My first time in El Salvador 🥰
You guys have been asking for my opinion; I’ve been a little hesitant because you can’t intimately familiarize yourself with a country in just two weeks, and I would look pretty silly trying to pretend otherwise.
But I know many of you are genuinely interested; so instead, I will give you the German perspective, as someone who is aware of the narrative around El Salvador and its president that’s being pushed by influential outlets in Europe, but also as someone who has traveled far and seen enough bad takes to be wary of entire governments desperately trying to discredit a country for thinking outside the box.
So here’s one of my rare super-long Tweets!
For the record: this was NOT a sponsored trip; I paid for everything myself. 🫠
I came here primarily as a traveler, not a bitcoiner—which is to say, I wanted to experience the country and not hyper-focus on how many shops accept Bitcoin.
Did I see
#Bitcoin signage and shops that accept Bitcoin? Yes. Was it everywhere, with everyone on a Bitcoin standard? Of course not. But to those who consider that a failure, I’d recommend you take a step back to understand the bigger picture. How many of you could point out El Salvador on a map before the Bitcoin Law? How much international attention, tourism, and investment has the move achieved? Not to mention the long-term implications of adopting Bitcoin early on, which will become apparent a couple years down the line.
Now, my biggest takeaway is probably this:
Nowadays, wherever you go, people are unsatisfied with their government and pessimistic about the future. It feels like everywhere, things are more or less going downhill.
But in El Salvador, there is optimism. From
What I’ve seen, people are generally happy and looking forward to the future. Locals I spoke with proudly told me of their government without me even asking about it. Many also seem quite rational in their understanding that everything comes at a price, that the government is, for the most part, doing the best it can with the cards it has been dealt, and that decades of damage cannot be fixed in an instant. It’s a gradual process, although the rapid speed at which things are changing is literally visible on the streets, even to me as an outsider.
I can’t say much more than this: if most Salvadorans are content, if in fact this is one of few places in the world whose people are overwhelmingly optimistic going into the future, why are governments thousands of kilometres away so desperate to interfere?
I am sick and tired of this God complex, this colonizing mindset exercised by certain international organizations and so-called First World countries. Rather than spend so much time painting
@nayibbukele as a dictator in a desperate attempt to quash any challenge to your crumbling world order, how about you try to clean up your own backyard first? Our “Western” approaches are not always superior and cannot be copy-pasted onto other countries that are in vastly different economic, cultural, and societal situations.
You may call me a government shill if you so please. I try to consider different angles in forming an opinion, but of course I’m biased; we all are. Take my opinion as one anecdote in your quest to come to your own conclusion about El Salvador and Nayib Bukele.
Aaaaand lastly! I’ve also heard from some people who are eager to more or less randomly move to El Salvador; please please please visit first and stay for a while. Just like you shouldn’t discredit the country without reason, you also shouldn’t be naïve about the implications of moving abroad. It’s a unique lifestyle with unique perks and challenges. Maybe it’s perfect for you, but make sure you verify before you make that call 😇
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. I shall return to doing what I do best: drawing mostly uncontroversial comics 🧡