Open letter to:
Anthony Lake
Unicef CEO
Bernt Aasen
Latin America and Caribbean Unicef Branch
Roberto de Bernardi
Unicef Colombia
Dear Sirs:
Unfortunately, it was no surprise to me to see that the social networks of people with my same nationality were full of hate speech against Nicolette van Dam, after she, in the exercise of her freedom of expression, retweeted a joke about Colombian soccer players and cocaine.
My sincerest apologies on behalf of that herd of Homo sapiens that I have to call compatriots, who pride when someone from their country scores a goal or wins the Giro d’Italia, as if they had any interference or credit on that result.
These people are silent in complicity when the country gets the last place in international education tests and before reports of extrajudicial executions by death squads operating in collusion with the military. These Colombians live in a bubble where Colombia is the best country in the world.
Due to this dangerous tribal dynamic (further promoted by the Government), these people believe, wrongly, that their feelings and beliefs are exempt from any analysis, any criticism and of course, from any humor whatsoever. So it’s no wonder they believed, mistakenly, that they had some sort of right to have their chauvinistic delusion not threatened by a post in a social network.
This explains why, during the last five days, your emails were flooded with all kinds of absurd claims about the “insult” of Van Dam towards Colombian people. (!) Let us remember that education in the country is not very high —unlike the spiral of violence— so it is not feasible to demand a relatively decent number of Colombians who understand that there is the right to offend and the right to be offended, but there is no right to not be offended.
To make it even worse, some had the audacity to gloat in a Third World victimhood, accusing the Dutch drug policy of being part of the problem. This is probably what made me cringe the most (besides, of course, the death threats van Dam got). Colombia has decided to meet the absurd, puritanical, prudish and sadomasochistic Christian notion of the Vale of Tears and has banned the drug trade, making it therefore a lucrative and lethal business; it’s a stupid mistake that’s solely on religion and the country which chose to poison its own public policy with such a ridiculous and shortsighted narrative.
While the Netherlands understood perfectly that everyone is the owner and sole responsible for their own body, Colombians know nothing about freedom, much less responsibility; thus, they think the Dutch government is to answer for the statements of a citizen — I think it is a miracle Colombians don’t wear loincloths any more! It is entirely plausible to assume that, for these reasons, Colombians could not withstand an image and demanded van Dam leaving Unicef, which will not make Colombia’s drug policy fairly logical at all, it won’t increase the country’s education, nor will it reduce the number of murders or drug addicts we have.
It only served to quench the thirst for revenge of undeveloped, feudal people who are as far from civilization as Pluto is from the Sun, and to reaffirm in their negligence to take responsibility for their own feelings, while indulging their pastoral reverie of blaming others for their own failures.
It also served to deprive children of a face that could have and is more than willing to take Unicef name and message very far.
I’m sorry you had to waste your time, patience, tranquility and dignity with the shouting caused by the bruised ego of the natives of a so-called country that has not yet learned that it is more important to change the reality than our image and what others think about us. Please do not make the mistake of meeting the primitive tantrums of these human specimens again.
Sincerely,
David Alejandro Osorio Sarmiento
Citizen of the World (shamefully labeled as Colombian)
