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| During the festival a band played to a crowd seated in front of the church. |
I attended the La Perseverancia neighborhood's annual Chicha Festival this year, only to be isappointed - there was no chicha for sale. An acquaintance met there explained that the chicha had been sold out to a record crowd on Saturday. That's no too surprising, since the last several weeks have been quite warm, with a blazing sun. I suppose that that's a vote in favor of the festival organizers' decision to move the festival from its historical October date, when it often rained.
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| A dancer spins during the chicha festival. |
La Perseverancia is a traditional blue-collar neighborhood on the lower reaches of Bogotá's Easter Hills, between La Macarena and the National Park. Originally built by and for the workers of the Bavaria Beer Brewery with the support of the company's far-sighted owner Leo Kopp, it has become known instead for brewing of chicha, a traditional drink made from fermented corn.
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Serving chicha from a plastic bottle.
This was about the only chicha I saw today. |
The neighborhood, known affectionately as 'La Perse', grew up in the first decades of the 1900s, when families migrated from the Egipto and Belen neighborhoods to work in the Bavaria Brewery, located down the hill across Ave. Septima from what was then a prison and is now the National Museum. The old Bavaria brewery, with its recognizably German arquitecture, today contains shops and offices. The company, which continues to dominate Colombian beer-making, has a newer brewery in western Bogotá.
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| A street fills up - but not with chicha drinkers. |
Bavaria owner Kopp, a Jewish-German immigrant, helped his workers pay for their homes and assisted them in bringing water, electricity and sewerage services to the neighborhood. Many families also built adobe homes with their own hands and sweat. In the spirit of a blue-collar community, the church was named after Christ the Laborer and the plaza featured a 'Monument to Work', which has apparently disappeared.
The neighborhood became a stronghold of support for fiery leftist politician Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, who was assassinated in the city center in 1948. Today, there's a small statue to the martyred leader, his right arm as always raised up toward the sky.
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A crowd in front of the
Church of Christ Laborer. |
The chicha festival, which began in 1988, honors a drink which has survived in a hostile world. For decades in the early 1900s the beer and liquor industries and the government propagandized against chicha, claiming that it caused diseases and turned drinkers insane. The anti-chicha lobby's real motives were economic - to sell more of competing alcoholic drinks. The government also wanted to turn the public away from homemade chicha, which didn't pay taxes, to other drinks, which did.
But chicha has survived, and continues holding an important place in the stomachs and minds of many B
ogotanos.
Chicha's survival also happens to be an illustration of another thing - the futility of trying to prohibit mind-altering substances.
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16 comments:
Funny how you managed to attribute your agenda into the end of this post.
My agenda, or my opinion?
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Anyway, it does seem to be true. The government AND competing alcoholic drink industries tried to stamp out chicha, but failed. Has that happened with any other addictive substance?
Mike
Agenda.
There is a very weak parallel to alcohol (produced/consumed) and that of drugs such as cocaine, marijuana and heroine (produced/consumed).
Those wishing to see drugs more prevalent in society try to draw a comparison between the two.
To most logical, reasonable and educated minds it is clear that, drugs do no good to human minds. Good people do not want to see their children taking them out of recreation or even abuse. Legalization of something bad will not make it something good. It might make those who are now criminals or those who've succumbed, feel better knowing that they have the states blessing, but it will be the good people that will pay for it with a degradation in society and human decency (moral values) devalued.
Lobbying is a complete necessary in any democracy. It might be cool to knock businesses/companies/corporations but with out them "blue collar people" (?) would not have a job or pay tax or even be viable in a system/economy. (but they can produce the Chicha ;).
It's all too big a risk to take with peoples' minds. There will always be ills and bad in society. Permitting and legalizing it is no solution for the good.
Murdering is something that can be paralleled with said drugs.
The assaulted police barracks, where many guns where stolen and used during el Bogotazo was that one next to La Perse. There are also stories about Fidel Castro helping the assault of this police barracks.
And Chicha is sold also in el Chorro de Quevedo and is quite ironic that we have a Chicha festival in a neighborhood built for and by the beer industry which caused the Chicha to be banned.
Hi Stuart,
To me, the parallel between alcohol and other addictive substances seems pretty strong. In fact, I'm sure I've seen more people damaged by alcohol than illegal drugs.
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Legalization doesn't make a bad substance 'good.' But it can hopefully reduce the harm that substance does to society, as happened when Prohibition ended in the U.S.
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Mike
Hi Carlito,
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I didn't know the bit about the police barracks. But it makes sense, since the residents of La Perse, being such strong backers of Gaitan, were the most furious after his killing.
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And, yes, that is a great irony about the beer neighborhood now being known for making chicha, beer's 'enemy' and victim.
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Mike
Than you need to include all other types of addiction too if addiction is your defining parallel. Alcohol is bad (nowhere near as bad though) and the more prevalent it is, the worse the consequences are on society. This fact rings very true to your desires to see dangerous substances available (state permitting) to the masses. Perhaps you would like to end your points on this with a line, offering to be personally responsibly for the damage that would be done to good people, as a result of such legalization.
Hi Stuart,
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I know that on many rankings of addictive substances tobacco and alcohol are considered more dangerous than some banned substances. You could certainly make that argument about marijuana and LSD.
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Yes, I'll consider taking responsibility for the victims of legalized drugs...just as soon as the liquor, tobacco (and gun) manufacturers take responsibility for victims of their products.
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Mike
That's the issue. They are not taking responsibility and nor will you (admittedly).
Marijuana should not be permitted by any good willed government or part of the lives of any population.
Distorted perception (sights, sounds, time, touch), Problems with memory and learning, Loss of coordination, Trouble with thinking and problem-solving, Increased heart rate, reduced blood pressure
Sometimes marijuana use can also produce anxiety, fear, distrust, or panic. It is not something that should be anywhere near good people. The argument that bad people can buy and sell it as a case to legalize it, is not rational or logical. Everyone must stand up and oppose it.
Trying to draw a paralleled with already legal drugs is nonsensical.
Colombia, an emerging country/economy/society should in no way be plagued of freely available drugs. There are more important things to focus on.
Breathing carbon of any kind is bad for the body.
All this raises another question. It concerns medical care, for those choosing to damage their own bodies and having good people (making the right decisions in life) pay for these mistakes of others. But this is another debate that I am sure you'll give me the opportunity to engage in another time.
Hi Stuart,
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I've never asserted that marijuana or other drugs, legal or illegal, are good for you. They cause damage, altho they probably also have some benefits, in addition to pleasure. I think legalization is worth trying as a way to reduce the damage and costs they generate.
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Yesterday, I was talking to a young guy who works in a neighborhood restaurant. He said he'd been arrested four years ago for marijuana possession. He seems like a good guy, responsible, friendly and bilingual. But he said he can't get a formal job because that's on his record. That's a real big cost to both him and to society.
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Mike
That is the message that needs to be educated to the youth. Don't mess with something that has "no benefits". Not only can he not get a job but he also looks very stupid. Whole groups of weak minded people are being caught in something that bad people tell them is OK or justifiable. If the state permits such activities than it will have shown itself to be the most cynical of organisations.
So, he should pay for his whole life for his youthful (or adult) foolishness - if that is even what it is. Who didn't do stupid things in their youth? Or their adulthood? We've all made mistakes, and they deserve forgiveness, especially when they don't harm others.
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Don't you believe at all in libertarianism, as in 'The government doesn't have a right to tell me what to do or interfere with my life when I'm not harming others?'
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Mike
I wondered when you might start to make sense of my point.
Everyone makes decisions in life. Be careful crossing the road as an incorrect decision will cost you your life. Everyone needs to be aware of their actions it's consequences no matter how light those might be. Forgiveness maybe your decision but the implications of one person saying it's allright whilst others are left paying the price in many different ways if not socially.
The state would be in essence the drug dealer permitting it's population to destroy their minds as well as their souls. (this may in fact be a desirable agenda for some governments)
My own personal views are that anyone should be free to say, think and do whatever they what as long as it doesn't affect anyone else.
The problem is that the majority of countries have a governmental and/or economic system that enslaves each and everyone to each other (socialism to varying degrees).
People are not permitted to be themselves as they are forced pay the prices that others extort from them.
All people should be allowed to succeed and fail based on their own abilities.
You may think this is odd as people prefer to align themselves as they see their own personal gain/profit with inclusion within the collective, but they are not achieving their independent abilities. Plus there is no way out once the collective wrongs the individual.
This could in tern develop into an ideological battle that is well rehearsed but something I know you are intelligent enough to understand.
"It is not something that should be anywhere near good people."
GOOD people? I don't smoke weed - I've tried it and I think it sucks. I think its effects are deleterious. But I know plenty of people who enjoy it. It's not my place to decide for them what they should or should not enjoy, and neither am I capable of judging them to be good or bad people based solely on what substances they choose to ingest.
Really - good people and bad people? It's all just freshman wankery, but that bit was especially offensive. Stuart, sooner or later, you're going to leave Colombia a lot less happy, but probably better for it. I genuinely hope that's the case. And I genuinely hope it's sooner.
Oh, and thanks, Mike. I miss La Perse and the chicha festival, and this was nicely done.
Goosekirk, reading through your Rotten Bastards blog I see you have no qualms in passing judgement over others that are more enlightened than you are. So that answers that.
Secondly, you are not in a position to suggestion when I leave Colombia.
Thanks but no thanks,
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