Colombian president purges National Museum of works promoting ‘communism’

Far-right President Abelardo de la Espriella says helium volition wage a ‘counterrevolution’ against taste institutions.

Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella has announced helium is spearheading a taste “counterrevolution” that includes removing dozens of exhibits from the National Museum, drafting protests and comparisons to United States President Donald Trump.

De la Espriella, a blimpish Trump ally, said past week that helium wants to forestall taste institutions from being taken implicit by what helium calls “atheist societal communism”.

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Since then, exhibits person been taken down that erstwhile addressed the past of societal movements, including feminist and LGBTQ+ activism, and Colombia’s governmental violence.

The changes person sparked protests by civilian rights groups, artists and students who person accused the authorities of censorship and pass that important parts of the country’s past could beryllium erased.

Dozens of demonstrators gathered connected Wednesday extracurricular the National Museum successful downtown Bogota arsenic riot constabulary guarded its entrance.

“I find it outrageous that they privation to erase portion of our history,” said Azul Riascos, a past student.

He said the authorities was promoting a imaginativeness of Colombia arsenic exclusively white, Catholic and Spanish-speaking. That image, helium explained, excluded Black, Indigenous and LGBTQ+ communities.

Gimena Sanchez-Garzoli, manager for the Andes astatine the Washington Office connected Latin America, a probe and advocacy organisation, said the Colombian government’s attack reflects a broader inclination among Trump allies who are copying US governmental narratives and strategies.

Trump has been fiercely captious of museums successful Washington, peculiarly those tied to the Smithsonian Institution.

The White House released a study successful July branding leaders of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History arsenic extremist activists and has ordered signs to beryllium installed extracurricular the depository telling visitors that immoderate of the exhibits are inaccurate.

Nearly 3 months aft that order, specified signs haven’t been installed. The museum’s director, Anthea Hartig, told Congress that the White House study “does not reasonably oregon accurately characterise the afloat assemblage of enactment astatine the museum”.

Sanchez-Garzoli said Trump’s practice with allied Latin American governments connected security and counternarcotics efforts besides has an ideological dimension.

“These are imported narratives astir coercion and astir being ‘woke,’” anthropologist Arturo Sanabria said during Wednesday’s protest, describing the Colombian government’s attack arsenic a signifier of neocolonial intervention.

Colombia’s Culture Minister Paola Holguin said the authorities was reviewing and redesigning exhibitions and curatorial practices astatine different museums overseen by her ministry.

The Foreign Ministry besides renamed a courtyard antecedently honouring an Indigenous leader, describing the alteration arsenic portion of the president’s run against “woke” ideology.

“The authorities is making superior efforts successful a taste conflict that astir apt doesn’t exist,” governmental idiosyncratic Estefania Cardozo said extracurricular the museum. “It is inventing 1 to erase identities that cannot beryllium erased due to the fact that they already exist.”