I read a travel article by Nomadic Matt. He stated in the article that when visiting Colombia, you shouldn’t take any tours having to do with Pablo Escobar. Be sensitive to the people of Colombia. I understood what he was saying. Beneath all of it, he was saying that this man caused so many murders and so much pain and turmoil in that country, so don’t go there and fetishize it and insulting the citizens by taking a Pablo Escobar tour. And there are plenty of them. Imagine my surprise when I took of tour of Comuna 13 and our tour guide kept pointing out houses that Pablo Escobar had built and talked about all of the money he’d given away to people that lived in that particular neighborhood. None of us that were on the tour asked him about it. He just kept telling us, it was like he was trying to change our minds about the persisting narrative about this man [even though nobody asked].
It reminded me of my time in Senegal. A few months earlier, I was hanging out a beach side restaurant and bar. Somehow, we got on the subject of Gadafi [don’t ask me how, I truly don’t remember]. I told them how Gadafi had been painted as villain by American media. I’d never paid much attention the subject, I just knew that he supposedly was supposed to be a bad guy. They told me that that wasn’t true. He was painted that way by American and French media because he didn’t go along with either of their agendas. They told me he was Pan-African, and he wanted to unite all African countries and for African nations to reassert their power. Since this idea doesn’t follow American or French ideals, they didn’t like him.
These were two instances where I got alternative perspectives on men that clearly caused division in opinion. However, it did lead me to wonder about the suggestions in Matt’s article. If these “Pablo Escobar” tours were so terrible, then why did Colombians give them. It’s usually locals or people that were directly involved with Escobar that give these tours. It’s not a secret that Colombia is an inexpensive country to travel to. The dollar goes far there and many Colombians run business and hustle in order to live. Part of that hustle is tourism. If Colombians know that foreigners are interested in this aspect of their history, if they choose to create tours based on them to take money, then wouldn’t taking the tour help to support them economically?
Sometimes people’s morals come with a certain amount of privilege (I’m not saying conducting these tours makes these tour guides immoral, I have no do in this fight either way). However, sometimes, having money and coming from places where there a various opportunity allows one to take the moral high ground whereas being in a less privileged position may change someone’s mind about morals and what is considered the “right” or “wrong” thing to do in a moment.
Would I ever take an “Escobar” tour. Not really. Colombia is such a beautiful country and has so much to offer that that would be the last thing on my list to check out, but I also wouldn’t judge the next person who did choose to take such a tour. Morals tend to fluctuate based on where you stand in life, so who am I to judge either way?