My position on "I, Rigobertu Menchu"

[Louis Proyect]

By the way, my own position on this book is different than Robin
Blackburn's or Jim Beverly's. This is what I posted to warriornet, an
indigenous struggles mailing-list, on the day the NY Times article
appeared. Needless to say, it is different than Jim Heartfield's position
as well, which is rather difficult to discern. He seems to be saying that
Rigobertu Menchu is a "brown Marxist" like himself, while at the same time
he seems to identify with the right-wing attack on her book, which is less
about upholding historical accuracy than discrediting the Guerrilla Army of
the Poor, a group which effectively combined Marxism and indigenism. Their
very success was what prompted the brutal extermination policy of Rios-Montt.

******
posted to warriornet:

Today's NY Times front page has the latest in a series of attacks on
indigenous rights from the world of anthropology. In recent months, we have
been treated to various "anthropological" right-wing assaults:

1) The Indians of the Southwest practiced cannibalism. Political
implication: It doesn't matter if Europeans exterminated Indians, since
they did it to themselves as well.

2) Skeletal remains near the Columbia River in Washington State "prove"
that Caucasians preceded the Indian historically. Political implication:
land claims are meaningless because who knows who the original inhabitants
were.

3) The convention of the American Anthropological Association was devoted
to a discussion of the "population problem." This is a euphemism for "too
many people of color." One of these cryptofascists with a PhD pointed to
population concentrations in Latin America and described them as "cancerous
tumors" on the face of the earth.

Today's NY Times reports on the "investigations" of anthropologist David
Stoll, who has revealed numerous inconsistencies in "I, Rigobertu Menchu".
This boils down to 2 main points. One, that the land claims of her parents
were not really directed against rich Spanish landlords, but members of her
own extended family. Two, that she was much better educated than she let
on. Rather than being an illiterate Indian, she was educated in Catholic
schools.

While it is absolutely scandalous that Menchu and Elizabeth Burgos, who
collaborated with her, would make things up, we have to be clear what the
real agenda of people like Stoll and the US government is on this question.
They want to whitewash the Guatemalan regime of Rios Montt, who killed more
than 100,000 indigenous peoples in a bloodbath that lasted over years, one
that would cause Pinochet to recoil in horror.

The movement for indigenous rights extends from Canada through Guatemala
and there is evidence that their land claims are being taken seriously,
despite setbacks to the Nisga'a, etc. The murderers and land thieves are
seeking desperately to tarnish the reputation of everybody involved in this
struggle. Our goal should be to hammer away at the bigger truth. Whatever
fictions may be present in "I Rigobertu Menchu", the larger fact is that
our client state in Guatemala was guilty of genocide.

Louis Proyect

(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)