay thousands of pounds into a pension and never see a penny of it. 

The private pension funds people can pay into are no better. In fact, they have been known to steal and suffer from a lack of regulation, which would arguably only bring them up to the abysmal level of the public pension system anyway. In private funds, you need to have 180,000,000 pesos in your pension before you can access it. So, if you earn the minimum wage, as over 55% of the population do, not only would you be putting money into your pension that you desperately need to live on as the wage is too low, you would have to work for over 150 years in order to even receive it. Pensions in Colombia, therefore, disproportionately affect the poor. They are part of such a complicated system that not even educated people would easily be able to understand it. I know an accountant who has spent hours figuring it out and barely understands it. It is there to trick people into giving away their money and not receiving anything in return. 

The injustice of the pension system is clear when you read about the corruption that has come to define it. Even if you are able to make a claim to your public or private pension, your pension may be denied to you on the basis that you do not have enough savings or years logged, or fraudulent action will take place and your documents will be altered illegally to make you look ineligible. On top of this, many high level congressmen and magistrates fixed the pension system to give themselves extremely high pensions illegally or outright stealing hundreds of thousands of pounds from the pension fund. There are also currently thousands of court cases where people are suing the government due to their pension funds being mysteriously emptied, which often result in an unfavourable outcome as it is the judges and magistrates who are profiting from this theft. The government has complete impunity.  

Even if Colombians manage to receive their pensions, they will get it heavily reduced due to complicated algorithms that could see them only getting around 65% of what they expected, and on top of that, the average life expectancy in Colombia is only an average of 73 years, meaning that people will only get their pension for 12 years. However, the majority of people of retirement age and over have not choice but to keep paying into their pension fund and work until their dying day.

This is not the usual lack of safety nets that are all too common here. This is the elites and the government consciously stealing from its own people. It is such a clear misuse of power and should be punishable by huge jail sentences, but it will remain unchanged due to the unequal balance of power and the fact that many Colombians are unable to fight such a unjust system. It is devastating that millions of hardworking individuals have to face such stress and disappointment in old age to access something that they are legally entitled to and see that their money is actually being used to fill the pockets of the elites. 

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Crucially, solving these problems and class divisions requires the allocation of rights to all, not just the rich and for those in power to lead by example of transparency and fairness. Crime and violence in the lower classes are rooted in the current inequality and elitism, where the lower classes have little choice but to resort to quick methods of earning money since the official mechanisms are stacked against them. Similarly, crime and violence in the upper classes, as a means of exerting control and obtaining more power, are also a key factor in this inequality. The powerful and the government have a duty to promote a culture of trust and responsibility, rather than the one of suspicion, individualism and corruption that currently exists. The key is to to grow a real middle class, redistribute wealth and pull people out of poverty, while condoning corrupt and unfair practices in the financial and banking sector. This might be asking for too much, but you have to start somewhere. Getting rid of charges to access your own bank account and allowing people to actually retire would be a great start. 

This inequality and class war is certainly not limited to economics, see my posts about inequality and poverty for more on this topic. 

I felt I needed to address this issue as it is a real problem I have faced in Colombia, and something that I have noticed is one of the important but less tangible challenges to the future of the country. I hope to explain this issue respectfully and feel, like the title of my blog, it is better for everyone to be honest in order to find solutions.

One of the most difficult things to contend with here is that many Colombians will fight tooth and nail and become extremely defensive when someone addresses the problems that are so visible in their country. Poverty, corruption, poor roads, they see it as an attack, no matter who brings it up. Taking a brief look at the comments section under newspaper articles or blogs about issues in Colombia is enough for you to get a feel of this reaction, not to mention the offensive comments I have received. There is often a lot of 'so you think Colombia is the only country with this problem?', 'if you don't like it here, go home' or them telling me how terrible Europe is and how perfect Colombia is. Clearly not very productive or conducive to change. But it is important to be aware of this mentality as it can be very difficult to manage even when you can have the best intentions. 

Of course, there may be an element of hostility towards a foreigner's observations which may seem judgmental, but I know some Colombians who are also met with the same abject horror and denial when they bring up what should be a normal topic of conversation. In addition, the  global elite benefit from such a mentality as multi-nationals and governments take advantage of countries like Colombia where the powerful essentially give away natural resources and cheap labour. So it should be in every Colombian's interest to be honest about social and political issues in order to reclaim their country from the hands on the powerful few.

Colombia is a country of contrasts like all other countries and its human rights and violence record demands for people to speak out. You can still love where you come from and acknowledge it isn't perfect. The two aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, I would say that you love your country more by not letting future generations be satisfied with less than they deserve. 

Although the popular slogan for Colombia is 'the only risk is wanting to stay' (see my post of safety for why this is not true), I would say that a bigger risk is this mentality of denial and boundless pride which leads to a covering up of problems that affect millions of people. It means anyone who wants to make improvements gets shut up before they've even finished their sentence and it creates this romanticised language portraying perfection. Countless people that I have met have repeated that in Cali and/or Colombia, "we live in paradise". I am not saying they shouldn't love their country or city, but it exemplifies the language that allows for very little objective observation or room for improvement. I don't believe anywhere is paradise and people should be allowed to voice their concerns and put pressure on policymakers to grant them more rights, whether it is in Colombia, the USA or Norway.

There is clearly an agenda in government to push this vision of Colombia and just during my time here, I have seen many public campaigns stating how perfect Colombia is. The most disturbing was part of the 'De Cali se habla bien' campaign which depicted Caleños with quotation marks saying things like 'Cali, the best city on the planet' (this is a direct quote). Many of these only showed the white, privileged few in luxurious surroundings, and those that did show mixed race or black Caleños, still printed incredibly positive messages that do not reflect the reality of people's lives here. I feel resources would be better spent actually investing in infrastructure, basic rights and reversing corruption, than in campaigns such as these which do not allow people to recognise that they deserve better.

The graffiti art I took a picture of (above), although exaggerating, expresses this sentiment: 'fucked, but happy' (‘jodido pero contento’). Many people here are suffering, whether rich or poor, due to social, economic or environmental problems, but they find ways to convince others and themselves that they are completely happy. As a result, the status quo is never successfully been challenged and people’s expectations of a good society are maintained low. For example, when I have had conversations about the fact that I believe that all humans deserve quality state-funded healthcare and education and that is how it is back in Europe, I have been met with laughter and some Colombians have said that the European governments must be stupid for giving it away like that or that there must be some sort of catch. People expect very little and are very happy when they get something small. This is both the thing I love and hate the most here. It is inspiring to see people pick out the good in difficult situations, but it is such a barrier to change if the rest is ignored.

There are many distractions here to ensure that people overlook their lack of safety and opportunities that should be granted to them by the state. Potential complaints are often drowned out by loud music or avoided by dancing, football, alcohol or drugs (as the graffiti depicts). Distractions are a natural response to a life of hardship and people trying to make the best of a situation or a society in which those who have spoken out in the past have been unsuccessful at best, or physically silenced at worst. But I worry that people are letting these distractions be imposed or maintained by those who benefit from having a population that, on the whole, believe the lie that they do not have the right to more. 

As I mentioned in my post about poverty, and as I found in my dissertation work with poor people, there is a phenomenon here with denial and a preference to show that you are better off than you actually are. Denial is often a coping mechanism when faced with problems that people do not know how to fix. However, this creates a stagnation of ideas and progress which plays perfectly into the hands of the elites who benefit from such a system and can afford to pay extortionate amounts for healthcare, education and the illusion of safety. It certainly is a sort of paradise for the rich, but even they would live better if more rights were demanded for all. 

In my view, Colombians can either accept mediocrity, let the powerful elites continue to rule the country and propagate the idea that they live in paradise, or they can understand the reality, which may not be pleasant, but leads to standards being raised. The government also has a huge responsibility to improve the educational system in order to promote this sort of thinking and make people agents of change. I know it may seem impossible to overcome the issues here so it is easier to deny or romanticise, but people deserve more and the first step should be raising awareness and educating children who are the future leaders of the country.

I am not asking for people to be negative, and there is such a charm to colombians’ outlook on life, I am asking for a space for honest conversation, the lack of which is a real problem. I know people who have had to remove blogs on a similar topic due to the abuse and threats they received. The fact that even I had to pad out my blog with monotonous drivel about what to do and eat in order to dilute the impact of socioeconomic and political commentary is another example of this, but I hope that one day critical thought will be permitted more publicly. 

If you are interested in this sort of topic, I invite you to read my very first blog post about Colombia having been announced as the third best country in the world, and how social conditioning and pride play a part in skewing such studies.

Safety is often the number one priority of travelers and expats going to Colombia (or it should be!). This post will detail some of my thoughts and experiences on safety here and, again, I will be being honest so no sugarcoating!

Although there has been a huge effort recently by the Colombian government to market it as a safe place for tourists (with the slogan being ‘The only risk is wanting to stay’) and much of what I have read online has emphasised that it is safe, the agenda behind the government's efforts is clear, and many tourists or expats often use the fact that they themselves have not been victims as a justification for this view. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the society as a whole or, indeed, for many other expats I know. 

This is by far the most dangerous place I have ever been to and Cali is often named the most dangerous city in Colombia. The news here is inundated with accounts of individuals being murdered by sicarios (hit men) or held up at gun/knife point to steal their jewelry, money or phones. Not to mention the incredible threat of paramilitaries who rule many rural areas. Threats such as these are often invisible to tourists and expats, but are so very real for the people of Colombia.

Although I have not been mugged myself, I have seen two muggings (one in Cali in broad daylight, one in Bogotá at night) and when I lived here in 2011, my flatmate was violently mugged on our street in the day. You can vastly minimise the risks here by avoiding certain areas, not showing jewelry or having your phone out in public and definitely not being out at night alone. A lot of it is about common sense, but this does not mean that Colombia is safe, it just means that you have to figure out how to navigate its persistent insecurity. 

Snapshot of insecurity:

• My boyfriend’s dad always keeps his money in his sock when he leaves the house.
• All employees at CIAT where I work have their bags checked when we leave at the end of the day in case we stole something.
• Most upper strata houses and flats are protected by electrified fences and armed guards. Nevertheless, these do not necessarily prevent break-ins from people living in your complex.
• It is illegal in most urban areas to have two men on a motorbike as this is the classic way that hit men kill people and have a quick getaway.
• I never have my handbag on my lap in the car as a common type of robbery is for a motorbike to drive up next to you at a red light break the window and steal it.
• Cars rarely stop at red lights after around 10 at night since you are an easy target for thieves or carjackings. 
• Just yesterday my boyfriend's parents stopped at a traffic light in the afternoon and dozens of men jumped out of vans and a bus to rob the 10 or so cars in front of them.
• You are not allowed to use your phone in banks as a classic way for people to be robbed is for a thief to be in the bank and check who is withdrawing lots of cash and ring his friend outside to tell him what they look like so they can be followed and mugged. This is because hardly any people have debit cards here as they are expensive so withdraw lots of cash in banks.

 

Guns: I will simply never get used to the amount of guns you see here. All police and private security guards carry guns at all time. Wherever you go you will encounter someone in uniform with a huge gun often pointing at people-height, rather than it being safely in a holder or pointing to the ground. It is extremely uncomfortable and a constant reminder of the security-issues here. 

Murders: A recent poll showed that the locals believe that the value of a life is one of the least respected in Cali. Within a 10 day period a few months ago, 11 people had been murdered in Cali, two of them in the same shopping centre on different days, another in a park, just shot at point-blank range, and the others in a mass execution at a local residence. Until Christmas day in Cali, there were 1484 violent killings in 2014 and the month of December recorded 114 murders. On the 1st January, there were 14 murders which was the highest number recorded in recent years. In the first 3 months of 2015, there were 321 murders in Cali alone, almost 4 a day. There is a significant risk of violence in clubs and partying areas like la 66, Granada, Juanchito and Menga, with an average of 400 guns and knives being seized by police per night on a weekend. 

Colombia also has one of the highest rates of forced disappearances with over 30,000 people in 2008. This figure is likely to be significantly more in reality and many of those should be included in the murder rates. Of course, you are very unlikely to be a victim of violence if you are not involved in some sort of crime yourself, but it is still a concern that these things are so common and that so many people carry concealed weapons. Shootings are common in Colombian cities and these still may be safer than some rural areas where hundreds are routinely murdered or attacked for economic or political reasons (see my post on poverty for an overview on paramilitaries).

The roads: There are practically no laws or rules when it comes to the roads here. Like many countries in the South, Colombia is a country of motorbikes (since cars are so expensive) that swerve in and out of huge motorway type roads in the middle of cities. Instead of wing-mirror checks before overtaking or pulling out, drivers here just go and rely on the oncoming traffic to beep at them to stop. I see at least 1 crash a day here. In addition, it is incredibly easy to get your license here as you just pay to take a 'course' of a few days which involves a little driving and then you get your license. There is no actual test. On top of this, the roads here are pretty terrible and barely maintained. So these hordes of poor quality drivers and motorbikes not only have to watch out for each other's bad driving but also constantly swerve huge pot holes. It makes for quite an unnerving experience but one I will (hopefully) get used to as I did three years ago.

Healthcare: This all ties in with security because the health service is what is supposed to help you after an incident that breaches your security. One thing I really struggle to get my head around is the fact that, since here most healthcare is private, there is no centralised phone number to access emergency services. I have asked many people what would happen if I was in a crash or was injured in public, who would they call for an ambulance? Most said they had no idea and, even if they knew the number for their personal private health insurance emergency line, it doesn't mean it would be mine and, therefore, I would not be covered in their hospital. I find this so bizarre and very dangerous since this means vital minutes are taken up trying to figure out who to call or changing the patient's hospital because the ambulance that was called was not the right one. 

Everyone’s experience of safety in Colombia varies greatly, but just from the everyday habits of Colombians to change their behaviour to minimise the risk, it is clear that it is still an inherent problem. I would advise people to completely avoid going to Menga, one of the most dangerous parts for partying, and Juanchito, do not hesitate to hand over your belongings to a thief, do not go off with strangers and always order a taxi in advance. 

I don't intend to scare anyone off but, like the title of my blog, I feel it is better to be honest and not underestimate the risks here. Again, you are very very unlikely to be killed if you have no involvement in any illicit activities and don't get yourself involved in aggressive situations, but if you are traveling around or living in Colombia, you need to be careful and not 'dar papaya', a common phrase here which means to risk, but literally means to give papaya!

One of the most difficult things about living in Colombia is the high rate of poverty. You are constantly reminded of a plethora of social injustices just by stepping out of your front door. People searching through bins for food, people begging at traffic lights who only own the clothes on their backs, and this is without setting foot into really poor areas. On my journey to work through an upper-class area, I see many people sleeping on pavements or patches of grass looking incredibly thin and dirty. You also see people washing themselves or their clothes in the scarce fountains throughout the city or in the dirty rivers. Although much of the popular talk in the media and in blogs emphasises the vast improvements Colombia has made in the last decade, I can't help but think that it is mere propaganda or denial and I hope to give my experience of poverty in Cali and in Colombia to clear up some possible misconceptions.

To put the situation here into context, Colombia is the second poorest country in South America, after Bolivia and, in 2009, 32.7% of Cali's population was officially classed as poor. In Cali, 5.4% of the land area is occupied by slums and which officially house over 40,000 people. The International Labor Organization (ILO) highlights that among salaried workers, Colombia has one of the worst rates of poverty in the entire world (measured as $1.25 and $2 per day), with similar rates as Bhutan, Niger and Burkina Fasso, meaning that even the tiny minimum wage ($616.000) is not enforced. My boyfriend's parent's cleaner, for example, told them that her husband earns the minimum wage and is considered very lucky.