This was an excellent suggestion from my little sister Esther, who is studying International Development. She had to read this for a class and thought I would like it, which I did.
It's not a novel. This is a history/memoir/case study of Guatemala with a special emphasis on the indigenous Mayan people. Lovell is a professor at Queen's University and has worked and traveled in Guatemala for decades. He narrates a comprehensive history of Guatemala from the pre-colonial period, through the Spanish Conquest, independence, and 30+ years of civil war lasting into the mid-nineties. The analysis he provides was truly enlightening because he is able to identify with the Maya's values system and describe how the conquest and subsequent Spanish administration (even once independence was gained) made civil war all but inevitable.
Lovell's description of guerrilla warfare also brought me back to reading Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls" (blog post available, May 2014). As guerrillas (or in Hemingway's book, republicans) gain control of an area, they hunt down and eliminate any person not loyal enough to their cause. This included thousands of Mayan villagers not involved in the conflict but who would try to protect their homes and families. Then, as tides would turn, government forces would hunt down and eliminate anyone not sufficiently loyal to their cause. This included thousands of Mayan villagers... you get the idea.
The book included memories and reflections from Maya who lived through the civil war. They had family members slaughtered all around them; they had daughters and sons kidnapped, raped, murdered, dismembered; they lost entire villages. I really appreciated that Lovell included these personal stories with his excellent scholarly history because it humanizes the conflict. It's easy to read "45,000 Guatemalans fled across the border into Mexico", but it is much harder to read the stories of even one of these people - what they fled from and why they would prefer to live in a refugee camp in Mexico.
The description and analysis of the involvement of the U.S. government was also painfully enlightening. It shone a distinctly unfavourable light on how developed nations often treat tumultuous nations, offering their support to whichever militant group or government which is most sympathetic to American or European involvement. This prioritizes silence over peace - silencing dissident voices instead of hearing and addressing complaints, silencing all-out war by murdering individuals (over 5000 murders in 2010). During the war itself (1960-1996) it is estimated that 200,000 people were killed by government-run death squads. These killings were either individual disappearances or massacres of whole families, groups, or even villages. The governments responsible for these acts were defended (to varying degrees) by American governments, who even supplied training to Guatemalan soldiers during the Ford and Carter years. I'm not even exaggerating, it's on Wikipedia.
So 200,000 extrajudicial killings is pretty bad. What about the current Syrian Civil War, which had almost as many in August 2014? And is the involvement of U.S.+allies making the situation any better? Short answer: I don't know.
Justice is one of those things. We crave it, we wish to impart it, but often the complexity and brutality of conflicts leave us emotionally and intellectually gasping. So we try to simplify it by supporting the "good side", and find that all the belligerents are unjust. Then we try the humanitarian tack and either we 1) help everyone, thus distancing ourselves from the justice of the situation or 2) help only the innocent, and scrutinize the motivations, actions, and emotions of every victim until no innocent remain. So what option are we left with? How do we support justice? How do we extend hope and love to people who are aggressors or defendants in violent conflict? How do we stand on the side of the good" (Apostle Paul, Romans 12:9)?
The perpetrator vs. victim model is no longer relevant to these struggles because almost every person will have played both roles. History can describe motivations and conditions which precipitate conflict, but it can't tell us who is good and who is bad.
I thought, after reading the book, that Guatemala might have a silver lining by now, but the outlook is still pretty bleak. The Canadian government has issued almost every possible warning for traveling in Guatemala, from public health advisories to measures for dealing with a corrupt and violent police force. Of course that doesn't mean individuals are not getting along with their lives. Farmers farm, vendors vend, bankers bank, policemen kill people. They just don't have the blessing of security or stability, and there aren't any quick ways to grant them that.
Sorry this got all political, I've been watching the news too much recently. The book was excellent. It combined excellent scholarly history with personal memories. Lovell wrote with eloquence and clarity about topics that are brutal and complex. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the history or culture of Central America.
Up next: The Captain and the Enemy by Graham Greene, a suggestion from my dad who has very similar taste to me.
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