While the search for food and water is the top priority in the effort to help the people of Guatemala, Menchu noted another aspect of relief in respect to the culture of the land.It's as if Marie Antoinette said "Let them eat their traditional native cuisine." What is appropriate is to provide them with clothing and shelter as soon as possible. Given it's Ms. Menchu, her "cultural concerns" are probably bunk. She doesn't mention Mayan men, who also had a traditional style of garment. From what I've seen in Guatemala, I suspect she doesn't mention them because they have largely abandoned traditonal clothing. So either the remains of Mayan culture are more than half gone, or they haven't been much affected by a change in clothing. As far as I can tell, the Mayans, like most people, tend to stick with what they've been doing unless they're convinced there's a good reason to change. Losing everything is, for most people, a good enough reason to replace it with what's readily available.
"People have gathered to help out the victims, donating food and clothes," Menchu said. "But the Mayan women have never worn anything other than their traditional dress. There is a danger of losing ancestral traditions. It's my people. We must, if possible, avoid these kinds of cultural losses. This is a very important moment for Guatemala. When rebuilding housing, what is culturally appropriate?"
... The youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and first indigenous woman, Menchu is known for her work in trying to end the oppression in Guatemala and her strong belief in advocating the struggle for Indian peasant people's rights.
Ms. Menchu received the Peace Prize largely for her book I, Rigoberta Menchu. Later research indicated it would have been more appropriate to award her the prize for Literature.
Literature-as in Fiction?
ReplyDeleteFiction, as in "Menchu altered the facts throughout to suit her purposes."
ReplyDeleteThat puff piece on Menchu nearly made me lose lunch.
ReplyDeleteDad29: Menchu is a Marxist, as red as a baboon's butt. In "I, Rigoberta Menchu" she recounts her childhood spent in harrowing poverty and oppression and her subsequent political "awakening." Very stirring stuff - the sort of thing that makes the hearts of left-wing undergrads beat faster. The only problem is, it's been proven that she invented a peasant background for herself and didn't grow up poor and oppressed at all. (How many impoverished Central American peasants get to go study in Paris?)
Dinesh D'Sousa catalogued Menchu's lies about her background in "Illiberal Education." She makes Michael Moore look like a Pillar of Integrity in comparison.
Exposing her fabrications has not damaged her popularity on U.S. college campuses - or, apparently, among left-wing Catholic reporters.
Donna