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Sometimes the difference between being a polite, grateful, and adaptable expat and standing up for one’s basic rights and personal dignity is a fine line 1/
Here in Colombia, owing to genuine security and theft problems, massive inequality, a mediocre public education system and high unemployment, there’s a significant “security economy” that employs people in various ways to protect the haves from the have-nots. 2/
There’s no 4th Amendment here to protect citizens against improper search-and-seizure, nor any real presumption of innocence. This plays out in the general society, not exclusively in interactions with police. For example, we are frequently asked to open our backpacks ... 3/
before entering or leaving private institutions. Just today I paid two months’ worth of health insurance bills and both on the way in and out of the clinic was asked to open my backpack. Each time I refused with a polite-but-firm “No, gracias.” 4/
They let me go. Gringo privilege, but to what extent? How would a Colombian acting this way be treated? Am I bravely standing up for what should be universal rights? Or just being an arrogant US American, failing to adapt to law or custom in a nation that is so good to me? 5/end
