Racism and Violence in Connelly’s the Three DirgesMarshall Bennett Connelly’s novel, Requiem Guatemala, recreates historical scenes from the Guatemalan civil war, which encompassed almost the entire second half of the twentieth century. The war between the government and the insurgents was particularly violent and oppressive. Most of the victims were civilians of indigenous descent and the war was also called a genocide.
The violent conflict is an instance of the disastrous effects produce by the fight for political power. What is significant about the war is that it is largely an example of discrimination and calculated genocide. Although the population of Guatemala is predominantly made of Indians, the Spaniards in the region have long abused the people of Mayan descent. According to Barbara Pando, the civil war emphasized the gap between the two cultures.
In the early 1980’s, the war became synonymous with genocide, as the military forces of Guatemala turned began a murderous campaign which targeted the Maya peoples: “The civil war took a turn for the worse in the early 1980’s, when the Guatemalan army, backed by the CIA, began a campaign of genocide against the Maya peoples” (Pando 1). Pando also remarks that the atmosphere in the region was particularly tensed due to the culture clash between the Spaniards and the Indians. The Maya peoples refuse to be assimilated in the Latino culture and are keen on defending their right to preserve their own traditions (Pando 1). The cultural gap was especially prominent during the war, when the Guatemalan army chose to exterminate the Maya people as ?well as the missionaries that tried to teach them how to read and write.
The missionary movements were not only discouraged but actually prohibited during the war, as it was to the Spaniards’ best interest to have the Maya people illiterate and unable to defend their own rights: “Since these Maya cultures do not speak Spanish, ladino landowners often forcibly evict them from their plots of land and take over” (Pando 1). The Guatemalan civil war is therefore an instance of overt racism, cultural discrimination and genocide. The conflict violated the basic human rights and the democratic principles. The fragment that opens Connelly’s novel, The Three Dirges, describes one of the many disturbing occurrences during the war.
The people lived under constant threat not only because of the bombings but also because of the overt massacres that Mayan villages were subject to.The Three Dirges documents one of the typical cases of violence in the history of the war: the government representatives order the members of a village to murder five young catechists, whose mission was to teach the villagers how to read and write. The atmosphere of constant threat and oppressiveness is easily felt in this opening passage of the book. The scene is especially commoving since the people of the village are forced to perform the murders themselves, under the threat of a military attack.
The fragment opposes thus the humaneness of the villagers to the cruelty and ruthlessness of the government representatives. The narrative thread follows the flashbacks to the previous night when the mayor of San Martin Comitan, Don Lazaro Emilio Cardenas, received an explicit order to exterminate the five missionaries from Colonel Julio Alfredo Guzman. The order is especially taxing, as the people must do the deed themselves. Questions without an answer and sheer terror sway the small procession of villagers who gather in order to discuss their options.
Significantly, the only alternatives are either a lesser carnage or a greater one. The villagers seem to be living through a waking nightmare, where they ?are forced to turn against their own brothers. The scene is therefore an example of the horror of war, racism and inhumanity. The proceedings are even more disturbing since they seem absurd from a human or moral point of view.
Outside the sphere of political interest and racial discrimination, the massacre of the five innocent missionaries is incongruous and nonsensical: “’They’re communist subversives, these boys,’ said Colonel Guzmán. ‘So tonight, Don Lázaro, tonight you have to kill them. Every one of them . .
. all five!” (Connelly 1). Here the situation is reduced to an amoral one. The boys have to be killed for preaching, because this deed threatens the political power of the government.
The scene therefore symbolizes the horrors that humanity is capable of in order to defend a racial idea. It reminds of similar instances of political terrorism, such as the mass extermination of the Jews during the Nazi regime. Inspired by historical facts therefore, the novel speaks of the disastrous effects of racism and hatred, which seem to annihilate the basic human feelings. This text elaborates on this theme with the aid of graphic imagery and the villagers’ rhetorical questions, for which all answers are suspended.
What makes the situation described in the Three Dirges even more lugubrious is the fact that the missionaries’ role was not directly connected with any political acts. What the Colonel who orders the murders terms to be “subversive” and “communist” is actually a purely humane act: the missionaries are trying to teach the villagers how to read and write. Also, the missionaries try to share with the Natives the wisdom of the Bible and to initiate them into Christianity. During the civil war however, such seemingly innocent acts could be interpreted as subversive and dangerous, precisely because they served to awaken the human spirit.
The novel opens with the words of the Colonel, as quoted by the baffled mayor: “Don Lázaro, you’ve got five boys in Comitán teaching the campesinos how to read. That’s subversive. That’s communist. So tonight, you have to kill them.
‘ . . . Now, what can I say?–you tell me! What can a man say to ?something like that, and what’s a man supposed to do?” (Connelly 1).
The same questions that Cardenas asks will also be repeated by the congregation of villagers. Such questions point to the absurdity of the situation from the point of view of humanity and ethics. The villagers are placed in the most difficult situation, as they are not offered a moral choice in the case. There are no valid or reasonable answers and there are no valid moral actions to be taken.
The villagers can either choose to let all the people of the community die in the hands of the army the next day or to murder the five catechists during the night. None of these actions can be comprehended in ethical terms. The situation is representative for the alternative good and evil impulses that characterize humanity. Man can either follow high moral standards or debase himself through hatred and violence.
The subsequent tragedy is caused hatred and racism. From the point of view of the Guatemalan government, to read and to write is dangerous as long as it can undermine its own political power. As Penny Lernoux emphasizes in The People of God, the Bible was considered especially subversive in the context, as it taught that all people were equal in the site of God: “The Bible was, of all books, the most subversive because it taught that everyone was equal in the site of God–hence the ferocious persecution of catechists” (Lernoux 1). Racial hatred, the gist of the conflict, required that the Indians be regarded as less than human.
When racism is involved therefore, the basics of democracy, ethics and human rights are deliberately ignored. The villagers are painfully aware of the terrible breach of morality and humanity in the deed they are required to do. The fragment synthesizes therefore this “’But what can we do?’ they cried. ‘Where is our priest to be away from us at such a time, but to `kill our own sons’! How can we do such a thing?’” (Connelly 1).
The unanswered questions point to the moral deadlock that the members of the village find themselves in. The questions hover over the heads of the people, but, ?in this case, there is no acceptable decision. The people are trapped from a moral point of view, forced to accomplish the deeds of hatred ordered to them by the political power.This turbulent period in the history of Guatemala has left prominent evidence of the missionaries’ testimonies.
Despite the raging racial hatred and the extreme dangers of their mission, the religious envoys are still present among the Natives, trying to offer spiritual support in a time of disbelief. Ricardo Falla, one of the missionaries, speaks of his duties to the ones oppressed, emphasizing that he needs to participate in the constant danger and grief that the people live in: “…Accompaniment means not only sharing the constant sense of threat, but also experiencing the army’s attacks on the people” (Falla 1). In The Three Dirges, the same sense of spiritual communion among those oppressed becomes apparent. The terrible deed is performed in the midst of the gathering and the congregation shares the grief of those murdered and of their relatives: “The dense wall of the congregation collapsed in a mass of wailing bodies.
Their lamentations drifted back through the tombs, out the gate of the cemetery, up the rutted road, and back into the town” (Connelly 1). The story emphasizes therefore the feelings of humanity and morality, which try to resist in front of the onslaught of hatred and violence. It is significant that the congregation seems to form a wall, as it emphasizes the idea of unity and defense against the terror of the government.Connelly’s The Three Dirges emphasizes the terror, inhumanity and disastrous effects of racism.
?Works Cited:Connelly, Marshall Bennett. “Requiem Guatemala. A Story of the People.” The Unabridged Electronic Text of Marshall Bennett Connelly’s Epic Narrative of Guatemala.
July 18, 2009. http://www.requiemguatemala.us/Three%20Dirges.
htm.Falla, Ricardo. “The Dark Night of Resistance: Pastoral Work in the Ixcan.” Ecumenical Program on Central America and the Caribbean.
December 12, 2007. July 18, 2009. http://www.epica.
org/Library/martyrs/ixcan_resistance.htm.Lernoux, Penny. “The People of God.
” The Guatemala Case Statement. July 18, 2009. http://www.distancelearningassociates.
com/eng1302/People.htm.Pando, Barbara. “ICE Case Studies.
Guatemala – Maya Civil War.” Trade and Environment Database. November, 1997. July 18, 2009.
http://www1.american.edu/ted/ice/peten.htm.
