'Adiós, doctor!' Colombia mayor bans formal salutations in bid for equality

A man polishing the shoes of a man on the street. ‘We are all going to be equal and we don’t have to feel superior or inferior because you are called ‘doctor’ or ‘don’ or ‘señor’,” Cali’s mayor, Maurice Armitage, said. Photograph: Thierry Monasse/Corbis via Getty Images

In Colombia, it’s often said, everyone is a doctor until proven otherwise.

Not a medical doctor or even a PhD, that is: in Colombia’s daily lexicon, the word is a form of address for anyone judged to hold a superior social station – or for those who wield power in the tangled web of bureaucracy.

Expecting to be called “doctor” or “doctora” is a mark of endemic snobbery in a country where class distinctions are so entrenched that Colombians are formally classified into social strata depending not on their income but on where they live.

In attempt to eliminate linguistic snootiness the mayor of Cali, Colombia’s third largest city, has decided to ban the term “doctor”, and other forms of formal address, in municipal offices.

“In the city offices the word doctor or don are prohibited,” declared Mayor Maurice Armitage earlier this month. Through an education campaign, he hopes to spread the practice throughout the city.

“We are all going to be equal and we don’t have to feel superior or inferior because you are called ‘doctor’ or ‘don’ or ‘señor’,” he said.

All municipal workers have been given name tags so they can be addressed by their given names. Armitage has invited his staff to address him as Maurice.

The national daily El Espectador welcomed the measure. “We support this type of measures which force us to reflect on the use of language and open the door to change relationships between people,” the paper wrote in an editorial.

But it will take more than a decree to change the use of “doctor” – a previous attempt to ban the word in Bogotá was dropped after a few months.

Some linguists trace the use back to the 1920s when Colombian lawyers were required to hold a PhD to be able to practice certain types of law.

The “doctors” were the most revered in their profession and colleagues took to calling them that as a sign of deference. When the restrictions were lifted on the legal practice, every lawyer became a “doctor”, and the usage then spread to other professions.

Today, though there are only a few hundred PhD holders in the country, the spurious title has evolved to become a pervasive marker of class and power.

And any Colombian knows that when fighting your way through a labyrinth of red tape, it’s always a good idea to address the person behind the desk as doctor or doctora. If it makes them feel better about themselves – and they may be more inclined to get things done.