Nationalism or Not?

At the beginning of My Colombian War by Silvana Paternostro, the author expressess her resentment toward her country, Colombia. Paternostro grew up in Colombia when the Country was extremely violent during Pablo Escobar's "reign." Paternostro describes the incident in which a comercial airplane was blown up by Pablo Escobar. She never fully describes the tragedy and in fact never describes it at all. This occurred in 1989 and although I was not even born yet, the day is still remembered with great sadness by Colombians across the world. After all, 107 innocent people died on that plane on November 27. 

Silvana Paternostro says that although she heard of the incident and was a journalist at the time, she had absolutely no interest in writing about or in fact reporting the tragedy. This is definitely not the reaction most Colombian journalists or reporters had at the time, which makes me think that something occurred to Silvana Paternostro in Colombia that absolutely traumatized her and left her with no desire of either returning to the country or just having anything to do with it for quite some time. I wonder what occurred to Silvana Paternostro?

In a metaphor she uses on page 3 we can witness this uncertainty toward Colombia: "I slowly started to put my hand back on Colombia's doorknob, unsure if I was capable of turning it or not." 

Also near the beginning of the memoir Paternostro describes the hostility that she deals with once she shows her Colombian passport in many embassies and airports. This is something I can definitely relate to because although Colombia's situation has improved, people are still discriminative towards us since they are not aware of the country's reality. "I was strip-searched in Miami, Houston, and New york; thoroughly questioned in Frankfurt, Rome, and Geneva." (Pg. 2) 

This type of stereotyping should definitely not occur nowadays and is something that can get to be very offensive. Not only do those that make ignorant remarks about a Country seem completely moronic and mindless, but they also have no sense of what a Country's reality truly is.