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| Short Walks from Bogotá by Tom Feiling – review | Short Walks from Bogotá by Tom Feiling – review |
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| "Do they have skyscrapers?" a London acquaintance innocently asks Tom Feiling, recently returned from Colombia. Short Walks from Bogotá sets out to unravel Colombia's complexities for those who have little conception of the country beyond cocaine, violence and the execution of footballer Andrés Escobar by drug barons following his own goal in the 1994 World Cup. In 2010, Feiling – a documentary maker who has worked for a human rights organisation in Colombia and written a well-received book, The Candy Machine, on its cocaine trade – returned to Bogotá, drawn by a Newsweek portrait of a country on the rise after years of civil war. "This country has moved from terrorism to tourism," the strong-arm then president Álvaro Uribe had announced, and Feiling reasoned the expected flood of visitors would need a primer. | "Do they have skyscrapers?" a London acquaintance innocently asks Tom Feiling, recently returned from Colombia. Short Walks from Bogotá sets out to unravel Colombia's complexities for those who have little conception of the country beyond cocaine, violence and the execution of footballer Andrés Escobar by drug barons following his own goal in the 1994 World Cup. In 2010, Feiling – a documentary maker who has worked for a human rights organisation in Colombia and written a well-received book, The Candy Machine, on its cocaine trade – returned to Bogotá, drawn by a Newsweek portrait of a country on the rise after years of civil war. "This country has moved from terrorism to tourism," the strong-arm then president Álvaro Uribe had announced, and Feiling reasoned the expected flood of visitors would need a primer. |
| Starting in the potholed capital Bogotá, he sets off on a series of excursions to areas beginning to open up after years of conflict. Along the way, he takes in the incredible variety of Colombia's geography, from lush tropical valleys to mountain ranges, coastal swamps and deep jungle. He also charts the sharp divisions among its 46 million people – the white-skinned 10% who control 80% of the country's wealth, the mixed-race 40% "who spend their lives working as hard as they can", and the darkest-skinned half of the population, who live in poverty in isolated rural regions or the slums that ring large cities. "We have first, second and third worlds living side by side," a Colombian friend tells Feiling. | Starting in the potholed capital Bogotá, he sets off on a series of excursions to areas beginning to open up after years of conflict. Along the way, he takes in the incredible variety of Colombia's geography, from lush tropical valleys to mountain ranges, coastal swamps and deep jungle. He also charts the sharp divisions among its 46 million people – the white-skinned 10% who control 80% of the country's wealth, the mixed-race 40% "who spend their lives working as hard as they can", and the darkest-skinned half of the population, who live in poverty in isolated rural regions or the slums that ring large cities. "We have first, second and third worlds living side by side," a Colombian friend tells Feiling. |
| As would-be builders of the Colombian state found in the 19th century, making sense of this diversity is no easy task. Looking back to the birth of the nation, Feiling highlights Britain's key role in the then Spanish colony's battle for independence in the early 1800s. The South American rebels appealing for military support in London were at first so impoverished they had to clothe volunteers in uniforms cast off by soldiers returning from the Napoleonic war – but as Simón Bolívar's struggle became a cause celebre, their new troops were soon dressed in "strikingly luxurious uniforms based on those of the Royal Artillery". | As would-be builders of the Colombian state found in the 19th century, making sense of this diversity is no easy task. Looking back to the birth of the nation, Feiling highlights Britain's key role in the then Spanish colony's battle for independence in the early 1800s. The South American rebels appealing for military support in London were at first so impoverished they had to clothe volunteers in uniforms cast off by soldiers returning from the Napoleonic war – but as Simón Bolívar's struggle became a cause celebre, their new troops were soon dressed in "strikingly luxurious uniforms based on those of the Royal Artillery". |
| Short Walks from Bogotá is inevitably dominated by more recent history: the almost 50-year-old conflict between the Farc and the Colombian state, inflamed by both rightwing paramilitary groups that sprang up in the 1990s, and the billions of dollars of US aid secured by the government to "fight narco-terrorism". Excellent chapters trace the murky dealings between the conflict's main players and follow ex-Farc guerrillas to a town in the hot, swampy Magdalena delta, resulting in a grim humour (in 2010 counter-insurgency troops decorated a 50-metre tree with Christmas lights to encourage guerrillas to hand in their weapons over the festive season). | Short Walks from Bogotá is inevitably dominated by more recent history: the almost 50-year-old conflict between the Farc and the Colombian state, inflamed by both rightwing paramilitary groups that sprang up in the 1990s, and the billions of dollars of US aid secured by the government to "fight narco-terrorism". Excellent chapters trace the murky dealings between the conflict's main players and follow ex-Farc guerrillas to a town in the hot, swampy Magdalena delta, resulting in a grim humour (in 2010 counter-insurgency troops decorated a 50-metre tree with Christmas lights to encourage guerrillas to hand in their weapons over the festive season). |
| Some of the best sections of the book illuminate the lives of ordinary people desperate for stability. Feiling is instinctively sceptical of privilege – the Facebook-using, cocktail-drinking young people of Bogotá's rich suburbs and western backpackers get short shrift. But he paints sympathetic portraits of Colombianos such as Pedro of the indigenous Nukak people, chased from his nomadic jungle lifestyle by guerrillas. | Some of the best sections of the book illuminate the lives of ordinary people desperate for stability. Feiling is instinctively sceptical of privilege – the Facebook-using, cocktail-drinking young people of Bogotá's rich suburbs and western backpackers get short shrift. But he paints sympathetic portraits of Colombianos such as Pedro of the indigenous Nukak people, chased from his nomadic jungle lifestyle by guerrillas. |
| Short Walks from Bogotá doesn't offer light beach reading for Colombia novices, but those who persist will find important insights into what Feiling calls "the most obsessive and introspective of all countries". | Short Walks from Bogotá doesn't offer light beach reading for Colombia novices, but those who persist will find important insights into what Feiling calls "the most obsessive and introspective of all countries". |