Evil Hour in Colombia
by Forrest Hylton
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Book Summary Information
Author: Forrest HyltonContributor: Gonzalo Sánchez
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-10-17
ISBN: 1844675513
Number of pages: 174
Publisher: Verso
Book Reviews of Evil Hour in Colombia
Book Review: Against the tide of "legislated amnesia": A fundamental Reading on Latin American History
Summary: 5 Stars
Evil Hour in Colombia is an acute synthesis of a theme fictionalized by Colombia's literary Nobel Laureate, Gabriel García Márquez. The title in English alludes to Garcia Marquez's novella of the same name, but the work distances itself from tautological and culturalist approaches often hidden in discourses of "magical realism."
Instead, Hylton establishes with absolute clarity that the origin of violence in Colombia is directly related to the consistent repression of diverse social movements that have tried to escape from exploitation since the mid-nineteenth century. Nothing in these pages recalls the vague and gratuitous intrigue that arose when rumor-mongering pamphlets invaded the streets of the town imagined by García Márquez.
The historian goes his own way. With abundant documentation, the author demonstrates the confrontation--not at all magical, but rather all too real--that results when a small group of elites cleaves to latifundismo; when indigenous and Afro-Colombians are displaced from their territories; when coffee, and later cocaine, exports lead to processes of internal colonialism; when the armed insurgency hypertrophies; when the state delegates the exercise of violence to paramilitaries, who become a new, corrupt and criminal entrepreneurial class.
Evil Hour overturns facile and dangerously banal explanations that tend to proliferate in discussions of Colombia. It is at once painful and timely, establishing a blunt yet sophisticated analysis of modern Colombian violence, thereby putting flesh on the bones of seemingly impersonal processes and problematizing the current wave of triumphalism emanating from Washington and Bogotá.
Hylton offers a concise, profound explanation of a bloody history, distancing himself from approaches that locate the problem in an ill-defined condition stemming from the capricious cultural practices of a Third World people.
Many Latin Americans, Colombians in particular, will benefit from reading this book. It helps us understand the dynamics of violence from a perspective solidly rooted in history. Likewise, these pages could help dissipate the "amnesia" recently legislated in the Colombian Congress through the "Justice and Peace Law" regulating the incorporation of paramilitaries into state and society---a palpable correlate of recent developments that is much more dangerous than the one in 100 Years of Solitude, in which the inhabitants of Macondo merely forget the names of things.
Finally, it remains to wait for the "right moment" when these pages are translated into Spanish, the language in which this struggle is waged, and in which pain is articulated.
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