Columns & Blogs

The antipathy toward the word "culture" from those who profess ideas of the extreme right is well know.. “When I hear people talk about culture, I pull out my gun,” the Nazi leader H. Goering once said.

The critiques of affirmative action that academics and news outlets like The Economist offer show how difficult it is for society to change the status quo of inequality, where goods and opportunties are only available to certain groups.

The insensitivity to social injustice and dogmatism are, in my opinion, two of the biggest ideological obstacles for the development of Latin America.

This is an invitation. An invitation to respond to a difficult landscape of inequality and shortage with creativity, with new ideas, not just to get more funding but also to be more efficient and independent.

In a previous column about the Catholic Church's campaigns against abortion, gay marriage, euthanasia and divorce, I said that it seemed as though Catholics today were listening to Martin Luther, 500 years too late.

Norms are created more slowly than the rapid pace at which technology advances, therefore there is often a disconnect between the rules and the reality they are applied to.

In a country that is in fourth to last place in PISA student-testing, where no university is among the top 400 of the world and no research center is among the top 600, it is deplorable (to say the least) that we only speak about intelligence when we denounce abuses of so-called “military intelligence.”

The Court ordered their governments to protect their rights, such as their right to free, prior, informed consultation and their right to their territory. Yet, in every case, the governments have failed to obey the Court’s orders.

Some weeks I can't find a topic to write about and on others I have too many topics. On this occassion I have in mind three topics: one about the Oxfam report about global inequality published on January 20th, another about President Obama´s State of the Union last Tuesday, and another about a conference that Michael Sandel gave last Thursday at Los Andes University.

About 15 years ago, the national government passed a law regulating the prior consultation process without, ironically, consulting the ethnic communities first.

May the better side win.

The dream of any leader is that the people obey what they say word by word. When Napolean Bonaparte issued the Civil Code of 1804 he did not want anyone interpreting his laws, he only wanted people to obey them.