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RigobertaMenchu.pptxRigoberta Menchu’s Testimonio and human Rights
Guatemala
Guatemala
Rigoberta Menchu Tum
Born 1959, Village Chimel, El Quiche
Received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992
For her effort to end the oppression of
Indigenous people in Guatemala
Themes in “I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala”
Indigenous Indian communities in Guatemala – their condition, extreme poverty, and their exploitation and struggles through the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s.
Mayan Quiche Indian – one of the largest of the 23 ethnic groups in Guatemala.
Gives a TESTIMONY – speaks for all her people. “This is my testimony. I didn’t learn it from a book and I didn’t learn it alone. I’d like to stress that it’s not only my life, it’s also the testimony of my people….my story is the story of all poor Guatemalans. My personal experience is the reality of a whole people.” Thus what is seen as an individualist form is used here to tell the story of a community/ies. The manner of Telling – recounting to Elisabeth Burgos-Debray – continuing an oral tradition. While personal details important – even they are a testimony to oppressive suffering of a people. Testimony – voice of the oppressed, women – to “talk-back” to power.
Relations With ladinos
Ladinos – mixed race, or a Spanish-speaking Indian. Here they also represent the system that oppresses the Indians, e.g. the landowners on whose fincas (coffee and cotton plantations) where the Indians regularly for many months in a year went to seek work, bringing their whole families – wives and many children – who work on the farms. By extension – the repressive government – who represents the interests of the powerful.
From the 1960s, the ethnic and socioeconomic tensions engrained since colonization in the 16th century, broke out in a horrific Civil War. The military dictatorship, under the leadership of Efraín Ríos Montt began systematic brutalization of Mayan Indians. Rich landowners initiated the bloodshed. By the time a peace agreement was signed in 1996, 450 Mayan villages were destroyed, over 200,000 Guatemalans murdered and 1 million were displaced.
CLASS, RACE AND ETHNIC DIFFERENTIATION.
Relations with ladinos
Recognition in her writing that there are poor Ladinos in Guatemala as well, who are also exploited. She came across these Ladinos both in her farm labor work and later in her organizational work.
There is at the same time a resentment that even though they are poor they treat Indians as below them, as lesser people. “However, this ladino minority thinks its blood is superior, a higher quality, and they think of Indians as a sort of animal.” (p. 196) “If an Indian goes near a Ladino, the Ladino will leave his seat rather than be with an Indian. We feel this rejection deeply.” (p. 197).
However, there is also an understanding that the powerful keep the weak divided (through such hierarchy and language barriers) so that they don’t unite against the authorities. “And the system feeds this situation. It separates the Indian from the Ladino.”
Story of Land Grab
The lands her parents cultivated in the Altiplano – started yielding produce after 8-9 years.
Ladino families arrived.
Ladino families’ connection with the government.
Deceived into signing agreement.
Conflict begins.
“We started thinking about the roots of the problem and came to the conclusion that everything stemmed from the ownership of land.” (p. 137)
The Politicization of the Menchu Family
Rigoberta as a catechist – Catholic Action – inspiration from the Bible.
Peasant Unity Committee (CUC)
Her whole family – her brothers, sisters and parents worked to organize the community in some way or the other.
Her youngest brother, and parents killed. Her two younger sisters joined the guerilla movement.
1980 – Peasant’s march to the capital and occupation of the Spanish embassy – all occupants of the embassy burnt to death including her father Vicente Menchu.
31st January Popular Front created of many disparate organizations.
Torture and Killing by the Army
Death of her 16 year old younger brother in 1979.
9 September 1979 – her brother kidnapped by the army. “My brother was tortured for more than sixteen days. They cut off his finger nails, they cut off his fingers, they cut off his skin, they burned parts of his skin….” (p. 204)
The army burnt alive her brother and other tortured captives in front of a large gathering of people.
Her mother kidnapped on 19th April 1980. raped by high ranking army officers. “On the third day of her torture, they cut off her ears. They cut her whole body bit by bit. They began with small tortures…and worked up to terrible tortures.” (p. 233) “They left her there dying for four or five days, enduring the sun, the rain, and the night….She was still alive. My mother died in terrible agony.”
https://youtu.be/ru7Hy9FDQS4
Extreme Poverty
Her parents eking a living on the Altiplano in the mountains, where they were among the first to settle. Had to work for eight months in a year on the fincas on the coast, in coffee and cotton plantations. “I saw my two eldest brothers die from lack of food when we were down in the fincas. Most Indian families suffer from malnutrition.” (p.5)
“When I turned eight, I started to work on the finca.” (p.39)
“When I was ten they raised my pay because by then I was picking forty pounds of coffee. For picking cotton I still got very little because it was a lot in quantity but not in weight.” (p. 47)
“We…came to the conclusion that we hadn’t had a childhood, nor had we really been young because, as we were growing up we’d had the responsibility of feeding young brothers and sisters…” (p. 192)
“We slept in the same clothes we worked in. That’s why society rejects us….They say we Indians are dirty…if we have time we go to the river every week, every Sunday, and wash our clothes. These clothes have to last us all week because we haven’t any other time for washing and we haven’t any soap either.” (p. 55)
Her friend died in the finca because they sprayed pesticide in the finca.
As a maid in the capital with a Ladino family – made to eat hard tortillas and few beans. “The dog had a good meal and I didn’t deserve as good a meal as the dog.” (p. 109)
“…even their toilets shine. At home we don’t even have one.” (p. 111).
The Question of Language
The question of language appears everywhere in her text. It appears in two significant ways –
1) her own difficulty with regard to learning Spanish – as she had no formal schooling, so had to learn through listening and remembering. Her insistence on learning the language to carry her message to the world, and do away with a major short-coming in communicating with the world. Her translator notes that Rigoberta’s Spanish was a mixture of Spanish learned from nuns and full of Biblical associations; that learned in political struggle replete with revolutionary terms; and most of all, Spanish which is heavily colored by the linguistic construction of her native Quiche and full of imagery of nature and community traditions.
2) the many languages within the indigenous Indian communities that kept them divided and unable to understand each other – this hindered the work of organization, and of understanding the simple truth that they all faced similar manner of exploitation, oppression and repression – and that the authorities took advantage of their inability to communicate with each other.
Language and privilege.
The Question of Language: The need to learn Spanish to do away with intermediaries
“I never went to school, and so I find speaking Spanish very difficult….It’s difficult when you learn just by listening, without any books.” (p.1)
“…twenty-three groups and twenty-three languages.” (p.2)
“…I understood Spanish although I couldn’t speak it.” (At age 13 when she went to the city to work as a maid). (p.108)
“…once when I was starting to learn and was finding Spanish very hard, perhaps I might have used ‘tu’ to the mistress. She almost hit me. She said, ;Call your mother ‘tu’.” (p.115)
“I played a key role because I was learning Spanish…we wanted to make plans for us all to learn Spanish.” (p. 142)
The Question of Language
“…in Guatemala…Quiche language is the most common. The main languages are Quiche, Cakchiquel, and Mam, and from these three mother languages spring all the other…. That doesn’t mean we all understand each other. We don’t.” (p.168)
“…I came across linguistic barriers over and over again. We couldn’t understand each other and I wanted so much to talk to everybody…” (p. 192)
“The ladino has many ways of making his voice heard – if he goes to a lawyer, he doesn’t need an intermediary.” (p. 196)
“My mother spoke almost no Spanish, but she spoke two languages – Quiche and a bit of Kekchi.” (p.230) (in the context of her mother’s political work).
Relationship with Nature
Rigoberta is conscious of not only the close relationship of the indigenous peoples with Nature, but also that this is the basis of their Culture, a Culture she is very conscious of preserving and winning it recognition.
“We Indians have more contact with nature. We worship…or rather…respect – a lot of things to do with the natural world….to us, water is sacred….the same goes for the earth….we think of the earth as the mother of man….this is why before we sow the maize, we have to ask the earth’s permission.” (pp. 65-6).
“We pray to our ancestors….We evoke the representatives of the animal world; we say the names of dogs. We say the names of the earth….Then we say the name of the heart of sky – the sun.” (p. 66)
“…we believe that a tree is a being, a part of nature, and that a tree has its image, its representation…to channel our feelings to the one God.” (p. 94)
On the closeness of peasants to nature – “We kept quiet and listened to the silence of the mountains. It’s a pleasant silence.” (p. 224)
The Centrality of Maize in the Indian Culture
He is told (when a child is born) that he will eat maize and that…he is already made of maize because his mother ate it when he was forming in her stomach. He must respect the maize; even the grain of maize that has been thrown away, he must pick up.” (p. 14)
“The child is considered the child of God, our one father... To reach this one father, the child must love beans, maize, the earth. The one father is the heart of the sky:…the sun.” (p.14)
“Maize is the center of everything for us. It is our culture. The milpa is the maize field. Maiz is the grain. The mazorca is the body of the maize, the cob. The tuza is the leaf which envelops the cob…the xilote is the core.” (p.62)
It’s not the custom among our people to use a mill to grind the maize to make dough. We use a grinding stone….we use only wood fires to make our tortillas. First we get up at three in the morning and start grinding and washing the nixtamal…” (p. 50)
“The practices surrounding the cultivation, harvesting and cooking of maize are the very basis of the social structure of the community.” [Elisabeth Burgos-Debray]
Ancestors and Secrets
The living memory of ancestors is very important. It is linked with the preservation of Indian culture and customs – to ensure their continuity – and the fear that these should not be replaced by non-Indian culture.
“My father used to say: ’There are many secrets we must not tell. We must keep our secrets.’ He said that no rich man, no landowner, no priest, or nun, must ever know our secrets. If we don’t protect our ancestors’ secrets we’ll be responsible for killing them.” (p. 220)
“They promise to teach the child to keep secrets of our people, so that our culture and customs will be preserved.” (p.13)
“…our ancestors were dishonored by the white man, by colonization….the Spaniards dishonored our ancestors’ finest sons…And it is to honor these humble people that we must keep our secrets. And no one except we Indians must know.” (pp. 14-15)
Christianity and the Bible
Calls herself and her father and family Christian. Became a catechist as a girl. Yet this did not mean giving up the Indian religion, beliefs, customs, or the way of life. – Learnt from priests and nuns. Joined the Catholic Action. And after her father’s death, an organization called the Vicente Menchu Organization of Christian Revolutionaries was formed.
While the Bible (and conversion) was one of the weapons in the hands of the colonizers, this was also used very effectively by the Indians against their oppressors.
Rigoberta noted: “Our main weapon…is the Bible. We began to study the Bible as a text through which to educate our village.” (p. 153)
Stories From the Bible
Exodus– Moses who tried to lead his people from oppression. “ We compare the Moses of those days with ourselves, the ‘Moses’ of today.” (p. 155) – Relating these stories to the Indian culture.
The example of Judith – ”She fought very hard for her people and made many attacks against the king…until she finally had his head.” (p. 155)
There is also the story of David, a little shepherd boy who appears in the Bible, who was able to defeat the king of those days, King Goliath.” (p. 155)
“For me, as a Christian, there is one important thing. That is the life of Christ. Throughout his life Christ was humble….He was persecuted and had to form a band of men…” (p. 156)
“Christians we must create a Church of the poor.” (p. 157)
“…being a Christian means refusing to accept all the injustices which are committed against our people…” (p. 157)
Relations with the Catholic Church
“Catholic Action too submitted us to tremendous oppression. It kept our people dormant while others took advantage of our passivity.” (p. 144)
On priests – that they taught them many things – “but they also taught us to accept many things, to be passive, to be a dormant people. Their religion told us it was a sin to kill while we were being killed. They told us God is up there and that God had a kingdom for the poor. This confused me…. It prevents us from seeing the real truth of how our people live. I tried to get rid of my doubts by asking the nuns: What would happen if we rose up against the rich? The nuns tried to avoid the question.” (p. 143)
Indigenous Peoples
Indigenous people who self-identify as such
They have a strong link to territories and surrounding natural resources
They have distinct social, economic or political systems. They have a distinct language, culture and beliefs
They maintain and develop their ancestral environments and systems as distinct peoples
Each of these characteristics may be more or less important depending on the situation. Indigenous Peoples are also known as First Peoples, Aboriginal Peoples, or Native Peoples. In some countries there are specific terms such as Adivasis (India) or Janajatis (Nepal).
Indigenous Peoples have a special relationship with the land on which they have lived for generations, sometimes for tens of thousands of years. They possess crucial knowledge about how to manage natural resources sustainably and act as guardians or custodians of the land for the next generation. Losing their land means a loss of identity.
Indigenous Peoples: Key Facts (Amnesty international)
370 million people (5% of the world’s population) in 70 countries identify themselves as indigenous peoples.
5000 different indigenous peoples and speak 4000 languages.
1/3rd of the world’s 900 million extremely poor peoples in rural areas are indigenous peoples.
70% of them live in Asia
Challenges Today
Indigenous people threatened by resource exploitation – a 2012 report by the London based Minority Rights Group International (MRG) reported that the global intensification of natural resources is leading to mounting conflicts for the world’s 370 million indigenous peoples – mining, logging, land grab, in conflicts over resources – 2/3rds of indigenous peoples live in Asia.
13th September 2007 – United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples.
Indigenous Land Rights
Indigenous Peoples’ land ownership rights are recognized under international law. States cannot relocate Indigenous Peoples without their free, prior and informed consent and without offering them adequate compensation.
The land that Indigenous Peoples live on is home to over 80% of our planet’s biodiversity and rich in natural resources, such as oil, gas, timber and minerals. However these lands are routinely appropriated, sold, leased or simply plundered and polluted by governments and private companies.
Many Indigenous Peoples have been uprooted from their land due to discriminatory policies or armed conflict. Human rights abuses related to their land rights and culture, have prompted growing numbers of Indigenous Peoples to leave their traditional lands for towns and cities. Cut off from resources and traditions vital to their welfare and survival, many Indigenous Peoples face even greater marginalization, poverty, disease and violence – and sometimes, extinction as a people.
United Nations Declaration on the
Rights of
Indigenous Peoples
United Nations
Affirming that indigenous peoples are equal to all other peoples, while recognizing the right of all peoples to be different, to consider themselves different, and to be respected as such,
Affirming also that all peoples contribute to the diversity and richness of civilizations and cultures, which constitute the common heritage of humankind.
