GRAND
MOTHERS
AND CIVIC CULTURE
An epidemic of violence that the grandmothers of Cali cured with an infallible formula: affection for vulnerable young people.
The violent deaths were so numerous that the Ministry of Health declared the situation a health emergency. Knowing that traditional mechanisms had long since ceased to function, the agency opted to try new ways of "intervening" in the community. The Agua Blanca District, which represents just over thirty percent of the city of Cali, was a patchwork of Colombian violence: drug traffickers, paramilitaries, guerrillas, and criminal gangs had all passed through—and remained there. Of course, it was not an easy territory, nor were there any simple, straightforward solutions. Therefore, the Ministry decided to hire Corpovisionarios, a social research institute renowned for its founder, former Bogotá mayor Antanas Mockus, to try to uncover the root of the problem, which tragically involved thousands of children and young people. Tasked with the complex job of understanding Aguablanca, Corpovisionarios observed, analyzed, and reached its conclusions. Indeed, one of the conclusions—among several very interesting ones—that emerged from their investigations was that the community—and hence some of its violent behaviors—missed art.
The grandmothers of Aguablanca, 2014. Cali, Colombia
For this reason, Corpovisionarios decided to contact the Vértigo Graffiti team, known for directing the community murals in Getsemaní, Cartagena, and the sharp "Kiss of the Invisibles" mural in Bogotá. Corpovisionarios' first phone call resulted in a preliminary agreement: the graffiti team would visit Aguablanca. The artists knew beforehand that one of the community's deepest burdens was stigma. These prejudices could be softened by the basic practice (taught by graffiti) of walking the streets. Even taxi drivers, once they arrived in Cali, warned them against visiting the Las Orquídeas neighborhood, which Corpovisionarios had chosen to carry out the artistic measures—at that time undefined—that Vértigo Graffiti would be commissioned to create, design, and execute.
From that first visit, which consisted of a couple of interviews with community members, including a tireless leader of urban culture named Andrés, the outlook seemed bleak: the wounds of hopelessness and distrust had seeped deep into the community. Among their vague and disinterested responses, an artistic intervention struck them as both appropriate and irrelevant. It seemed like a dead end.
The grandmothers of Aguablanca, 2014. Cali, Colombia
However, during one of the conversations in a park with the young people, who were the true victims of the health emergency (and looked like they'd been plucked from a battlefield: with scars on their faces, amputated limbs, and vacant stares), something unusual happened. In the distance, a grandmother appeared carrying two heavy plastic bags. Immediately, upon seeing her, a couple of young men ran to help her. The apathetic and withdrawn youths thus demonstrated that there was something they did care about: the elderly women of the neighborhood. Upon their return, and overcome with curiosity, the Vértigo team asked them the reason for their behavior. The answer, from one of them, a small, shirtless young man balancing on a broken brick, was striking: “Grandmothers are the only ones who open the door for us when there are shootings. Even our fathers lock their doors.” And suddenly, the image and the message became clear to the artists: grandmothers should be the focus of the intervention. The transformation of the hopeless and indifferent young man into the affectionate and helpful boy, triggered by the scene of a grandmother in distress, told much more than the lazy story of each one.
The grandmothers of Aguablanca, 2014. Cali, Colombia
Weeks later, the Vértigo Graffiti team, along with some volunteers from Corpovisionarios and community members, pasted enormous portraits of neighborhood grandmothers (some nearly six meters tall) in the very places where acts of violence had occurred: alleyways, parks, and paths hidden by weeds. These were once places repudiated by the residents because of the crimes committed there, now becoming sanctuaries protected by the grandmothers. In the photos, the grandmothers held signs in which, with affection and understanding—a scarce commodity in the neighborhood—they advised the young men to avoid committing crimes, getting into fights, or killing each other. In January 2016, Antanas Mockus, when questioned about some civic culture strategies that should be implemented in Bogotá, said in an interview with the newspaper El Tiempo: “…we have not found a single person who said that they were going to kill another person and regretted it because they saw the image of the grandmother, but we do have several testimonies from young men who were going to smoke marijuana and when they saw the picture of the grandmother they said: “No. Not in front of the grandmother.”
The grandmothers of Aguablanca, 2014. Cali, Colombia
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Process, The grandmothers, a pact for respect, 2022. San Salvador, El Salvador
Although some explanations remained pending regarding the marginal effects of the portraits of the grandmothers in Aguablanca, and reflecting on the experience years later with calm (and with the encouragement of a couple of renowned authors), at least three possible conclusions can be drawn. First, the discovery, investigation, and study of emotions in human beings, in terms of their relevance to people's decision-making, is a much more accurate and fruitful process than the stark and cold analysis of their behavior. (If the Vértigo Graffiti team had simply taken the words of the young people in the community at face value, they surely would not have been able to understand what they were trying to tell them: we want to be valued.) Second, when individual emotions persist over time and with frequency in a collective environment (hopelessness and distrust in the case of Aguablanca), they become a collective orientation that will eventually mutate into a shared belief, leading the community—beyond individual behavior—to adopt a kind of predictable group choreography. Finally, if the behavior of people and communities is traceable and determinable, from the perspective of emotions: it is through them that changes in individual and community behavior can be sought.
Process, The grandmothers, a pact for respect, 2022. San Salvador, El Salvador
In this regard, it's worth clarifying that the idea of what we might call the irreverence of emotions has been discarded for some time now (a point the renowned philosopher Martha Nussbaum makes with ample expertise and erudition). For her and many other authors, classical Stoic thought, which questioned emotions for their volatility and enslaving nature, must be abandoned in favor of an understanding that embeds them in an entirely rational process, closely linked to thought and governed by more complex processes that the author calls beliefs. Belief causes emotion to surface, disguise itself as thought, and ultimately influence the decisions we make in our lives. In conclusion, if emotions are not those arbitrary fevers that lead humanity to its downfall—as was once thought—it is entirely possible that, through judicious and specific study, the behaviors of individuals, and even societies, can be transformed, provided we know how to decipher them and have the patience to achieve the desired results.
Regarding the importance of emotions in describing—and uncovering—the true intentions and decisions of human beings, the literature on the subject is vast and compelling. For example, for the English author Clotaire Rapaille, author of *The Culture Code* (a 2010 bestseller), their importance is such that they represent one of the most crucial elements in the conception and constitution of a specific culture. Just as water surrounds fish in the ocean, emotions, often invisible, envelop all human experience. In this sense, Rapaille maintains that it is from these emotions—and also from their intensity—that learning—both good and bad—takes place in people. The author views us as a kind of canvas on which impressions are etched, influencing our behavior and shaping who we are. For him, although we may be similar in many ways, the defining difference lies in the culture we cultivate. In other words, it is the emotional repertoire, defined and put into practice, in a given era that defines culture (viewed in general terms as the sum of behaviors of a community).
On the other hand, if collective emotions exist that “define cultures” or “establish beliefs,” it is because a large part of our nature is mediated by the influence of others. Indeed, although we have created images (and shadows) of the individual and independent action, the overwhelming majority of our decisions are driven by the influence of others. Linking what the two aforementioned authors have said, it could be argued that what influences our behavior as individuals are the prevailing emotions: governments constituted by “popular sentiment”; a version of the spectrum of what we all feel.
This is established by Jonah Berger in his 2016 bestseller, *Invisible Influence*, in which he highlights something surprising: 99 percent of the decisions we make are previously "decided" by others, viewed as a group. And what is even more interesting: from this collective influence (which we have already established is emotional) arises what we consider right or wrong. In other words, the handbook of values that constitutes the ethics of communities is built by the emotions that govern them collectively. The Ten Commandments should be more accurately described as the Ten Emotions.
Process, The grandmothers, a pact for respect, 2022. San Salvador, El Salvador
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In conclusion, societies could be better understood, and above all, more predictable, if greater efforts were focused on emotionally "decoding" communities and their individuals. Of course, this is no small matter, considering that this emotional repertoire—whether collective or individual—is what determines how we behave.
Perhaps the most poignant lesson from the experience of the grandmothers of Aguablanca is the emotional discovery—the need for minimal affection and trust toward young people immersed in violence (their suffering)—that intervening in public spaces with artistic processes can help unravel this first clue (only the first, it's not a magic formula) to the behavior of our societies and, in turn, provoke an encounter with their beliefs, from which, I repeat, their ethics are derived. Again, the philosopher Nussbaum has suggested—and she has ample evidence—that art offers highly effective alternatives for building better citizens by allowing, among other things, imaginative exercises in which we see the other through a humanizing process. The reflection of our neighbor in ourselves, as presented in the artist's creations, whether Mahler's symphonies or street murals and graffiti, sculpts us and reveals who we are. The greater the number of artistic experiences, the better the democracy, argues the American philosopher.
Team Grandmothers: A Pact for Respect, 2022, San Salvador
We Colombians have struggled to understand each other, and yet we still remain inexplicable. Most of the time, we resort to the magic of excuses and finger-pointing to justify our behavior. However, just as happened in Aguablanca, it is time to reveal our truth based on what we have felt—and believed—for decades, so that we can prevent and transform those harmful behaviors that make us view each other with such distrust and our country with such despair. (Positive emotions, which are certainly present, could also be strengthened; one only needs to look at the thousands of examples of selfless solidarity occurring during this pandemic.)
On reflection, Colombia is like Aguablanca magnified in size and population, and therefore, nothing would be lost if processes were implemented that help us understand ourselves a little better through the impressions made by artistic experiences and their emotional effects. The problem has never been feeling itself, but rather not understanding the reasons and thoughts behind those feelings.
Text “The Labyrinth of Emotions” by Camilo Fidel López, published in 2020 by the portal Las dos orillas.
Short film The grandmothers a pact for respect, 2022, San Salvador