Gearóid Ó Loingsigh

(Reading time: 2 mins.)

In the midst the protests in Colombia the press can be heard denouncing the vandals and various politicians from the left and right have echoed these criticisms in one way or another.  The headlines speak of the destruction of private property and in some cases they try to mark a distinction between what they say is legitimate protest and vandalism.

The word “vandal”, means someone who commits acts pertaining to savage and destructive people and is who destroys a public asset or installation.  Other definitions speak of destroying or damaging what is beautiful.  It should be said that the Transmilenio mass transport system stations are not one bit beautiful.  But should the youths be ashamed or proud of being called vandals?

We should look at the origin of the word.  The first vandals were Germanic tribes that in 455 A.D. attacked and sacked Rome carrying away great riches and also destroying buildings, amongst them the Temple of Jupiter, though there is some dispute about the severity of the destruction of the city.  However, they went down in history as the vandals who destroyed that city.  The more modern use of the person who destroys public assets or private property or damages what is beautiful dates from the middle ages and its use is widespread nowadays.

Of course when Vicky Dávila and other right wing journalists speak of vandals they are not talking about Germanic tribes, or at least that is what we believe, though with Vicky even drug traffickers, paramilitaries and corrupt politicians are decent folk, so one is never sure about the meaning of the words that fall from her lips like the Police stun grenades.

But words and their meanings are not set in stone.  Some words enter a language and in short time fall into disuse, others last for centuries and some come back to life when least we expect like when Kim Jong-un’s translator used the word “Dotard” to describe Trump.  That word hadn’t seen the light of day since the US Civil War in the 19th Century.  Other words simply change their meaning, sometimes slowly and on other occasions they do so more abruptly.

The press has used this word so often to describe and disparage the social protests that we may be witnesses to another change in meaning.  The bourgeois press has emptied the word of any meaning and now in the marches people can be seen with placards that say Vandal’s Honour and in social media there are memes doing the rounds on the subject.  One of them says “The country turned upside down and this one says, what are you and I?  Well, vandals my love.”  They used the word so often to describe any act of rebellion, nonconformity or to and try and shut down and discredit the demonstrators that it has lost its power, its meaning.  Now it is a badge of honour for many.  Vandal no longer means a savage destructive person but rather a person who fights to be heard, for justice.  A vandal is whoever fights against Duque, neoliberalism and poverty.

The word is changing its connotation and once again it is closer to its original meaning, a tribe that defied an Empire, although in this case the Colombian emperor seems more like the Emperor Nero (54-68 A.D.) who played on his Lyre whilst Rome burned than the poor Petronius Maximus who only lasted a few weeks in power.  Duque doesn’t play the Lyre but rather the Guitar, but there he is and Nero’s regime was one of extravagance, waste and tyranny and Nero in the middle of it all playing on his Lyre.

The sacking of Rome in 455 A.D. was the third sacking that the city suffered.  There were a further five sackings after the Vandals.  It should be remembered that the Vandals sacked the capital of a decadent Empire that deserved to be extinguished.

So as the meme puts it, ask the question, what are you and I?  And answer:

We are Vandals my love, we damage the hated system of mass transport built with public funds legally stolen to set up a private transport business which to top it all takes 94% of the profits of a business and barely contributes a penny to its own maintenance.

We are Vandals my love, we destroy banks that receive more subsidies from the state than the poor who are denied loans by these banks, which don’t hesitate for a single moment to confiscate the houses of the poor.

We are Vandals my love, who in the face of the lives and censorship of the bourgeois press make our smothered voices reverberate on the walls of the city.  Who needs Twitter when you even the poorest can see the walls?

We are Vandals my love, who in the face of the attacks by the Police throw rocks at them that are found all about the place in the poorly built public infrastructural projects, in a country where the thieves don’t know how to build a pavement and where half the bricks are badly placed.

We are Vandals my love, we fight against a decadent government and system.

We are Vandals my love, and our favourite letter is V:

V for Vengeance on the rich that kill us, rob us and lie to us.

V for Victory against the neoliberal regime.

V for Vandals my love.

Long Live The Vandals!

End.