I flew back to Colombia on Thursday and watched the Brexit news unfurl on TV here, hours after an historic ceasefire was signed with FARC. Seeing the two countries so starkly juxtaposed at such a crucial moment to both has been a head spinner.
To the Brexit vitriol, my friend Will makes a good point. Perspective. How wonderful to have democratic rights. And when it doesn't go your way, how fortunate to be able to publicly decry the result with no risk of persecution. If you're sitting in the pub, rowing with friends (or your Dad, because really, Dad, really?) or furiously venting on social media, then you're probably still better off than a large swathe of the world's population. Yeah yeah, but... still, right?
Last week, in the two minutes we spent not discussing Brexit, my lifelong friend Jessamy told me, incredulously, that the chances of a state-educated teenager obtaining a place in Oxbridge is 1 in 200,000, while those of a privately educated child getting in are 1 in 20. While Jessamy is outraged, I admit my first response was to laugh. How differently we (educated together since the age of six but now living in different countries) had come to define 'inequality' and 'social mobility'.
At my first beach restaurant in Colombia, we employed three women from the local village in our kitchen. One, in her late twenties, had two children but could not read, write or count. Another, in her late thirties, told me that after six months working with us, she was the first person in her family able to afford to start building her house out of concrete. In their village, the streets are not paved or lit. Power cuts are frequent. There is no post office, bank or ATM and there is no municipal transport (so we paid salaries in cash). Before joining our team, none of the three had jobs or received welfare payments. The minimum wage in Colombia is currently £2,040 per annum (£170 per month, £6 per day). In the village next to our new restaurant, there is no mains water.
So there am I, living in a place where illiteracy is quietly tolerated and the daily wage is less than a cocktail. And here was Jessamy, incensed about Oxbridge. I remembered when my mother sometimes had to fight with parents at the UK state school where she taught French, begging them to let their kids apply to university, arguing that it was an opportunity, not a waste of time and money. I wanted to say to Jess: "You know what, Britain, should give itself a big pat on the back for the fact that all children can even hope to: a) learn to read; b) go to high school; c) attend any university (let alone the country's best)." But I saw Jessamy's face and I shut my mouth.
And that is what clinched it. Today, like yesterday and the day before that, I AM proud to be British. Not because of all the cool stuff we have (roads, education, peace, etc.). But because of my fellow British citizens, from Jessamy (white privileged, in) to my mother (black immigrant, out), who never seem to be satisfied with all the cool stuff because they (like Ariel) want more. And also because the political class bothers, no matter how maladroitly, to respond to their citizens' malaise. (Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro, take note).
Whichever way you voted, or however your reaction today, presumably you have abandoned apathy because - in spite of the comforts of running water, paved roads, streetlights, free (albeit imperfect) healthcare and education, unemployment benefit, a welfare system (flawed but existent) and peace - you believe we can do better. Go us.
So enjoy the debate, Britain. Shout and rant and publicly disown your Dad. Then, work out how we can practically obtain the best long-term outcome. So the other side won. Do you orchestrate a coup? Riot? Leave? Or do we make the best of it. Carry on trusting in democracy, carry on badgering our parliament, our peers and our Dads to make sure that racist bigotry and national isolation simply don't become part of our values or daily lives.
I hope that Britain's future and global reputation need not be defined in one day by the result of this referendum, but by how we choose to respond to it. What we as free people with loud voices demand next week, next month, next year, from whoever it is leading us down whatever path we have just embarked on. That surely, is what must matter.
