The psychological trauma that the so-called internal armed conflict is producing in the population of Ecuador is of such magnitude that it has created a wave of migration of Ecuadorians who flee the country because they see that violence and corruption are everywhere, but that in addition, these produce the flight of capital from the country, the disinvestment of the State, which no longer builds roads, hospitals, schools, colleges, universities, dams, hydroelectric plants, irrigation canals, public offices, nor gives work or employment to Ecuadorians.
This has turned colleges and universities into large factories of unemployed people, who see the United States and Europe as a real source of employment.
Daily it is expected that there will be at least ten violent deaths by contract killing, that is, by paid murder to assassins, who get paid to kill, so that contract killing is now the most profitable job that young people have.
Every day, at least one ton of cocaine is expected to be seized, which means that another ton has managed to outwit the police, the DEA, and the army, who now claim to be the owners of the streets, ports, neighborhoods, and prisons, which have become the territory of illegal armed groups.
Escaping the country, where the streets are dangerous, waiting for the motorcycle, the car, or the cell phone to be stolen, fearing that the buses will be assaulted, seeing judges, prosecutors, lawyers, military or police officers entangled in a justice system that for decades has been considered one of the most corrupt in the world, living in a country where thousands of laws are made and dozens of new constitutions, has made the saying that he who makes the law makes the trap, or that laws and women are there to be violated, true.
This has created schools and colleges where bullying is the mechanism to create and consolidate youth gangs, which were called jorgas.
Even to take exams, consume drugs in school, harass classmates, especially female classmates, form gangs in schools, forge friendships, where concealment is everything, and serve to violate the rules, mock teachers, and parents, and add members to the conspiracy against the established order.
Meanwhile, on television, the Internet or cell phones, violence, corruption, and evil, acquire enormous dimensions, which convert these media into a circus, where the population is sedated or anesthetized against all kinds of scruples, forgives all kinds of infamy, mourns all kinds of misfortunes, and becomes accustomed to living in the kingdom of the bad, of misery in all its dimensions, in the kingdom of those who reach power and wealth by any means, where the reputation of being bad, corrupt, rogues is called audacity, or bravery, and wealth is called divine reward, or the will of God.
Producing content for television, radio, cell phones and the Internet, where the extraordinary, the exaggerated, the bad, the cruel, the violent, the real, acquires colossal dimensions is what is sold, what is converted into likes, followers, and finally into dollars. This has turned content producers, who are now called influencers, into the new idols, but also into manipulators of other human beings, that is, into powerful, even rich people.
Since time immemorial, power, that is, having control over the lives, wealth, and minds of other human beings, whether through a government, a ruler, a religion, a political ideology, and above all through war, has been the obsession of other human beings. This is experienced in Ecuador daily, everywhere, because, before the arrival of the cell phone, it was possible to escape by living in the countryside, in a rich neighborhood, in a distant place, but now electronic communication is possible, satellite communication, throughout the country, and being outside of it practically means being outside of this planet, even astronauts are now the ones who are most immersed in this world of global communications.
The pandemic fractured our social order through fear, isolation, quarantines, online education, email, cell phone communication, appointments, etc., which are forms of the so-called social distancing that now governs us, in which public officials, national and international, are behind a glass that separates them from those who need them, including doctors and teachers.
But fear has multiplied in our poor countries, such as Ecuador, where the streets, neighborhoods, ports, and prisons, have become the territory of gangs, transnational drug cartels, or arms and human trafficking, where rulers, parliamentarians, judges, prosecutors, journalists, as well as soldiers and police, or influencers are under suspicion.
