Like
Shooting Puppies: Guatemala's Iran-Contra War On The
Mayans
27 March 2010
By Jane
Stillwater
If there's one thing that I have learned for sure down
here in Central America, it is this: Mayans love
brilliant colors. Everything they wear, everything
they use and everything they touch just explodes with
color. Back in the day, approximately 2,000 years ago,
their temples and pyramids used to be painted like
psychedelic dreams -- and even now the direct
descendants of the people who built those amazingly
colorful temples are still robing themselves in
rainbows.
The main difference that I can see now between the
Mayans of the old days and Mayans today is that
modern-day Mayans seem to be ashamed of their love of
colors. Mayans of 2,000 years ago used to positively
swim through a world of beautiful colors. But all too
many Mayans right now seem to be actually ashamed to
wear anything more colorful than a pair of faded jeans
and a tee.
How did things in Guatemala come to reach this sorry
pass? It's a long story.
Back in the 1970s, the Mayans of Guatemala finally got
sick and tired of surviving in the same way that
sharecroppers in the segregated American south used to
survive -- by working their butts off but only getting
paid enough to stay just barely alive. And like the
Freedom Riders of Mississippi and Alabama before them,
the Mayans of Guatemala began to protest their lot as
third-class citizens who were being treated like dirt.
But instead of staging sit-ins at lunch counters, the
Mayans in Guatemala simply and quietly asked to be
able to own their own land.
Well. The way that the Guatemalan government reacted
to the Mayans' humble demands, you would have thought
that the Mayans had started raping white women, being
uppity to rich folks or something equally worse. But
no. Mayans were just simply tired of being treated
like the N-word all these years. Wouldn't you have
been tired too? And, like our own Rosa Parks, their
feet hurt and they were tired of sitting in the back
of the bus.
And so Guatemalan government troops, using all kinds
of weapons given to them by Nixon, Reagan, the
Iran-Contra cartel and the rest of that blood-thirsty
bunch, set about killing as many Mayans as they could.
And, trust me, they could (and did) kill a lot.
But after having spent the last few weeks among Mayans
in the Guatemalan highlands, I have come to the
conclusion that Mayans are a gentle people. A kind
people. And a spiritual people too. And killing all
those Mayans must have been like killing Bambi, like
shooting puppies, like raping nuns.
And another sad thing about the 36-year U.S./Guatemala
war on the Mayans was that the Mayans' creative,
intense and spiritual love of brilliant colors has
apparently also been killed off too -- except for some
isolated communities up in the highlands that still
hold onto the grand tradition of dressing themselves
each morning like a rainbow. And that is a very great
shame too.
PS: Here's my video report on this part of my trip,
including a brief tour of Guatemala City's main
cathedral, almost getting arrested in a shopping mall
near Chiquimula but escaping by hiding behind the Buzz
Lightyear kiddie ride, an entire city devoted to
prostitution and to repairing cars and school buses
brought down from the U.S., a brick factory, my first
encounter with Mayans and a Mayan cemetery at Solola,
up near Lake Atitlan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQ1x7cslDu0
And here's another of my fabulous home videos on the
Mayans, featuring a trip through the bridal section of
a Mayan textile museum. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoxchUlH4mk
PPS: Meanwhile back in the States, I've just heard
that Fox News is getting its knickers all in a twist
over a new pseudo-snuff music video http://new.music.yahoo.com/lady-gaga/videos/view/telephone-f-beyonce--218656764
by Lady Gaga and Beyonce. Which leads me to ask, "Why
hasn't Fox News gotten its panties all in a bunch over
all the millions of men, women and children that have
been actually snuffed out -- by American weapons
raining down on Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan? And
also let's also not forget the deaths of approximately
250,000 Mayans, thanks to Reagan and his pals."
Now there is a REAL snuff movie for you, Fox News.
Where's your outrage about that?
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