The Danger of the Single Story

As I heard Chimamanda Adichie speak about the image the rest of the world had of Africa I started to think of the image people have of Colombia. A country of pure violence, drugs and illegality. That is the single story the world has of Colombia.
 As she kept on talking I realized because of this stereotypes and the entire world thinking we are a certain way, we start to believe those stories ourselves. People who have never been outside their country and have little access to literature, start to become part of that single-story-minded people.
I once heard a Colombo-japanese man talking about the mentality Colombians have that we are a poor country with no hope. People outside of colombia have created such a big image that we are a hopeless country that we start to develop this "poor mentality". We start to accept that we are a poor country and start to act according to that poor-country mentality. We start to feel pity for ourselves.
As Chimamanda said it is important that we educate ourselves with more than one story. That we start to see things from various perspectives rather than just one. We have to forget about those stereotypes that greatly influence our judgment of cultures and see things clear, like they really are.
I believe if we start to see things with a different outlook we will avoid many cultural misunderstandings that may lead to wars.