Isabel Peñaranda is an anthropologist from Columbia University with a MA in history, and candidate for a MA in urban and regional planning based in Bogotá, Colombia. She is also currently a member of her neighborhood’s “Paro Committee.”
With its recent general strike and continued mobilizations, Colombia has joined the global wave of unrest. If the movement can resist right-wing president Iván Duque’s attempts at co-optation, it could lay the groundwork for the transformation of a society long characterized by inequality and militarized brutality.
Leftist candidate Gustavo Petro’s success shows that whatever happens in Colombia’s elections today, change has come to the country.
The western hemisphere’s oldest guerrilla army is putting down their arms and becoming a political party. What does the future hold for them?