By Jorge Iván Cuervo R., EL ESPECTADOR, December 25, 2025
(Translated by Eunice Gibson, CSN Volunteer Translator)
This column will attempt to analyze this helter-skelter 2025.
We will start with the heroes and anti-heroes of the year. The anti-hero of the year is Donald Trump. He has decided to blow up the system of coexistence among nations that was based on respect for international norms, human rights, and sovereignty of peoples. He has also undermined the moral and constitutional principles of democracy in the United States, substituting hate for those who are different, be they immigrants or members of a minority. That’s accompanied by a concentration of power to the detriment of the functions of the Congress and the power of the judiciary, an authoritarian drift that encourages political projects in countries desiring to reproduce this reactionary revolt, and now with the support of one of the most important military powers on the planet.
The hero in the world is the President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has established himself as one of the figures resisting this worldwide reactionary wave. He has led his country through his own coup crisis from the Bolsonarist right and consolidated a common front with the President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, signaling a path of respect for democracy and its institutions. That leadership ought to be used to pressure a non-violent departure from power by Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, about which—we have to say it—he has had an ambiguous position.
The anti-hero in Colombia has been Interior Minister Armando Benedetti, who has brought his country only rage and noise—as if what the President offers on his X account were insufficient—but also bad maneuvering with the legislature, since several important reforms have gone down at his hands. President Petro—and the left—left their project of Change in the hands of an unscrupulous politician, who ended up blurring the image of an administration that had promised, among other things, to change the manner of governing and the administration’s relationship with Congress. Two former Ministers arrested, and several former officials on the run, is not exactly the image that we wanted to see from an “alternative government”.
The Hero of the year in Colombia was the Ombudsman, Iris Marin. She returned the Ombudsman’s Office to the protagonist role that it had lost in the hands of political intriguers as Ombudsmen. Now that entity has a presence in the entire countryside; it’s the new voice of the citizens, and of those marginalized in the pursuit of their rights. The fact that the administration has punished her with an important reduction in her agency’s budget speaks well of the way she has turned it into an inconvenient anti-establishment power.
Turning to culture, we see some books that I recommend you read as the year is ending: El Fin del Mundo Común, (The End of the World in Common) by the Spanish Mariam Martínez-Baskuñen, a dialog with Hannah Arendt’s book about the time of post-truth and the necessity of finding a place where our differences can be expressed without turning to cancellation and real or symbolic violence; El Rugido de Nuestro Tiempo (The Roar of Our Time), by Carlos Granés, a well-written and well-constructed book about the current culture war arguments and nationalist populisms; the posthumous book by Tatiana Andia—who helped us understand the concept of dying with dignity—Notas Interdisciplinarias (Interdisciplinary Notes), an anthology of her columns and other writings about the way she sees and understands the world; El Laberinto del Parqueadero Padilla, (The Labyrinth of the Padilla Parking Lot), by Diana Salinas, to understand the background story of paramilitarism in Colombia, that political and economic system that is still present in our public life.
I recommend three marvelous novels: Orbital, by Samantha Harvey, a hallucinatory staging of a group of astronauts living together in a Space Station where they exchange personal reflections and philosophical thoughts about people who view the world from afar; Incensurable, (Irreproachable), by Luna Miguel, a re-reading of Nabokov’s novel, Lolita, by a woman professor who despises it, but who reads it as a symbol of resistance to censorship and cancellation; and Oposición, by Sara Mesa, a contemporary portrait of the hell of bureaucracy, a worthy heir of Bartleby, the Scrivener by Melville.
In music, the album Lux de Rosalia stood out. It’s a marvelous conjunction of melody and letters far beyond the traditional; for those feeling nostalgic, the album Sad and Beautiful World by the legend of soul Mavis Staples, who at 86 years old gives us a powerful re-creation of several classics from the U. S. song book. In Colombia, we have to spotlight a new disc by Jorge Velosa and the 25 Carrangueros (Singers of folk songs) A Campo Traviesa (Across the Country), an exquisite selection of carranguero music, the pride of our Colombian folklore.