The beginning of this book is mostly about Indian customs in Guatemala. This made the book hard for me to read in the beginning. I soon found out how powerful this book really is. I know that many of the atrocities that happened in Guatemala came with American dollars and actually started in 1954 when the CIA overthrew Guatemala’s democratically elected leader. Menchú speaks about a soldier that they caught that told her the things that they were doing was to prevent communism. This is Regan and the Cold War and the American government’s regime to wipe the world clean of communists no matter how many people died. I remember reading about how people are able to treat other human beings like animals was possible if the victims are not looked at as human beings but rather enemies. I suppose that if our American government could sell the idea that these peasants were trying to overthrow the Guatemalan government with the help of Russia in order to establish a communist state then it gave them the okay to eliminate these enemies. It did not matter that these people were unarmed and poor or that they were only trying to fight for their human rights; they were communists and needed to be exterminated. It is no surprise that the American government spent millions of tax dollars “helping” the Guatemalan government to fight communism during the Cold War and even after the Cold War ended. The really disgusting thing is that Guatemala was not the only country that the American government “helped” to serve its own interests in Latin America and elsewhere. And Americans do not understand why the U.S. will not sign the U.N. agreement to establish courts that bring to justice violators of human rights in the world. Anyone who wants to argue with Menchú’s story can read so many documents in our own Library of Congress that will prove that these accounts are true. They would just have to read past all of the bullshit and propaganda written to justify human rights violations.
Menchú speak of Catholicism and how the Christian religion helped keep the Indians silent and suffer as Jesus did. Then she actually read the bible and found out that being repressed in the name of God is only another tactic that their oppressors used to keep Indians silent and in their place. Suppression in the name of Christianity is not new to us and it is easy to see why it is so very effective when it has been used so many times. Perhaps the portion of Christian faith that teaches us to accept suffering in order to prove to the Almighty that we are worthy of heaven only makes it that much easier to become exploited is promoted by repressive governments. On the other hand, perhaps it is an easy way to give up and gives people a reason to accept their lives as they are no matter how mush suffering they have to endure. Either way, the only way to see past the martyrdom of Christianity is to become educated about the faith rather than have someone tell people what it means to be a Christian.