February 8, 2022. el Espectador
Since Sunday we have had a magazine in cyberspace and on the radar of our criteria: it is called Cambio, and it has life because its managers have taken the courage to face the challenges from within, from the truthful news and conscientious opinion. Cambio arrived at a crucial moment (yes, I know, we live “from cruciality to cruciality”) but what we have at stake in the coming months – more than an electoral result – is the social viability of our country; the urgency of achieving a ceasefire in the midst of this eruption of new and accumulated violence. We are on the verge of knowing and understanding the puzzle of the truth; to look at our own history and stop denying the responsibility of each one of us in the horrors committed. Please do not miss Pacho de Roux’s column in this first issue: he is one of the people Colombia needs to read, to see if one day we can heal our hearts.
We must make up for lost time and move forward in the construction of total peace. It will be difficult, but not impossible, to rehabilitate the trust and integrity of the institutions, and to turn the social rift into a fabric of strength and dignity. No one is going to resurrect our dead (at least not in this life), but it is urgent to banish the culture of lead, the target shooting in the back and the constant threat lurking behind and in front of doors. Change is here to help us sift and discern – warning: stay away from those who consider ignorance and gagging to be staples.
Change has arrived, because the country needs to change the way it sees itself, until 50 million Colombians understand that we are not cannon fodder, nor dummies in the trenches; that we were not born to be victims, nor is it normal for people to be killed in the jungle and in the reserves, in the rivers and 2,600 metres closer to the stars. Deliver us, Truth, from the smog of habit, and from the sordid fog of indolence. Deliver us from vested interests, from truisms and falsehoods masquerading as redemption. Cambio has arrived, and arrived strong, with a community of publishers, editors and authors, founding subscribers and thousands of readers from whom we expect a willingness to unlearn deceptions and learn realities, however hard they may be. I applaud its editorial line and the vast majority of its columnists. I applaud those who had the dream and knew how to make it come true: they are playing their hearts out to contribute elements of analysis, democracy and revenge, not even with the puppets and puppeteers who left such a low bar to preside over this unhinged country, and the difficulty of putting us back together so high.
Welcome Change. I don’t know how many of the news items presented to us every day will be painful; how many of its reporters will have to fill their souls and boots with gloom, with heartbreaking scenes and bitter testimonies. But when you think about it, there is nothing more bitter than the complicit silence or the denunciation that could have been made but was not.
With the arrival of Cambio I have thought a lot about a man who was born in San Pedro de los Milagros, in April 1854; he marked the path of independent and liberal journalism in Colombia. He taught six generations not to be afraid, and to defend freedom with no other weapons than thought, words and truth. His name was Fidel Cano and he founded this house of El Espectador.
