The Oracle at Washington D.C.
Published in El País
(Colombia) on July 6th, 2009
by Ode Farouk Kattán Kattán (link to original)
The Larousse dictionary defines “oracle” as the response the gods would give to the questions that they were asked and one of these oracles was the Oracle of Delphi in Greece. It is also defined as divine will, spoken through the prophets.
These messages were frequently phrased in enigmatic language, and though many turned to the oracles, Pythia and Sibyl remained equally mysterious.
Colombia, owing to an existential anxiety in respect to its destiny originating from its inability to make its own dynamic solutions, has created an excessive dependence on the United States, where Colombia turns to for material help and other concessions that depend on the U.S.’s political will, which represents the modern equivalent of divine will.
In this way, we have revived oracle worship in its new form: we consult the functionaries of the U.S. government, so that they can tell us what will happen in the center of decision-making that is Washington D.C. Moreover, our [Colombian] functionaries and businessmen go on pilgrimage to there and we bring in others into a hypocritical game of flattery and lies. This is typical behavior of one who doesn’t know what to do and pretends that they are doing something. The encounter between President Uribe and President Obama is a classic example: each one is interpreting the signs according to his own view and framework, with the cartoonist lining his pockets.
Colombia now has to transition to the modern methodologies of realism and the practical analysis of trends and events, with the goal of having the judgment necessary to predict, prepare itself and decide.
Well applied prospective practices allow us to know what to expect and from who. The important thing is not to prognosticate with desire and deluded hope, but rather with methodologies that today have the character of the science of human behavior.
Neither the government nor America will make decisions that don’t suit them or in which are not in their main interests, publicly or privately.
To pretend to obtain commercial windows and political support with emotional argumentations and puns, some begging and some recrimination does not convince a country that is hard-nosed when it comes to business, obsessed with its national interests, and that doesn’t know who it is right now because it is divided by a social crisis, all of which produce different conflicting and changing criteria, depending on when, how and which on oracle or deity is consulted.
These messages were frequently phrased in enigmatic language, and though many turned to the oracles, Pythia and Sibyl remained equally mysterious.
Colombia, owing to an existential anxiety in respect to its destiny originating from its inability to make its own dynamic solutions, has created an excessive dependence on the United States, where Colombia turns to for material help and other concessions that depend on the U.S.’s political will, which represents the modern equivalent of divine will.
In this way, we have revived oracle worship in its new form: we consult the functionaries of the U.S. government, so that they can tell us what will happen in the center of decision-making that is Washington D.C. Moreover, our [Colombian] functionaries and businessmen go on pilgrimage to there and we bring in others into a hypocritical game of flattery and lies. This is typical behavior of one who doesn’t know what to do and pretends that they are doing something. The encounter between President Uribe and President Obama is a classic example: each one is interpreting the signs according to his own view and framework, with the cartoonist lining his pockets.
Colombia now has to transition to the modern methodologies of realism and the practical analysis of trends and events, with the goal of having the judgment necessary to predict, prepare itself and decide.
Well applied prospective practices allow us to know what to expect and from who. The important thing is not to prognosticate with desire and deluded hope, but rather with methodologies that today have the character of the science of human behavior.
Neither the government nor America will make decisions that don’t suit them or in which are not in their main interests, publicly or privately.
To pretend to obtain commercial windows and political support with emotional argumentations and puns, some begging and some recrimination does not convince a country that is hard-nosed when it comes to business, obsessed with its national interests, and that doesn’t know who it is right now because it is divided by a social crisis, all of which produce different conflicting and changing criteria, depending on when, how and which on oracle or deity is consulted.