In Guatemala this week, studying the genocide of Mayan indigenous peoples that took place here 1960-1996. At least 200,000 people were murdered, 45,000 disappeared. I knew almost nothing about this.
I’m here with Irma Alicia Velasquez Nimatuj — Mayan poet, scholar, advocate and wisdom-keeper whose courage astounds me. (photo 2)
In 1954, the U.S. government backed a military coup to overthrow the democratic government in Guatemala and replace it with a military dictatorship to secure economic dominance over the region. When locals resisted, the U.S. labeled them communists and sent training and weapons to fuel the 36-year state-sponsored genocide, almost entirely of Mayan peoples.
All week, we heard testimonies of rape and torture, killings, and disappearances. We visited mass graves where skeletons were found, hands tied behind their backs, mouths agape. Learned the difference between machete hacks and bullet wounds. Witnessed the reconstruction of skeletons in the forensics lab of @fafguatemala. Studied the tiny teeth of children, who were the age of my own children. The horror exceeds language and sense.
Mayan women elders lead the effort to tell the true story of what happened, search for missing family members, transform grave sites into sacred sites, exhume remains, and heal through memory and ritual and art. @famdeguag
I will never forget the forest in Comalapa, where 5,000 were slaughtered. There, Mayan elder Maria Curruchiche painted a mural of Mother Earth alchemizing blood and bones into stalks of corn and new life. (second to last photo)
As the current U.S. administration suppresses dissent — and literally disappeared a legal resident Mahmoud Kahlil for his speech, promising more to come — I look to those who have survived authoritarian regimes through history. Mayan women elders have survived apocalypse — again and again — through community.
“We do this work, because of love.” If they can stay in the labor for justice, so can I. So can we.
Thank you for making me brave, Irma — and thank you @kelloggfoundation for this life-changing week.
Who is making you brave right now? What stories, ancestors, communities? Pls share.
