In most  magazines you will find only reviews of new books on the market. The review is probably the only way for the word about a book to get out there, especially if the press doesn’t have a big promotions budget. So as I writer, I am obliged to promote the review of new books. As far as I know, no one has ever ran out and bought a book that I reviewed, so why are we fooling ourselves. I, Rigoberta Menchú (first published by Verso in 1984) is a book I am recommending that everybody read. I say make it mandatory. I don’t care if you buy it, go to your local library and have them buy it if they haven’t already. After you read it and think about it, you will want to do something (like go to your local high school and ask the English department to buy a class set or perhaps something more extreme.)

 This is an incredible story, told as simply and honestly as can be of some of the most brutal torture and oppression in the latter half of the 20th century. The shocking part of this isn’t really mentioned in the book, the shocking part is that you and I are responsible. The Guatemalan government has conducted and probably still conducts these tortures in the name of the large plantation owners to exploit the cheap labor of the native people (without that labor we couldn’t afford bananas or coffee. And damnit I love my coffee.) The weapons, helicopters etc. provided by the US government to suppress labor unions and democracy.

Rigoberta doesn’t say this. She doesn't say how the US government intervened in democratic elections in 1954 to install brutal dictators that would support corporations like the United Fruit Company. Chomsky says that and even the father of spin Edward L. Bernays who lobbied for the Fruit Company to supress democracy fearing that organized laborers (ie commies) would make it illegal to export the profits of their labor.
 
Just this week I heard the President of Columbia asking for more military aid to combat the drug trade. We know that when economic opportunity is supressed, people turn to what we call crime. Could it be that the native people are forced to grow/sell cocaine and opium to feed themselves because of this same kind of oppression. If you let them keep the profits from their agriculture labor, I’m sure that they would rather grow coffee.

 Rigoberta describes in detail the experiences of her family and herself, always connecting it with the ancient practices and beliefs of her people. She describes how her brother was tortured and burned to death for organizing, how her father was burned to death, how her mother was raped, mutilated, tied to a tree and left to rot alive crawling with maggots under military guard. The people including Rigoberta were forced to watch the coyotes and zapilotes carry off bits of her flesh until nothing was left. Why? For struggling to get better working conditions for her family and neighbors. Rigoberta describes how children starved under full banana trees because the overseers wouldn’t allow the fruit to be picked because the trees shaded the coffee. Coffee pickers pick one bean at a time and are forced to pay for trees that are damaged. Rigoberta was picking cotton and coffee from the time she could walk.
 
Rigoberta goes on to describe how the native people in Guatemala began to fight back. They overcame languages barriers kept in place by the government; they formed unions; when soldiers came to attack the villages they spread the word about self-defense setting traps and hiding in the mountains; they formed guerrilla groups which kidnapped the marauding soldiers; and they stormed embassies to bring their message to the world. The fascinating part is the inner struggle to preserve the native culture (the language, the costumes and the values) while at the same time trying to become part of the larger world.

 Like one of her “Marxist compañeras” I could take issue with Menchu’s adherence to Christianity, but she’s the kind of Christian that I can tolerate. She uses the bible to uplift the poor, stories about Moses leading the people out of slavery and Judith "who held the head of the king in her hand," rather than preaching that salvation awaits them in the next world which is the capitalist Christian line, right?
 
Menchú writes, “We also denounce the Church hierarchy because it is often hand in glove with the government. This is actually something I have thought about a lot. Well, because they call themselves Christians, yet they are often deaf to the suffering of the people. Many who call themselves Christians don’t really deserve to be called Christians… They have no worries, and lovely houses. But that is all.”
 
Rigoberta was forced into exile which gave her an opportunity to speak about the conditions in Guatemala. Ironically she gave these talks to Europeans and Central Americans in Mexico where, ask any Zapitista, the same kind of exploitation is going on. Rigoberta decided to return to Guatemala, knowing that they could kill her at any time, to continue organizing and working with the land and people that she loves. Sometime after that (1992) she won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Here’s a link to a 1999 interview with Rigoberta.

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