By Nicolás Rodríguez, EL ESPECTADOR, April 7, 2023
https://www.elespectador.com/opinion/columnistas/nicolas-rodriguez/la-penultima-escena/
(Translated by Eunice Gibson, CSN Volunteer Translator)
A good picture for reflecting on our sins was published these days by the newspaper EL COLOMBIANO with the headline, “A Body Blow: They seized more than four tons of marijuana in the Pacific region”. It’s also circulating on the Colombian Navy’s official Twitter account.
In the image we see four people carrying weapons and a series of coarse sacks of marijuana, organized with the esthetic logic used in such seizures. On this occasion, a visual effect that could really be considered biblical was given priority: the accumulation of sacks seemed to have no end. The quantity seized seems to be increasing in the picture; it’s spilling over the frame and continues beyond. The miracle of the multiplication. An ocean of marijuana.
We are at the staging of the war on drugs itself, in spite of the power of the historic blows by the authorities, it’s always resurrected. In the legal-military language of the headlines, the beginning of the end is repeated like a religious mantra. The passion of the soldiers for the guardianship of their seized shipments also lives on in the present. It’s a passion that is, in fact, transnational; whatever kind of creativity that’s shown when it’s time to exhibit plants is shared with Latin American police and soldiers.
The script of the guardianship continues to be prohibitionism. In the picture, it’s clear that we disciples of the United States still believe with faith and devotion in the necessity for sacrifice. After repeating this for so many years, instead of valor and heroism, the staging suggests defeat, tragedy, and high doses of tedium.
That’s not all. Now we understand that, after a process of negotiations between the basketball players and the leadership of the NBA, the players are no longer forbidden to use marijuana. In view of what the Colombian Navy has shown us with so much pride, the news coming from the United States and its gods of the sport could not be more ridiculous.
We are now immersed in the lands of comedy.