Dear Participants of the WUF7,
Welcome to Medellín! This is my city, which I love. Called the “City of Eternal Spring” and voted in 2013 the “Innovative City of the Year”, it is the only one in Colombia with a metro, which feeds a cable car system that conquers the mountain.
We are home to prominent cultural centres such as the Museum of Antioquia and the Modern Art Museum (MAMM), the museum-houses of Pedro Nel Gómez (muralist) and Otraparte (of the philosopher Fernando González, in Envigado) and the parques-biblioteca (libraries).
When Anthony Bourdain visited us, he declared before savouring the taste of typical breakfast from the mountains of Antioquia, the “calentao” (left-overs meal): “You don’t do things in a small way!”
He didn’t know how right he was.
Allow me to lift the carpet: let me present you the other Medellín. I love this one as well.
Observe the mountains west of the Valley of Aburrá; here is the Comuna 13. Years ago, on a hill known as La Escombrera (the dump), families prepared Sunday stews, while children flew kites and climbed fruit trees. From the treetops they had battles... with mango seeds.
In 2002, the army and the paramilitaries (testimonies from the Justice and Peace Process) launched Operation Orion, to expel urban guerrillas. There were clashes. Helicopters fired from above the houses, over those roofs that today are brightly painted in different colours. Civilians had to take their chances.
La Escombrera hides corpses.
Let’s go to the Centre. A couple of blocks from our emblematic Museum, they auction the virginity of poor girls. These heinous practices are carried out for the most part by criminal gangs (“combos”).
Has the number of deaths gone down? Compare those numbers with statistics of impunity.
The most beautiful houses in Medellín are in the Prado-centro neighbourhood, which ―most likely― you will not be taken to see, due to insecurity and the fact that this is living proof of the lack of respect we have for our heritage.
This is a historic moment: we want to heal. In the Museum House of Memory, we are trying to reconcile amidst the pain. We desperately need a neutral approach, detached from politicking, the lust for power and excessive egos.
We need expert, pluralist and dispassionate points of view, to transform our deep inequality. No more hiding.
I invite you to explore the social truth behind the Golden Mile; the cultural reality beyond Juanes and Fernando Botero.
We’re like those baby birds that hurl themselves upwards to conquer the sky, but crash when they spread the wings. Dominated by instinct, we refuse to recognise that we first need to learn to fly.
I am writing in English to avoid the “negotiation of meaning” behind any translation. My regular readers well know the described reality.
![[En video] Cinco gatos perezosos captados en video](http://estaticos.elcolombiano.com/binrepository/426x224/38c0/349d224/none/11101/NLQC/cinco-gatos-perezosos-imagen-destacada_48240368_20250704164734.jpg "[En video] Cinco gatos perezosos captados en video")
