Mayans have right to beef with Mel
L.A. Daily News 4/5/07
There are close to 1 million Mayan immigrants in the United States today, many of them economic and political refugees of the 20-year "dirty war" in Guatemala that ended just 10 years ago. From the early 1980s to the mid-1990s, tens of thousands of Mayan men, women and children were brutally massacred, their communities burned down, babies thrown up in the air to be chopped in half by soldiers' machetes. (See "Guatemala, Never Again! - The Official Report of the Human Rights Office," Archdiocese of Guatemala, 1999.)
Why would Mayans be mad at Mel Gibson? After all, he did not pull the trigger or wield the machetes. The reason, as explained during his CSUN presentation two weeks ago, is very clear.
A statement read in Spanish by Mayan activist and KPFK radio host Felipe Perez (translated into English by CSUN professor Alicia Estrada) explains: "We believe that examining us using the lens of Western culture, you are describing us as savages and barbarians, which is the exact description of our cultures made by those who used rape, torture, murders and massacres to subjugate us."
The Spanish conquistadors justified their massacres and the wholesale destruction of Mayan writing and cultural production by saying that the Mayans were savages who committed human sacrifice. Therefore, said the European invaders, they had a "duty" to "civilize" the "barbarians."
The same justification has been continuously used for more than 500 years to justify repeated acts of "ethnic cleansing" against the Mayan peoples. Mel Gibson's movie is one more link in this chain of justification, a further perpetuation of deadly stereotypes. This fact must be recognized and reckoned with, regardless of what anyone thinks the filmmaker's conscious motives may be.
This is the back story that needs to be brought forward in order to evaluate not only Mel Gibson's film, but also other forms of literature, art and historiography dealing with the Mayan people. The challenging and the questioning of "Apocalypto" that occurred at CSUN on March 22 are signs of this university's emergence as a leader in Central American study and scholarship, as reflected in the recent decision to offer a major in Central American Studies.
Mayan activist Perez and CSUN professor Estrada deserve special thanks and appreciation for their contributions to intellectual debate and ferment at CSUN.
It is profoundly to be hoped that in fact many movies, books and other cultural and historical projects will arise in the coming years, to tell the truth about the Mayan people today, and to chronicle the dramatic emergence of the new Mayan Movement.
Ronald Nibbe is an adjunct instructor in the CSUN Central American Studies Program.