COLLOQUY

THE QUESTION

RESPONSES

BACKGROUND

Unfortunately, The Chronicle article is based on the same incorrect assumption. Having worked with Rigoberta Menchú in international lobbying before the book was written, I can attest that that assumption is inaccurate.

Although the English version of the book has enjoyed 15 printings and is a highly esteemed text--I certainly have used it for more than a decade in my "Peoples of Central America" course as well as in my "Women, War, and Revolution" course--it was not publication of the book that catapulted Rigoberta Menchú into the spotlight of international human rights campaigns.

Before the book saw the light of day, Rigoberta's powerful voice and force of commitment to her people were well known in the international human rights community. During the summer of 1982, she took the case of state genocide by the Guatemalan military against the Mayan people to the first meeting of the United Nations' Working Group on Indigenous Peoples, and right there made all the contacts and impression that would have been needed to "pave the way" for her receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. That fall, she was a daily presence at the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, where she spoke with heads of state and important diplomats. That winter she participated in the six-week meeting of United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva. She was already well-acquainted with the most important human rights supporters in the world, including Sweden's Prime Minister, Olaf Palma, and French First Lady, Danielle Mitterand.

Perhaps most important of all, a factor Stoll did not dare to challenge, Rigoberta Menchú was (and still is) well-known and embraced by the international indigenous rights movement that in 1981 had just won a long struggle to put indigenous peoples' human rights on the international human rights agenda of the United Nations as well as of the Organization of American States and of many governments and non-governmental human rights organizations. Rigoberta accepted the Nobel Prize on behalf of all indigenous peoples, and she meant it, for that was its intention. 1995-2004 marks the United Nations Decade for the Worlds Indigenous Peoples, an achievement that indigenous peoples earned by their own hard work and self-determination.

Whatever critique may be made of the veracity of parts of the testimonio, I, Rigoberta Menchú, the fact is that its publication did not create Rigoberta's celebrity; on the contrary, her celebrity, and the infamous and hideous genocidal policy and deeds of the Guatemalan military created the best-selling status of the book.

David Stoll, like many anthropologists and Latin Americanists and Africanists and "Orientalists" simply cannot adjust to not being able to assume the role of a voice for the powerless and mute now that those colonized and brutalized peoples have found their own voices. He exhibits just a tad of jealousy in assuming that some other educated elite--in this case those terrible Marxists inspired by Cubans and Che Guevara--have made off with his colonized territory. Five years ago, many anthropologists and other apologists for paternalism were squawking about the hidden manipulators--some even mentioned Ross Perot--behind the uprising in Chiapas. The Mayan people nor any indigenous peoples need David Stoll's protection; if they make mistakes or misjudgments in their political projects, those are their mistakes and they learn from them. They are no longer dependent on missionary handouts and the kindness of anthropologists.

-- Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Professor, California State University, Hayward (posted 1/15, 11:30 a.m., E.S.T.)

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