The extremism of the mainstream needs to be laid bare.

In a way it has, because, as was obscured by the mainstream parties, it is 1) their own failures, and 2) their own hateful posturing over issues like immigration, along with 3) their illegal pre-emptive wars and attendant jingoism that have contributed to 4) the rise of fringe parties to prominence.

Why shouldn’t the EDL join the dots and twist further the government rhetoric? If New Labour conduct a PR stunt of arresting ‘terrorists’ and then have no information with which to charge them, but still deport them, or let rendition flights use British airports, or have British intelligence officials present at torture, and continue to state that the war in Afghanistan is to ‘keep the streets of Britain safe’, then why shouldn’t the EDL conclude that Muslims in Britain represent a fifth column and that they can support ‘our boys’ out there with some extra-judicial beatings of Muslims here?

And the hate and lies, so? Look at Bradford yesterday. Nobody is fooled. We need more of these types of extremists to generate modern day Brick Lanes and show that these sorts of policies won’t sway the broad mass of the electorate.

But whether that will sway the state itself, probably not. As we read on here, Thomas Jones, I think, the state is preening itself over its inhuman migrant holding centre, which is something actual, in the here and now, and, to my mind, nothing any less extreme than what the BNP would be doing.

This form of concealed extremism that has emerged inside the main parties needs to be tackled. We’ve all sat through expeditions that sought ‘the truth’ – three or four Iraq enquiries and Blair collecting on a 20 million pound pile of blood-stained banknotes, again, you are positing the hatred and lies as if they don’t emerge precisely from the conditions, as if somehow they are optional. That is your error, though it appears well-meaning.

--- Pinhut ---

End of. Confinement, after. A fashion. Return of. Freedom, after. An Eternity.

Imprisoned in Eternity. I like it, as a phrase, but as a creed. Sir mistakes one for.

A masochist. Unchain my heart, that is right. And set. [Free] ... Go.

[link]

Sixteen years later, a popular movement, led by Rafael Carrera (right), supported by these ignored classes, emerged from the mountains of the east, to overthrow the Liberal government (Liberal, not in the modern sense of the word, a strange anti-clerical, free-trade, freedom of thought ensemble, that was still not above renewing the imposition of slavery to provide labour for cultivation of coffee).

The oppositions here are so perfect. City vs country, rich vs poor, the few vs the many, education vs illiteracy (while the urban elite were in the grip of Enlightenment thinking, Carrera was said to be un analfabeto), and reason vs superstition - it was a cholera epidemic in 1836 that further fanned the flames of rebellion, as the church told the faithful that the disease was punishment of an increasingly godless Guatemala (a claim I have heard on the radio here this year, after Hurricane Agatha and the eruption of Volcan Pacaya).

Carrera declared Guatemala to be independent (effectively ending the Federation of Central America) restored the Catholic church as the state religion, removed the head tax and reversed the legal reforms (the Liberals had attempted to, wholesale, impose the Livingston Codes, a set of legal reforms originally compiled for Louisiana, yet never implemented there).

Sound like I've learned anything?

Beingthe ultimate message, in the sense of its generality.

Tonight, researching totalitarianism, this, from Hannah Arendt:

First image, a cedula real, 16th Century, the second, a 19th Century map.

At the height of violence of the dictatorship of Lucas García, in 1979, local shamans, led by Don José Sik and Don Miguel Tuy, among others, deeply concerned about the growing violence in the country, approached Padre Tomás and asked him to announce in mass their intention to conduct a series of ceremonies at thirteen mountainside tab’al (altars) surrounding the town. They insisted that this event be a communal affair, and collected donations door to door–“even from Protestants,” as Padre Tomás stressed to me–to help pay for the many sacks of copal incense, candles and associated materials they required. They extended an olive branch to catechists–orthodox Catholics (not Pentecostal in their sensibilities), members of the now locally defunct Catholic Action. Padre Tomás was deeply moved by this gesture of unity, as he explained in an interview:

“The ajq’ijab’, they went off to the different tab’al in the night, and the catechists were to guard them, because there was a lot of killing then. They murdered a lot of sacerdotes mayas in the pueblos when they were doing their ceremonies. So they said “Even though you don’t believe, please help us.” This was an extremely beautiful act. I remember some catechists, they got out their rubber boots, their plastic ponchos and their walking sticks and off they went to the mountains. The sacerdotes mayas doing their ceremony, and the catechists guarding them. It was a beautiful union. We only did this once … It was beautiful; there was a lot of unity.”

Imagining the mountainsides of Xecul, lit up all night with ceremonial fires clearly visible from miles around, in the context of a counterinsurgency state conducting a genocidal war with a shadowy insurgency which also lurked in the mountains, it is easy to understand the need for security these shamans felt. ‘Security’, however, was quite obviously a shallow goal for this union, if it is assumed that catechists armed with walking sticks might have provided any defence against a hypertechnologised and predatory army. Communal solidarity was the clear intention, seen as well in the ‘demand’ that every Xeculense contribute to the cost of the ceremonies, “even if only a few cents.”

This ‘spiritual’ response to crisis is a very common one in costumbrista (and, indeed, Pentecostal Christian) practice, as noted briefly above, an action which is hard to easily characterise as motivated by either an ‘active’ or ‘passive’ ethic of conviction.

(taken from Jamie McKenzie, 2007, Maya Face of God)

Just another day in Guatemala City, today I sat outside the hospital watching victims of a grenade attack on a bus arrive. We're having war without the ideology here, much harder to combat when it's driven purely by economics. "Come back the Communists," they cried, "Revive the death squads," they yelped. To no effect.... Not just a sad day, a sadness.

Today, I found this comment on the Prensa Libre website.

yo doy mi pequena opinion para que pare tanta violencia es lo que dice el amigo que buelba la pena de muerte oque regrese el escuadron de la muerte

"I give my little opinion that in order to stop such violence is to do what a friend says, bring back the death penalty or the death squads."

People are so desperate that the appetite is there for another limpieza social.

The ever-responsible Nuestro Diario captures (shapes) the public mood rather well with today's front page featuring a robber being given a beating.

What I noticed as she whisked (yes, whisked) the copy of Hola! past my eyes, was that there on the front cover was another Alberto, the Prince of Monaco. What a strange, albeit minor, coincidence.

Terrorism without the politics, that is how the present situation strikes me. The politicians have no solution because, in Guatemala, we have politics without politics, also.

The above view is supported by the few cases of genuine activism in public life and the attendant consequences.

Three examples :

Nineth Montenegro - Engaged in social activism since 1979, in 1984 her husband was disappeared, a case that has never been cleared up. Presently a Congress representative. Her name was circulated on death squad lists of those to be killed during the 1980s.

Helen Mack Chang - Became a human rights activist after the murder of her sister, Myrna Mack, an anthropologist, by a death squad in 1990 (stabbed 27 times). Repeatedly threatened as she pursued justice for her sister.

Norma Cruz - Repeatedly threatened for her work developing the Fundación Sobrevivientes (Survivors Foundation) and tireless campaigning for an end to the impunity for crimes against women.

What the above call to mind is Hannah Arendt's description of the 'second life' of the bios politikos in the polis of ancient Greece.

This 'second life' that was a chance for beautiful deeds to be accomplished through speech and action. In Guatemala this desire is matched throughout living memory by a commitment to kill those brave enough to pursue it (men such as Manuel Colom Argueta). Not the polis of ancient Greece, but the necropolis.

Intriguingly, Arendt notes that the foundation of the polis was preceded by the destruction of "all organized units resting on kinship". Guatemala, in contrast, has social units that strongly resemble kinship groups:

The level of cohesiveness and collegiality that endures to this day among El Sindicato members is an anomaly in the Guatemala armed forces. A declassified U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency cable observes that “frequently there are class family picnics, dances, outings, birthday celebrations, etc., wherein all class members are reunited”.36 The persistence of the tanda in this particular class is attributable in large part to the leadership of General Otto Pérez Molina. - from Hidden Powers

And, of course, there are the mareros, the fearsome tatooed gangsters of such organisations as M-18 and the Salvatruchas.

There are no politics in Guatemala.

What remains is a savage capitalism, a zero-sum game whose inexorable logic tends to violence. Death is the only prospect for growth in a stagnant economy (while death is a force multiplier in a prospering economy).

I heard the shouts in my head today, after hearing the details. "Bring back the Communist guerillas!" "Revive the death squads!" When the violence had a political underpinning, there was the prospect of an end to it, that the contesting factions would be absorbed back into the political process, that they would, in the final analysis, widen the scope of ideological debate. It happened, but to a tiny degree.

The present exponents of violence have no wish to be drawn into the political sphere in that particular way (as these worlds already communicate successfully, see below). When they kidnap somebody, it is for economic gain only. When they do formulate demands, these look no further than improving the conditions of the criminal class (as in last month's depositing of decapitated heads around the city, with demands placed inside for the immediate improvement in the treatment afforded prisoners).

There are new buses now in service that have a dedicated police escort around the city, thus rendering them safe to use. But fortify all of the buses and the violence shifts to the next most vulnerable and profitable target. The logical endpoint would be the fortification of all private property. This, to a certain extent, has already happened. Guatemala has a booming private security industry, there is razorwire everywhere. Armed guards stand outside every shop and ride on every delivery truck. Most of the middle classes live in guarded and walled communities, those who are wealthier employ bodyguards.

The justice system barely functions, to the extent that its mere name invites derision. In a country with a runaway problem with endemic violence, the prison population in a nation of 14 million barely tops 10,000. Yes, you read that right, no, it's not a typo.

For those who favour the reduction of state power as a general rule, as I do, Guatemala shows what happens when the state becomes too debilitated. There is all the space in the world here for lawlessness to thrive, for alternative philosophies to sprout, but instead of a flowering of Sixties style Californian counterculture, of peace, free love, drug use and cosmic visions, we have here the polar opposite - violence, rape, narco trafficking and turf war. Where the hippies grew their hair long, the mareros of Guatemala City tatoo every inch of their faces.

And yet the hippies are still here. They are the Western tourists around Lake Atitlan or in Antigua or Flores. Who come to chill out, party, smoke weed and snort coke and peddle jewelry. These people dig the nature here, as is their right. But what they block out of their cosmic vision are precisely the sort of events that today I had a glimpse of, the coldest and hardest realities that Guatemala City offers, death in the full light of day, sudden and merciless, motivated by nothing but a drive for economic pre-eminence that leaves human lives destroyed and shattered in its wake.

This book, Hidden Powers, published by the Washington Office on Latin American Affairs, is a good introduction to the problems facing contemporary Guatemala. [view PDF]