[Colombia / Armed Gangs] - The Fragmented Self Returns to Violence When the State Withdraws Its Phantom of Order

Event Baseline: Cocaine-funded gangs are attacking civilians in Colombia, years after a peace accord removed a powerful rebel group. The state's inaction has allowed powerful militias to fill the vacuum, shaking the country.

The peace accord was a piece of paper. It removed one armed group from the field, but it did not address the underlying fragmentation of the society. The state had used the rebel group as a convenient enemy. When the enemy disappeared, the state lost its purpose and retreated. The vacuum filled with new gangs, because the system only knows how to react to enemies. It does not know how to build order. The 'self' of the Colombian state is defined by war. Without war, it is nothing. So it unconsciously recreates war. The gangs are not an external invasion; they are the shadow of the state's own violence. The civilians who are attacked are the same ones the peace accord was supposed to protect. But the accord was not for them. It was for the elites to feel peaceful while the structures of violence remained. This is the failure of thought: believing that signing a document changes reality. It only changes the image. The underlying program of fragmentation continues to run. The gangs are just the latest iteration of the same code. Until the state and the society see themselves as one interconnected whole, the killing will not stop.