Well hello again ladies and gentlemen of our shared floating rock in the sky!
Soy Elvagabundonumerouno! and I want to start off today with a semi-apology for the rant that I launched from the leather lazy boy yesterday. Although I think it may have been necessary for all ya'll to understand a few of the issues that I feel strongly about, it may have come off a bit uppity and even preachy. This past June, I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree with emphasis in Cultural Anthropology and Spanish. That's right, the over-arching infrastructure that has guided my life for the past 4 years is no more. Bittersweet. So June 16th found me wondering... What to do next? While I was wrapping up my senior year I was applying for a position with NISGUA (The Network in Solidarity with the Peoples of Guatemala) as a Human Rights Witness. As a student of Anthropology and Spanish, this opportunity stood out as a type of "higher calling" endeavor that would have involved a certain degree of danger, but also could have given a powerful voice to the indigenous peoples of Guatemala that are still being persecuted in their native homeland. The human rights situation in Guate has been atrocious since 1962 when a military dictator overthrew the government in a coup d' tat that brought about a bloody genocide and civil war that lasted over 35 years. Disappearences of indigenous peoples, college professors, news reporters, and citizens who believed in a just society were "the norm", rather than the acception during this period of time. But discrimination and brutalization continue to happen to residents of Guatemala by the soldiers that are supposed to be protecting them. As a real-world example of the oppression that probably happens on many more occasions than just the one that was brought to my attention, imagine you live in a family with ancestors that lived in the area before Western contact. Now imagine that you have to walk nearly 30 miles to the nearest town with a market in order to get the essentials your family needs to survive. In the late afternoon sun on the return trip back home to your village, military soldiers toting machine guns with bayonets attached to the barrels stop you and your family at an "unofficial checkpoint". They demand that you give them all the food you have just bought at the market, roughly enough to supply your family for the next week or so, and all the money and valuables you are carrying. This could even include the clothes off you and your childrens' backs. To make matters worse, when you, as head of the patriarchal household, report the incident to government officials, they do not believe you because of your ethnicity. If you need another example, continuing from one of the threads from yesterday's rant, think of the nearly ultimate power that corporations have in today's world. Now apply that power over a relatively defenseless population such as the people descended from the indigenous tribes of what is now Guate. A man named Pascual Bernabe Benitez once came to Western Washington University and vividly described mining companies that have reservations on exploiting the Guatemalan people's land and the politically impotent class of people that reside in rural areas. The kind of exploitation that comes with mega-projects such as mines and dams engineered to generate electricity is manifested through extreme degredation of the land. In many of the ancient Mayan cultures from whom present day indigenous people have descended, the individual and the land are one in the same. It may seem a little odd to upper- or middle-class Westerners to not distinguish between people and land, but with a little imagination and a dash of empathy, these people's world views and their understanding of their places/roles in the world can be somewhat tangible. Ancient and present day Mayans believe(d) they were born of the earth and all of its landforms, inhabitants, and intricacies are sacred. Many would say that these people need these damned dams or mines to generate a viable product in order to compete in the global market place. Sorry, but that race has already been won. Powerful nation-states such as the U.S., its allies, China, etc. enjoy victory over the global marketplace every day. The proof lies in the fact that these nations are composed of middle-upper class citizens and are not plagued by such extreme poverty as many other locations in the world experience. The political clout derived from the priveleged fruits of globalization allows these nations to make powerful decisions at the global level such as whether or not to endorse multi-national treatises (Kyoto, international courts, etc.)
Now I know exactly what you're thinking, Elvagabundonumerouno is just a ranter! Well, my goal is to provide some information about my own life but also to focus on advocacy for the voiceless. I didn't end up getting the Human Rights Witness with NISGUA. There were something along the lines of 21 applicants for 4 or 5 positions, and I am inexperienced living life in the global south. At first it was quite a disappointment, but I soon realized there are literally an unlimited number of adventures to be had on our shared floating rock in the sky, that's earth for those of you who are a little slow on the uptake. So, I bought a one-way ticket to Santiago, Chile (I know I know, waaaaay more affluent and Americanized than rural Guatemala). But that is partly what this blog is for, for all ya'll to judge if I'm the type of person who solely advocates from the comfort of my living room, or if I believe there is a possibility for a more socially just world. Stay tuned in radio land!
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