My wife Joanne and a mutual friend from
our parish and another couple from Milwaukee all went to Guatemala with the
GATE program (GLOBAL AWARENESS THROUGH EXPERIENCE) for a ten day Holy Week pilgrimage. We were joined on the trip by three mental
health therapists from Ohio. The group
was skillfully shepherded by two nuns, one from the GATE project and the other
a Milwaukee - Notre Dame Sister with many years of experience in Guatemala.
Joanne and I had a sense of what we might
experience because we both had read Francisco Goldman’s book, The Art of Political Murder. The book is a detailed account of the murder of
Bishop Juan Gerardi in 1998 by the Guatemalan military.
I would like to recount eight stations out
of over ten from our pilgrimage:
- visits with Guatemalan poet Julia Esquivel;
- an interview with the staff of NGO’s, ACOGUATE & NISGUA;
- the Guatemala City Cemetery and garbage dump;
- a discussion with Guatemalan worker
- a meeting with an indigenous community that developed a water project;
- a visit to an orphanage in Santa Apolonia
- a meeting with a Mayan spiritual leader;
- a visit to Holy Spirit Church - the site of one of the massacres of the indigenous people by the Guatemalan Military;
- discussions and visits to various projects at St. Lucas Toliman
- Santiago de Atitlan;
- Holy Week in the old capital city, Antigua.
Comments by
Guatemalan people will be added.
Each posting will recount the experience of one or two events.
This first posting will describe our
meetings with Guatemalan poet and theologian Julia Esquivel and our visit to
the office of an N.G.O. from the U.S. called NISGUA.
Ist Station: JULIA ESQUIVEL, GUATEMALAN POET - THEOLOGIAN
So be it. Welcome, O life! I go
to encounter for the millionth time the reality of my experience and to forge
in the smithy of my soul the uncreated
conscience of my race.
(James Joyce, Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man)
I came to the discussion with the following
questions: does the myth of the passion
and resurrection overcome the myth of capitalism; does the myth of the passion
and resurrection provide healing, forgiveness and hope in confronting capitalism
or does it simply support capitalism?
Julia Esquivel provided comfort and cogent responses.
In Guatemala the questions are not academic; we
would be in denial if we dismissed these questions for another time. In 1996 U.N. monitored peace accords were
signed and, as a result, reduced the military intensity of civil war that had
been raging for 36 years. Thousands of
indigenous people were slaughtered during the civil war, financed by the Reagan
administration, with the purpose of defending capitalism against a communist takeover.
The
following is a comment on the peace accords published by an official Mayan
Council:
The territory in the neo – liberal epoch
After an epoch of living terror in the territory of Guatemala, in
December of 1996 a peace agreement was signed between representatives of the
government, the army and representatives of the guerilla. In reality this peace deemed firm and
permanent is no more than a false peace and is used for the development of only
a few people. (Consejo
Maya Chilam B’alam de los Kiches, Estudio Juridico de los Lugares Sagrados:
Xetinimit, Mamaj, Talkuch, Awilix, Q’abitzad, ToJil, Mecanismo de Apoyo a los
Pueblos Indigenas Oxlajuj Tz’kin, 2012, p.P.31)
Julia Esquival, who spent several years in
exile during the war, said there was no hope in the government, but hope lies in
the faith of the people – the communities.
For example, they are resisting environmentally harmful mining projects
where women are lying in the road in front of mining trucks. She asked us to imagine the courage it took for
indigenous people to testify at the genocide trial of General Rios Montt. Julia indicated that sadness prevails and too
much emphasis in the Holy Week rites is placed on the Passion and not enough on
the Resurrection. She wrote in her published book of poetry, Threatened with Resurrection:
RESURRECTION ON THE MARCH
I am in love with life, Titanic task
The sun, the howling of , a divine task, ours:
mountain winds to make ourselves human!
The storm, the clap of thunder, Sole possibility
The songbird’s joyful singing, to live with meaning,
The rabbit’s delight, to know Life
The barking dogs, to fuse with her intimately,
And the promenade of the snails Illuminated!
After the rain.
AND WHAT DO
THE PEOPLE SAY ABOUT HOLY WEEK in Guatemala?
A middle
aged woman in traditional garb serving as a waitress in the Pan American Hotel
in Guatemala City shared the following:
For some it’s fun and pageantry, I am a Christian, for me it is a time
to remember Jesus’ death and resurrection.
A nun
sitting on the steps of the Cathedral in Guatemala City selling religious CD’s:
It’s about who we are, where we've been, and where we are going. The crucifixion and the resurrection go together as the same event.
2nd
Station: ACOGUATE and NISGUA (Network in Solidarity with the People of
Guatemala - based in the U.S.)
Two young workers, my guess under 30, explained
their accompaniment duties. ACOGUATE and
NISGUA workers accompany Guatemalans who are under threat because of their
social activism. They provide an
international presence. An example would
be the indigenous people testifying at the Rios Montt genocide trial. I noted that it is not just Guatemala that is
suffering a threatened existence; this is happening worldwide.
I asked, what is the cause? The response, without hesitation, from the
young woman from Juneau, WI was – racism.
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