Saturday, 23 June 2012

Pablo Escobar, The Lord of Evil, and the politics of memory


'The Lord of Evil', Caracol Television's dramatisation of the life of Pablo Escobar is the first time that Colombian television has attempted an in-depth exploration of the most violent and successful criminal of the 20th century.

Over the course of 60 hours, The Lord of Evil, will retell the rags to riches story of the man that brought cocaine to the masses, and who threatened to bring down the Colombian state. In 1989, Escobar was the world's seventh richest man, and his Medellin Cartel was responsible for over 80% of the world's cocaine trade.

Despite his brutal criminality, Escobar is a figure often idolised, at home in Colombia, and in the West. There are those on the left who view Escobar as a sort of Latin American Robin Hood, and there are others who in homage to the man who brought them cheap cocaine, snort lines off his grave in Medellin. Escobar is a mythological figure, second not even to Garcia Marquez in the contest for Colombia's most famous personality.

Caracol Television's series is a brave attempt to show the world what Escobar was really like. It encourages those misguided souls who worship his memory to ask themselves whether they feel greater sympathy for the get-rich-quick-at-any-cost-capitalism of Escobar, or for the families of those who still suffer with the memory of those they lost to the depravity of Escobar evil's empire.

The programme has, three weeks into its mammoth run, attracted historically high ratings. There is virtually blanket coverage across the media outlets. Yet the programme transcends its principal role as television entertainment - it is a form of truth commission, opening the pages of the past and urging the world not to forget the evil of narco-terrorism, not to be seduced by the Hollywood image of either Escobar himself, or the cocaine trade.

A reign of terror

Escobar was killed on 2 December 1993, but the scars of the wounds he inflicted on the country remain. In the 80s and 90s Colombia was considered by the outside world as a failed or a failing state. Pablo Escobar is in large part culpable for the criminalisation, the paramilitarisation, and the narco-politicisation of Colombia.

Escobar's obsession was power, absolute power. He used drugs to get rich quick and he used the power this gave him to try to shape the political direction of the country, manipulating it for his own benefit.

Those that had the audacity to speak out against Escobar's criminal activities, like presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan, Justice Minister, Rodrigo Lara Bonilla or Guillermo Cano, the editor of El Espectador newspaper were silenced, assassinated in cold blood.

Escobar was ruthless and despotic. He paid sicarios (hired-guns) to kill over 600 Medellin policemen, and in 1988, put an end to the work of Colombia's Chief Prosecutor, Carlos Mauro Hoyos, who had bravely dedicated his career to fighting corruption in the political class.

Anything that stood in Escobar's way was kidnapped, shot dead or bombed. This was a man who bought a seat in Colombia's Congress, and who attempted to buy the presidency of the country.

Those who defend Escobar point to the money he spent helping the poor, constructing houses for Medellin's most destitute, and that he built the foundations of communes that exist today in Colombia's second city.  

But, it is impossible to view Escobar's benevolence as anything other than Machiavellian. Caracol's series shows how these acts bought him votes, and how they tricked those gullible enough to believe Escobar's pseudo-socialism was evidence of political conviction rather than of political calculation.

Glamourising Pablo?

There are mixed feelings in Colombia about Caracol's series. While there is consensus that the production and the acting makes the programme perhaps the most impressive piece of television in Colombian history, there is concern about what effect it will have on the society. 

Take for example the message that appears at the start of each episode - "Those who know not their history are condemned to repeat it". The fear among many Colombians is that reminding people of Escobar's 'successes' will in fact perpetuate his legacy - through the seduction of thousands of the country's young into the criminal lifestyle of the narcos.

But it is not necessarily Caracol's series itself that Colombians are uneasy about, rather the context in which it is being broadcast. Colombian television has long been guilty of over-glamourising the country's cartels and narco-traffickers.  The country's two channels, RCN and Caracol devote far too little scheduling to documentaries or dramas that explore the real damage to society of Colombia's number one export. Instead, the airwaves are full of telenovelas like Sin Tetas no hay Paraiso, or El Cartel de los Sapos which act as propaganda comically and sympathetically portraying the 'patrones' and their henchmen as lovable rogues. 

It is easy to understand those who fear another generation will be consumed by the undeniable appeal of easy money, and the fast and beautiful women that these novelas present as the narco-reality. 

But, Escobar is not a telenovela; Yes, it is a drama with commercial appeal, but it also develops a considered thesis, exploring with nuance the political and societal implications of Escobar's pursuit of money and power. 

We should not be surprised that the programme seeks to present not only the story of Escobar, but also those of his victims: Its producers Juana Uribe and Camilo Cano, were themselves directly affected by Escobar's sicarios, (Uribe is the niece of Luis Carlos Galan, and Cano the son of Guillermo Cano). The sheer expanse of over 60 hours of television allows Uribe and Cano to explore different sides of the story, to interrogate the politics of Galan, and the bravery of Guillermo Cano - something a 90 minute Hollywood production could never do.

Remembering Escobar 

Escobar was the pioneer narco-trafficker; the criminality and trade he generated consumed Colombia at the time, and continues to have a hold on the country. Escobar was the first but not the last narco-parliamentarian, he was the first but not the last patron.

Escobar is often praised for the work he did to help the poor. But Escobar's legacy has impoverished Colombia, her society lives today with the violence directly and indirectly caused by narco-trafficking, and her politics remain open to threats from criminal gangs hell-bent on perverting the law in their favour. Those who Escobar helped have lost out too, their poverty made intractable by Colombia's national suffering and instability, their barrios overrun by sicarios and drug-gangs.

It is the painful truth that Escobar's reign of terror was not simply against those in power, it turned against the entire Colombian society. Escobar directly targeted the innocent, unleashing a wave of attacks. The most grisly of these was the bomb that hit the DAS building in Bogota on 6 December 1989. Over 500 were injured and 33 killed as a result of this bomb - Escobar was declaring war on his own people.

Despite the mythology, the fact is Escobar was a man who killed without remorse, and who sacrificed the future of a nation for his own monetary gain. Caracol television shows us that it is our moral duty to remember the truth, and not to be seduced by those who wish to re-write history in Escobar's favour.