The gaze of the tourist conditions us, sometimes for the worse and sometimes for the better. In art, many Latin American countries have seen their painting evolve based on the commercial success that exoticism reaped among foreigners, who were its main buyers, which created a false imaginary, an identity fantasy so powerful that it ended up deceiving not only foreigners but to the locals. The phenomenon also affects literature, cinema and academic production. A character from the latest novel by the Colombian Juan Cárdenas, Transparent Pilgrim, refers to that current that “bumps between the demagoguery of magical realism and the thousand clothes of pornomisery”, because that is what the rest of us think when we think of them.
Are we as they see us or as we think we are? It is difficult to distinguish, we all have something of a Schrödinger’s cat, greatly influenced by the external gaze even without realizing it. Sometimes we rebel against it, like that uncomfortable Barcelona when it sees itself excessively carnivalized. But other times the gaze of others associates us with the genius of great creators or with virtues that we did not suspect we had.
I would say to touristophobes that the influence of the visiting gaze helped Spain overcome many of its atavisms and freedom was introduced into our public and private life. I think about it, these days, in Andorra. The idea that I brought and the wonder of its landscapes, is shocked to discover that –as in San Marino, the Vatican and Malta– abortion is here a crime in all cases, punishable between two and a half years and twelve years. prison, depending on the casuistry. Amnesty International denounces the harassment to which the authorities subject the activist Vanessa Mendoza Cortés, who fights so that the law does not force anyone to give birth and faces lawsuits for damaging the image of the country. A French department, that of the Eastern Pyrenees, has just asked Co-Prince Emmanuel Macron to intercede so that Andorran legislation is adapted to the countries around it and has expressed its support for Mendoza. Andorrans should know that, for many of us who visit them, the one who damages her image is not Mendoza but the facts and laws that motivate her fight.
