Salon Newsreal | Rigoberta Menchú meets the press

A L S O+T O D A Y

The trouble with Rudy
By Neal Pollack
Reaction to the killing of an African street vendor by police shows the growing protest power of the city's immigrant communities

Wake-up call
By Joel Dreyfuss
Police brutality has long been a problem for African-Americans, but it took immigrant blacks being brutalized for New Yorkers to take notice

T A B L E+T A L K
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R E C E N T L Y
Clinton's dumbest education idea
By Joan Walsh
Ending "social promotion" won't cure what ails American schools
(02/11/99)
Scandal's silver lining
By Art Levine
Washington lobbyists profit from upheaval
(02/10/99)
Stalking Sidney Blumenthal
By Joshua Micah Marshall
Is it possible Christopher Hitchens and his "former friend" are both telling the truth?
(02/09/99)
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By Lori Leibovich
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(02/08/99)
The vanilla story
By James Poniewozik
Our long national bad date is almost over
(02/05/99)
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RIGOBERTA MENCHú MEETS THE PRESS | PAGE 1, 2
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Menchú began her remarks with what looked like a bombshell, dramatically offering an explanation for her recounting of the death of a younger brother named Nicolas. Menchú wrote that he died of malnutrition on a plantation when she was 8 and he was only 2 -- but Rohter found and interviewed her older brother, Nicolas, who refuted her story. Menchú's explanation: She had two brothers named Nicolas: one born in 1949, who died, and one born in 1950, whom Rohter talked to.
A stunning retort -- except that that birth date would make the other Nicolas 10 years older than Menchú. Did she watch her brother die of malnutrition when he was 17 years old? She did not directly answer a follow-up question asking how old Nicolas was when he died or what he died of. (Menchú and her representatives could not be reached for further comment by press time.) Reached at Middlebury College Thursday, Stoll said that a second Nicolas did exist, but died long before Menchú was born.
Likewise, Menchú reaffirmed that she was "self-taught," receiving only informal education from nuns while working as a maid at a convent school for a year. (She said she purposely omitted the nuns from her book to protect them from the government.) "She's still displaying a lack of candor," said Stoll, pointing to records showing that she had attended three Catholic schools and one public school. "There are four stages in Rigoberta's education, and what she's describing doesn't describe one of them."
Stoll, who is sympathetic to Menchú, considers "how one member or another of her family died" a relatively minor question -- no one disputes, for instance, that her parents and two brothers were killed by government forces. But her responses underscore doubts about how she represents larger questions affecting her portrayal of Guatemalan history, Indian life and the rise of the guerrilla movement.
There was some question before the press conference as to whether Menchú would directly rebut the charges at all. Some of her defenders have held that Western critics have unfairly, perhaps with bad intent, misunderstood Mayan oral tradition (Menchú's book was an interview transcribed by Elisabeth Burgos-Debray) -- an argument that, in a statement by her publisher, Verso, seems to combine condescension with facile media criticism: "Those who have worked in similar oral cultures tell me [the first person is not identified; the essay is credited to the Verso editorial department] that the distinction between what has happened to oneself and what has happened to close relatives or friends can be easily lost. Likewise, in our culture, we think we have witnessed something when we have seen it on TV." (Hands up: Who remembers a family member pursuing a one-armed man in the name of justice?)
And at times, Menchú seemed to imply that her work should not be held to standards of literal truth. Her book, she emphasized, was not an "autobiography" but a "testimony": "It tells my personal testimony, but it also has parts of the testimony of the collectiveness of Guatemala," she said. "For common people such as myself, there is no difference between testimony, biography, and autobiography ... What we do is tell what we have lived, not just alone."
One could argue that even if its details are inaccurate, Menchú's book is still valuable as a document of Mayans' experience and of the horrors of the widely acknowledged abuses of the Guatemalan government. Even if that's true, however, it's troubling that Menchú seemed to want to have it both ways: She wanted both to offer factual rebuttals and to deny their importance. Take the central question of her father's land dispute. She claims her father was harassed by wealthy landowners. Stoll argues that it was principally a family feud. Menchú answered a query by quickly saying the family dispute was settled by 1960 (Stoll has cited records indicating the dispute carried on through the 1970s, for most of the period covered by her book) -- then segued into the general argument that the real land issue in Guatemala, between her people and the government, is still going on. Stoll, she said, has "decontextualized" this issue and "touched on this one little party that didn't have a lot of land." Fair enough -- but that "one little party" provides the very narrative thread for "I, Rigoberta Menchú."
Stoll believes that the firestorm over factual details has obscured more important historical issues, ones largely independent of the factual squabbles. For example, Menchú, claiming to speak for all poor Guatemalans, claims that the guerrilla resistance was a widely popular grass-roots movement among the Quiché Mayans. But Stoll argues that his interviews with Quichés indicate the choice "was imposed on them by a national-level contest between the government and the guerrillas that came into their area ... Rigoberta does not have a monopoly on interpretation of the violence."
In the end, Menchú's response to Stoll and her other critics is to suggest that their charges should be dismissed as political, while discrepancies in her account should be forgiven because they're political -- but on the correct side. This isn't a line of argument that does her much good.
All of which raises the question of whether there is a serious political-historical discussion to be had between Stoll's and Menchú's camps -- one that will never really take place over the excited "liar, liar!" charges on one side and attacks on motives on the other. In her remarks Thursday, Menchú certainly gave every sign of ending the discussion: "This is the last time I will answer these questions ... I have a heart, I have blood. I will not allow people to play with my dead ones, to profane the dead."
With the U.N. Truth Commission preparing to deliver its report later this month and Guatemala assessing its postwar future, a less-polarized conversation might have been welcome. But between the accusations of PC fraud and defensive charges of grave-dancing, a potentially fruitful discussion of Central America's past and future may have been the first casualty of peace.
SALON | Feb. 12, 1999
James Poniewozik writes the Under the Covers column, which appears every Tuesday in Salon's Media Circus.
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R E L A T E D_.S A L O N_.S T O R I E S
I, Rigoberta Menchú, liar How left-wing propagandists, a fellow-traveling Nobel committee and a corrupt media perpetrated a monstrous hoax.
By David Horowitz
Jan. 11, 1999

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A L S O+T O D A Y The trouble with Rudy By Neal Pollack Reaction to the killing of an African street vendor by police shows the growing protest power of the city's immigrant communities Wake-up call By Joel Dreyfuss Police brutality has long been a problem for African-Americans, but it took immigrant blacks being brutalized for New Yorkers to take notice T A B L E+T A L K Tinky Winky is gay!? Share your reaction to today's news in the Headlines area of Table Talk ___________________ Want to learn more about Rigoberta Menchu? Click here to buy her books from barnesandnoble.com ___________________ R E C E N T L Y Clinton's dumbest education idea By Joan Walsh Ending "social promotion" won't cure what ails American schools (02/11/99) Scandal's silver lining By Art Levine Washington lobbyists profit from upheaval (02/10/99) Stalking Sidney Blumenthal By Joshua Micah Marshall Is it possible Christopher Hitchens and his "former friend" are both telling the truth? (02/09/99) The mysterious death of Tyisha Miller By Lori Leibovich Black leaders in Riverside, Calif., insist a police shooting victim would be alive if she were white. But would she? (02/08/99) The vanilla story By James Poniewozik Our long national bad date is almost over (02/05/99) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Newsreal Archives - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
		RIGOBERTA MENCHú MEETS THE PRESS \| PAGE 1, 2 - - - - - - - - - - Menchú began her remarks with what looked like a bombshell, dramatically offering an explanation for her recounting of the death of a younger brother named Nicolas. Menchú wrote that he died of malnutrition on a plantation when she was 8 and he was only 2 -- but Rohter found and interviewed her older brother, Nicolas, who refuted her story. Menchú's explanation: She had two brothers named Nicolas: one born in 1949, who died, and one born in 1950, whom Rohter talked to. A stunning retort -- except that that birth date would make the other Nicolas 10 years older than Menchú. Did she watch her brother die of malnutrition when he was 17 years old? She did not directly answer a follow-up question asking how old Nicolas was when he died or what he died of. (Menchú and her representatives could not be reached for further comment by press time.) Reached at Middlebury College Thursday, Stoll said that a second Nicolas did exist, but died long before Menchú was born. Likewise, Menchú reaffirmed that she was "self-taught," receiving only informal education from nuns while working as a maid at a convent school for a year. (She said she purposely omitted the nuns from her book to protect them from the government.) "She's still displaying a lack of candor," said Stoll, pointing to records showing that she had attended three Catholic schools and one public school. "There are four stages in Rigoberta's education, and what she's describing doesn't describe one of them." Stoll, who is sympathetic to Menchú, considers "how one member or another of her family died" a relatively minor question -- no one disputes, for instance, that her parents and two brothers were killed by government forces. But her responses underscore doubts about how she represents larger questions affecting her portrayal of Guatemalan history, Indian life and the rise of the guerrilla movement. There was some question before the press conference as to whether Menchú would directly rebut the charges at all. Some of her defenders have held that Western critics have unfairly, perhaps with bad intent, misunderstood Mayan oral tradition (Menchú's book was an interview transcribed by Elisabeth Burgos-Debray) -- an argument that, in a statement by her publisher, Verso, seems to combine condescension with facile media criticism: "Those who have worked in similar oral cultures tell me [the first person is not identified; the essay is credited to the Verso editorial department] that the distinction between what has happened to oneself and what has happened to close relatives or friends can be easily lost. Likewise, in our culture, we think we have witnessed something when we have seen it on TV." (Hands up: Who remembers a family member pursuing a one-armed man in the name of justice?) And at times, Menchú seemed to imply that her work should not be held to standards of literal truth. Her book, she emphasized, was not an "autobiography" but a "testimony": "It tells my personal testimony, but it also has parts of the testimony of the collectiveness of Guatemala," she said. "For common people such as myself, there is no difference between testimony, biography, and autobiography ... What we do is tell what we have lived, not just alone." One could argue that even if its details are inaccurate, Menchú's book is still valuable as a document of Mayans' experience and of the horrors of the widely acknowledged abuses of the Guatemalan government. Even if that's true, however, it's troubling that Menchú seemed to want to have it both ways: She wanted both to offer factual rebuttals and to deny their importance. Take the central question of her father's land dispute. She claims her father was harassed by wealthy landowners. Stoll argues that it was principally a family feud. Menchú answered a query by quickly saying the family dispute was settled by 1960 (Stoll has cited records indicating the dispute carried on through the 1970s, for most of the period covered by her book) -- then segued into the general argument that the real land issue in Guatemala, between her people and the government, is still going on. Stoll, she said, has "decontextualized" this issue and "touched on this one little party that didn't have a lot of land." Fair enough -- but that "one little party" provides the very narrative thread for "I, Rigoberta Menchú." Stoll believes that the firestorm over factual details has obscured more important historical issues, ones largely independent of the factual squabbles. For example, Menchú, claiming to speak for all poor Guatemalans, claims that the guerrilla resistance was a widely popular grass-roots movement among the Quiché Mayans. But Stoll argues that his interviews with Quichés indicate the choice "was imposed on them by a national-level contest between the government and the guerrillas that came into their area ... Rigoberta does not have a monopoly on interpretation of the violence." In the end, Menchú's response to Stoll and her other critics is to suggest that their charges should be dismissed as political, while discrepancies in her account should be forgiven because they're political -- but on the correct side. This isn't a line of argument that does her much good. All of which raises the question of whether there is a serious political-historical discussion to be had between Stoll's and Menchú's camps -- one that will never really take place over the excited "liar, liar!" charges on one side and attacks on motives on the other. In her remarks Thursday, Menchú certainly gave every sign of ending the discussion: "This is the last time I will answer these questions ... I have a heart, I have blood. I will not allow people to play with my dead ones, to profane the dead." With the U.N. Truth Commission preparing to deliver its report later this month and Guatemala assessing its postwar future, a less-polarized conversation might have been welcome. But between the accusations of PC fraud and defensive charges of grave-dancing, a potentially fruitful discussion of Central America's past and future may have been the first casualty of peace. SALON \| Feb. 12, 1999 James Poniewozik writes the Under the Covers column, which appears every Tuesday in Salon's Media Circus. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - R E L A T E D_.S A L O N_.S T O R I E S I, Rigoberta Menchú, liar How left-wing propagandists, a fellow-traveling Nobel committee and a corrupt media perpetrated a monstrous hoax. By David Horowitz Jan. 11, 1999 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Become a Salon member. Click here.