Multicultural Politics for Afro-Colombians

Abstract

In May of 2011, I received an invitation to the UN’s inaugural celebration of the International Year of Afrodescendants in Colombia. The event, a photographic exhibition in Bogotá’s most prestigious public library, was scheduled to open on May twentieth, the eve of Colombia’s anniversary of the abolition of slavery. The invitation, which was jointly circulated by the UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the National Association for Displaced Afro-Colombians (AFRODES), included two pictures taken by the featured photographers.¹ The first shows a middle-aged woman, barefoot and sitting on a plastic chair in the middle of a desolate and derelict room. Three young girls, also barefoot, are standing around her. The four of them look straight into the camera lens without the slightest hint of a smile. Although it is impossible to identify the nature of the room, the viewer is tempted to surmise that this was the women’s home but is left wondering whether the marks on the wall behind them are the “normal” result of the passage of time and the scarcity of money, or the product of a relentless barrage of bullets. In the second photo we see an older man with his face opposite to the camera, hands behind his back, head tilted down, contemplating the room before him in a gesture of resignation. Strewn across the floor in front of him are the contents of a battered file cabinet and bookcase.