The Socio-structural Base for Colombian Historic Violence

From what was said previously, even a moral model of historical trajectory has to start from the economic, cultural, and demographic composition and context of the groups from whence the moral gravity forces emanate.

The social-structural bases for Colombian historical violence have to be traced back to the question of the distribution of the land as the main surviving input of the economy, along with the questions of the legitimate authority and power relations derived from, and structured along, the historical path of the country, and still, along with a deeply rooted cul­tural dualism derived from the very historical matrix of the formation of the country.

The contemporary stage of class conflict in Colombia exhibits a gradual dislocation of the social locus of the armed insurrection to the urban centers. It can be held as a working hypothesis that urban working sectors have been highly instrumental in mobilizing and leading agricultural populations to revolutionary ideologies and praxis. The actual participa­tion of segments of the urban areas (large and small ones) at the base levels is probably im­possible to be calculated, but their input should be substantial. So it can be argued that the urbanization process of the country has, in its historical path, carried along the class differ­ences and conflicts set in place at the time of the birth of the Spanish colony of Nueva Gra­nada. Yet, the geographical locus of the armed insurgence itself still is, and should remain, even for strategic reasons, predominantly rural. This dislocation of the social locus of the class conflict in the nation has to be taken into account as we apply the moral construction model to the highly dynamic history of this conflict.

In terms of an outline, we can summarize each of the four formative components of la violencia as follows:

a) The Land Distribution Question.

By the middle of the nineteenth century, and in many places much before, the dis­tribution of the land had acquired in Colombia the well-known socio-ecological dual pattern most common on the continent. On the one hand, nuclear large landholders, lo­calized in the more fertile flat lands, work their properties through the labor of selected privileged administrators and peons from nearby subsistence agriculture areas. On the other hand, there are the peripheral small-holders, localized in the less fertile and hilly areas, living off their subsistence cultivation of plots either of their own or rented or shared-cropped with the larger land holders, and eventually working as temporary labor in the bigger farms and estates.

Some important variations to such “functional dualism” (de Janvry, 1981) were in­troduced and developed especially in the late nineteenth century and through the twenti­eth century. Highly significant was the extensively studied colonization of the Antioquia region, not exclusively but predominantly by small entrepreneurial immigrants. Equally significant was the conquest of the hot valleys in the country by modern expansive and technical agriculture (most importantly the Cauca and Magdalena river valleys) requir­ing technical labor. These variations, coupled with the introduction of labor legislation after the 1930s, introduced some important modifications in the traditional agricultural labor and capital relations. Yet, the fundamentals of the here called socio-ecological dual scheme continues essentially the same to the present day.

b) Cultural Dualism.

Stemming from a variety of aboriginal and African ancestors, the large majority of the Colombian lower classes conform to what D. Ribeiro called “New Peoples” (from the Portuguese povos novos) (1971). That is, the Cundi-Boyacense, Cauca, and other aboriginal cultures notwithstanding, the majorities in question were neither transplants from Europe, nor die-hard bastions of the aboriginal cultures.

The Marxist concept of class for itself is certainly different from the construct of so­cial moral in Durkheim. However, an important affinity between the two does exist which justifies its use here, at least to the extent that both refer to the moral construction within social groups. The former can be a specific case of the latter, as it involves the construction of moral life on the bases of the opposition to an “external” enemy. Within the social context in question, however, the conservative aboriginal cultures remaining in the country could in some cases be assimilated into the foreword-looking pattern of moral reconstruction, set by their mulatto brothers. The upper classes in the country, on their part, are constituted by a substantial Spanish hidalgo-linage segment, plus a large capitalist class coming from below, where the Antioqueno segment is prominent. Such upper classes have proven to be one of the most dynamic on the continent.

The above highly polarized class distinctions—dressed (and armed) with such cul­tural ingredients, where both law and money are deprived of their theoretical status as instruments and measures of individual moral statures, and which distinctions became, in the eyes of large fractions of the lower classes, mere instruments of oppression— constitute the scenario where la violencia flourished.

c) The Question of Power and Authority.

Here we borrow Weber's notions of power and authority to formulate this section of our model.

In the case in question, the class relations of power (relative abilities of the social classes to impose their will through the central state), exhibit historically an inverting tendency: they start with a weak central state which faced a weak lower-class power, both derived from a weakly integrated national society and economy at large. Such a central state grows in its legal-organizational power, but faces similarly growing lower class discontent and organizational power. This, in turn, represents growing legitimate domination instabilities and crises. As neither one of the two sides manages to win over the other, but the upper classes do manage to maintain the power (as opposed to the au­thority), and to dismantle the instructional oppositions in times of a legal authority crisis, the cyclical pattern of egotistic to altruistic and back to egotistic violence emerges. This kind of pattern is outlined in the following section.