Rigoberta Menchu - An Indian Woman in Guatemala - Essay Example

Rigoberta Menchu – An Enigma When Rigoberta Menchu (1959- ), a Native American living in exile in the city of Mexico gave an interview to Elisabeth Burgos-Debray, depicting the terrible conditions under which the native Indians were reeling under a government that was more of a dictator, little did she know how large the reaction would be to her horrific revelations. Her story was given in the form of a series of interview in 1982 and later published in the form of a book in 1983 named “Me Llamo Rigoberta Menchu Y Asi Me Nacio La Conciencia” later translated into English as “I, Rigoberta Menchú: an Indian woman in Guatemala” by Ann Wright in 1984. This book had a huge impact amongst people worldwide. It brought into forefront the sufferings of her people and gave the issue the much required attention and sympathy. This book opened up doors for the poor Guatemalan farmers who previously had no say under the oppressive militia regime. Besides, having a dictator for a government they were themselves illiterate and completely disconnected from the rest of the world. The book after being published in twelve different languages including English spread the message of these poor peasants all over the world and very soon Rigoberta Menchu became a well known social activist. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992 and made a goodwill ambassador for the UNESCO. This book was mainly an autobiography of Menchu herself that describes the condition and plight of the native Indian laborers working in various plantations owned by the whites skinned people in and around Guatemala and it starts in a very interesting manner with Menchu stating in bold terms “My name is Rigoberta Menchu...this is my testimony. I didnt learn it from a book and I didnt learn it alone. Id like to stress that it’s not only my life, it’s also the testimony of my people...my personal experience is the reality of a whole people (cited in Debray and Wright p.1). Thus, besides being an autobiography, this book speaks for her entire genre. Menchu was born in Chimel, Guatemala, to Vicente, a leader of his village and a preacher and Juana Tum a practicing midwife. Her family belonged to the group of Quiche tribe of Mayan origin and followed a mixed culture of Mayan rites combined with Roman Catholic beliefs. Her childhood was spent amidst the Guatemalan civil war which increased in vigor and force as she grew up. Political complexities were a part of her growing up years and she was soon deeply involved in this civil war, fighting with the Indian rebels against the white skinned Spanish or ladino oppressors. These Ladinos were the mestizos or people of mixed Spanish and Indian parentage. During the years that Menchu was growing up, the Spanish/ladino people made up the dominant class, being active in all the important social and governing activities. They had large running businesses and were extremely rich. On the other hand the peasantry class consisting of the poor Guatemalan people who all barely survived. They lived in absolute poverty, in dilapidated hovel like houses that lacked basic amenities like light, sanitary system or even water. To supplement their meager earnings they were often forced to work under terrible conditions in the various Spanish owned plantations. It was these working conditions that Menchu brought to the international limelight through her book which had been hidden from the world. As Menchu tells us, the workers were all herded into trucks under a cover to be taken to work at the various plantations and were not allowed to get down at the various stop over. As the result the smell of excreta of both human and animals were unbearable under the cover, by the time they reached their workplace, which was a long way off from their homes. The plantation cantina charged exorbitant prices for any available drinks and the workers spent most of their money here (the owners made sure that they did). The toilet facilities at the plantations were extremely bad with only one very crudely made outdoor toilet to serve more than four hundred workers. Often pesticides were sprayed on the plants in the very presence of the workers. As a result many of them died by poisoning from these very pesticides. One of Menchus friends suffered a similar fate and there was absolutely nothing anyone could do, to fight against such gross injustice. Many died at this time due to starvation, diseases and of poisoning from the pesticides. It was during these oppressive times that the Guatemalan guerrilla rebels took up arms the rulers. Tormented by the Spanish/ladino controlled government and the rich plantation owners, many Native Americans sympathized and later, including Menchus own family members joined the ranks of these rebels. Many natives, who did not have any sympathy for the rebels previously, were however harassed by the Guatemalan militia so regularly that they soon joined the rebels too. Menchus father Vicente Menchu formed a peasant unity committee in 1978 to fight against the rich plantation owners. After his death in 1980 while trying to occupy the Spanish embassy, she took over from where her father left it unfinished. She lived in exile for twelve long years while her brother and mother were captured and tortured by the Guatemalan militia and murdered. Instead of directly taking up guns Menchu decided to fight by words through her interviews and books. Almost a decade after the publication of her famous book “I, Rigoberta Menchu”, in the early 90s, it came to be in the eye of a storm. It became surrounded by many controversies and was said to be not entirely correct. Dinesh Dsouza, the then editor of Dartmouth Review, was one of the first to raise a critical voice. Soon after in the late nineties, David Stoll, who was the professor at Middlebury College, started an intensive study in the history and conditions of Guatemala and found many discrepancies in Menchus version. He claimed that she had fabricated many facts which had no actual presence in reality. In fact in 1998, Larry Rohter a reporter with the New York times published an article named “Tarnished Laureate:Nobel Winner Finds Her Story Challenged”. After checking many government documents and reports, it was claimed by David Stoll that Menchu made some changes to suit herself and altered certain parts of the story of her life and gave it a communist feel to the whole picture in support of the Marxist Guatemalan rebels. Though Stoll did not interview Menchu herself, he spoke to many of her friends and neighbors who all seem to say another story, a little different from that of Menchus version. After interviewing many people present during the incident and other members of the human rights commission Stoll concluded, that Menchus brother Petrocinio was not burned alive by the army as Menchu claimed, but was captured and later shot dead and there was no way her family members could have witnessed the killing. Her brother Nicolas also did not die of slow starvation as Menchu had said in her book. Instead, Stoll managed to find her brother, with the name Nicolas, who was alive and living in San Miguel Uspatan. This Nicolas said to Larry Rohter in an interview, that, two of his brothers did die of starvation and remembered one of their names as Felipe. In retaliation, however Menchu claimed that she was referring to another brother; also of the same name Nicolas (the peasantry class of the Maya tribe often had this practice of giving the same name to many of their children). Discrepancy was also found in the claims by Menchu that her father refused to give her education in fear that she may lose her Mayan identity. In fact it was established by Stoll and Rohter that Menchu had studied with the catholic nuns till her eighth standard. Menchus family also was not as poor as she claims in her book. As her neighbors said, her family was quite well off compared to the other poor Guatemalan peasants and they did not have the need to work in the plantations for money. As a leader of the village her father in fact had been presented with some land by the Guatemalan government and he in no way would have formed the peasant unity committee. Stoll also found holes in the claims that in the seventies Menchus father was working as a political worker for the rebel guerrillas and was underground. It was found that in fact at that time he was working with the US Peace force as a volunteer in his own village, Chimel. Thus, Stoll claims that much of the story of her life as painted by her was not correct. However there were no disregarding the facts by Stoll that her parents and many of her relatives were indeed killed by the Guatemalan army. Menchu, following the tradition of storytelling or “testimonio” as seen in the Latin American countries, tells the story of an entire community as if it were a story of her own family and this is where the discrepancy starts. There is no denying the fact that many were killed mercilessly by the Guatemalan army and others repressed terribly. History cannot deny the figures as presented by Juan Jesus Aznarez, “thirty-six years of internal war in Guatemala, whose final numbers are horrific: 100,000 people dead, 40,000 disappeared, 200,000 orphans, and a wandering legion of 100,000 widows” (Juan Jesus Aznarez, The Rigoberta Menchu controversy p 109). By proving Menchus discrepancies it cannot be proven wrong the above figures. The oppressive situations that the native Guatemalan people faced as portrayed in the book are also correct. It may not have happened to Menchus own family, but it has definitely happened to other members of her own indigenous community. As Menchu in an interview to Juan Jesus Aznarez, she herself tells us “Guatemalas history is impossible to change one way or the other...the crimes committed have sealed the memories of our people. There were thousands and thousands of disappearances, tortures, assassinations, people burned alive” (cited in The Rigoberta Menchu controversy, p 117). So facts and figures prove that though Menchu may have taken certain liberties in describing incidents related to her family members, but she was correct in giving the general picture. If David Stolls book is read closely it will be found that many of the given theories are only surmises and many of them are inconclusive too, with sources that are not always clearly mentioned. As Ferman points out “Stolls book exhibits obvious methodological problems. It is inconclusive in most of its inquiries – it presents tentative theses that many times cancel each other, uses vaguely defined or completely undefined sources, and it is extremely clear and direct in terms of its political agenda. These characteristics weaken the possibility of its academic success and make difficult a broad and extensive impact” (Ferman, The Rigoberta Menchu controversy, p 158). Thus Stolls critical evaluation of Menchus book, if studied closely, does not hold good in most cases. Even then, Stoll never said that Menchus book was a hoax, he just said that she had changed certain facts of her life to gain more mileage and spread her left leaning ideals, to which Menchu had more or less admitted the same. By telling her story to the world she had definitely done her poor Guatemalan people a huge favor and brought the attention to the atrocities of the Guatemalan army that they had been committing silently on the indigenous people for the past thirty six years. So her book cannot be dismissed as being just a fraud and the work of a publicity hound. As Lovell and Lutz also tells us “like many whose work pertains to Guatemala, we find ourselves not puzzled... but also perplexed that Stolls dissection of the debatable details of one individuals life serves to divert attention from the undeniable deaths of thousands of others”( Lovell and Lutz, The Rigoberta Menchu controversy, p 171). It is true that Menchu though calling her a book an autobiography, does not necessarily follow the correct path in relating the story of her life and possibly, more often than not, strays from the truth, but for the sake of a greater good and for obtaining the objective truth this can be made permissible and also overlooked and the fact that she helped the indigenous people of Guatemala to achieve their freedom should only be remembered and honored. References Arias, A. Stoll, D. The Rigoberta Menchu controversy. London. University of Minnesota Press. 2001. Menchu, R. Debray, B, E. I, Rigoberta Menchu – An Indian Woman in Guatemala. Trans. By Ann Wright. London. Verso. 1984. Read More