Late last August, prominent FARC commanders Iván Márquez and Jesús Santrich declared that they would be taking up arms against the Colombian state once again. The announcement signified a partial breakdown of the 2016 peace agreement which was meant to mark the end of the decades-long conflict.

The vocal cynics within Colombia’s hawkish right wing will consider this a prophecy fulfilled, parroting familiar narratives about violence being the only way to “deal with” guerrillas. But this simplistic view obscures the failure of the government to end the continuous murder of activists or address the inequities that gave rise to the armed conflict in the first place.

On the other hand, the last several years have seen the beginnings of a new left movement that is now grappling with the question of how best to organize while navigating the dangerous uncertainties within this fragile era of peace. The country’s recent national strike was the powerful culmination of what were, until recently, fragmented efforts to organize for social and economic justice.