Je Suis Charlie?

Take a flyer. A Bogotá city employee hands out flyers supporting the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

The satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo may be ugly, offensive, repugnant and blasphemous. But in a free society, one has a right to be ugly, offensive, repugnant and blasphemous. Nobody is obligated to read the publication.

Today, Bogotá's City Hall joined the chorus in support of free speech in the wake of the horrific massacre of Charlie Hebdo staff in Paris.

Colombia has no similarly scathing publication. But if it did, I'd be interested in seeing how Mayor Petro would respond to being satirized in such a vicious way.

Even the communist paper 'Voz' came out in favor of Charlie Hebdo - and included an irrelevant criticism of capitalist media monopolies. 

Charlie Hebdo's latest, post-massacre cover.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Doctrine vs. Free Speech

Father Alfonso Llano - 'heretic'. (Photo: El Tiempo)

A Bogotá institution has ended - for at least the second time.

Was he divine, and why?

Jesuit Priest Alfonso Llano, of the Jesuit-run La Javeriana university, wrote a column called 'A Pause in the Road' in the Sunday El Tiempo newspaper for some 30 years about upholding Catholic faith and values. I read it occasionally, and found Llano's opinions often stultifyingly pious - with only rare strayings from doctrine. One of those came recently, when in a column about the childhood of Jesus, Llano suggested that Maria was not a virgin. After all, the Bible does speak of Christ's siblings. Or, were those boys and girls all conceived immaculately by God, leaving poor Joseph as just a frustrated onlooker?

Naturally, the Catholic hierarchy came down hard on Llano, who is close to age 90, for his 'heresy.' And, even tho he wrote another column this past Sunday entitled 'Mea Culpa' in which he ate his own words and asserted Mary's virginity, his ecclesiastical superiors have ordered him to stop writing and shut up. Llano says he'll quietly submit, according to El Tiempo.

This isn't the first time Llano has strayed from church doctrine. In the 1970s he expressed support for contraception use by married couples and said that priestly celibacy should be optional. In 2003 Llano again contradicted doctrine and the church ordered him to temporarily cease writing.

Mary, mother of Jesus:
Did she or didn't she?

Llano is not the Colombian church's only dissenter. Recently, Father Carlos Novoa, also a Jesuit, expressed opinions in favor of abortion rights, altho he has not repeated them.

I know little about the Bible and less about religious doctrine. Naturally, every religion has the right to its beliefs and principles, however much they may contradict science and common sense. That is the principle of faith and belief.

But it also seems to me that faith should be sincere, or else its worthless. And imposing belief by order and censorship is no way to show sincerity, but does display the church's insecurity.

Father Llano's situation also evokes to me parallels with the liberal Liberation Theology movement of the 1960s, the last vestiges of which the current Pope is doing his best to stamp out. Liberation Theology, in my understanding, called on believers to follow Christ for his example rather than his supposed divine nature. By depending on doctrines like virgin birth, resurrection and walking on water - which seem hard to swallow in these science-based times - the Catholic Church rests its faith on increasingly-shaky ground. 

Finally, a thot for the church hierarchy: Isn't Christmas the time for forgiveness and second chances?

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Mr. Freedom of Information is Going WHERE???

Assange: Persecuted or persecutor?

The news that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is seeking political refuge in Ecuador is the last piece of evidence of Assange's moral emptiness.

Assange may have done the world a real service with Wikileaks by revealing wartime abuses and financial amorality. But it always seemed evident to me that the man who wanted all 'information to be free' was happy to free information only as long as it satisfied his worldview and didn't inconvenience him. Remember, after all, how heatedly Assange complained when embarrassing facts about the Swedish charges of sexual abuse against him were leaked.

And the government data he posted online seemed to be overwhelmingly about the U.S. government and corporations. But what about embarrassing data about authoritarian governments in Asia and the Middle East?

Odd couple: Assange and Ecuadorean
President and media repressor Rafael Correa.

Assange's claims that the court case against him was persecution also rang hollow. Assange was accused of rape and other sexual crimes by two Swedish women who had been his supporters and intimate friends. That doesn't sound like a Washington-backed conspiracy. And Sweden isn't known particularly as  a corrupt nation or a United States puppet. Why doesn't Assange go to Sweden and face the sort of open, public trial which he would certainly demand for people whose crimes Wikileaks revealed.

But Assange's decision to seek refuge in Ecuador is more telling. Ecuador's president Rafael Correa has been widely criticized by media and human rights organizations for using legal mechansims to repress criticism of his government.

When a free speech defender seeks protection from a free speech repressor, what does that tell us about him?

Once Assange gets comfortable in Ecuador, expect Wikileaks to get active again, now backed by Correa's oil money and filled with anti-U.S. revelations.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Risks of Reporting

Londoño's bombed car - it's amazing more people weren't killed.

Theirs were very different histories, styles and viewpoints - but both show why it's still risky to be a journalist in Colombia.

Romeo Langlois is a youngish French journalist held by the FARC guerrillas, who siezed him after he fled during a firefight while accompanying Colombian soldiers.

Fernando Londoño and ex-Pres. Alvaro Uribe

Fernando Londoño was interior minister for Pres. Alvaro Uribe and continues being a fervent defender of all things Uribista - as well as of the military, Catholicism, business interests and everything conservative. I've sometimes listened to his morning radio show, which is egoistically named 'The Hour of Truth,' and read his newspaper columns, and I disagree with most of what he says, including most of his political opinions as well as his addiction to automobiles and love for golf - an elitist, environmentally-destructive excuse for a sport. Nevertheless, Londoño has every right to express his opinions, and those undoubtedly were part of the reason that a would-be assassin jumped from a motorcycle and attached a bomb to Londoño's car the other day. The bomb killed two of Londoño's bodyguards and injured dozens of people on the street, but only lightly wounded Londoño himself.

Romeo Langlois at work. 

Agree with him or not, Londoño had every right to express his views, which contributed to public debate.

Colombia is much less dangerous for journalists than someplace like Mexico, where drug violence is raging. And, Colombia has become much safer than it was in decades past, when Pablo Escobar and other narcos intimidated and murdered journalists who didn't write what they were told to.

Langlois' and Londoño's travails are reminders of why we should be grateful to the people take risks to provide us with news, analyze it and opinionate on it, in newspapers, radio, television and on the 'net.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Free Press Under Threat in Latin America

Lots of newpapers for sale here, ranging from the dominant
'El Tiempo' to the communist 'La Voz.'

Colombia came out looking pretty good in The Inter-American Press Association's year-end press release - but that's in part because of the very worrying moves against media freedom in neighboring nations.

This year 'only' one journalist was murdered in Colombia in relation with reporting, compared with 11 in Mexico, nine in Honduras and two in Brazil. The association's letter also highlighted Colombia's chuzadas scandal, in which the DAS secret police agency monitored the telephone calls of journalists and many others.

But looking at it from the positive side, the number of journalists murdered in Colombia has dropped dramatically from years past, and the DAS scandal received widespread media coverage and is being investigated by prosecutors.

Of more concern for the press association were moves by the governments of Venezuela, Argentina, Ecuador  and others to repress independent media, either through laws or by creating state-controlled competing media.

All of this is not to say that Colombian media isn't threatened. Ex-President Alvaro Uribe had a habit of accusing reporters of working with terrorist groups. And the country's dominant newspaper, El Tiempo (which also owns CityTV) belongs to the family of Pres. Juan Manuel Santos (and the ex-vice president), although the paper does give solid coverage to government failures and scandals, as well as editorializing against drug prohibition. And, there are also several furiously anti-government communist papers.

Below Pres. Santos' photo, Voz newspaper
announces a 'Desolate Panorama.'

As for TV, I don't watch it, but my impression is that it's dominated by sports, violence and beauty pageants.

All of which suggests that the biggest threat to a vigorous press here may be human nature: people's obsession with sex, violence and scandal.

El Espacio newspaper, on the upper right, contributes its part to the public debate.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours