La República, one of Colombia’s most important economic and financial newspapers, has published Núria Vilanova’s chronicle entitled “Latin America is committed to opening up”, in which she analyses the current situation across the world, a period of change and transformation that is leading Latin America nowadays.
“The world finds it self in a period of change and transformation. We know where we came from but still have not figure it out, and let alone know clearly, where we are going. We live immersed in a new era in which prevails the feeling of vulnerability and volatility as Charles Dickens had already expressed it like nobody before in his wonderful novel “A Tale of two cities”. This book describes a situation lived in the late 18th century, which has some similarities with the current one. And it left for the posterity one of the most beautiful novel openings: “It was the best of times, was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness”.
Sure enough, as the British writer masterfully narrated, the times of change, crisis or economic depression cause strong convulsions and reactions of a protectionist and isolationist type. It has already happened in the 30’s of the 20th century, with the devastating consequences known by all and, therefore, it’s not news what is happening right now. In the current juncture across the globe we see nationalisms appearing strongly in the western world and the xenophobic nationalisms (anti-western, after all) in the Islamic world. Among the first, Brexit is a paradigmatic exemple, as well as the triumph of Donald Trump, defender of protectionist (rejection of Nafta with Mexico and the TPP) and nationalist (“American first”) proposals”.
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If you want to read the full article of Núria Vilanova in La República, you can do it here.