Revolutionary Theology-Terrible Choices

( The author is a junior in Jordan K. This is the third part of a three-part feature. )

Why aren't more of the people with the guerrillas? For an outsider, to pose the question moralistically is absurd. As Norm Diamond, author of "Why They Shoot Americans" ( Nation, Feb. 5, 1968), has said, the Indians' "allegiance is not to the military, nor to the guerrillas, but to themselves. If the military will give them a well (pacification program, only for insurgent areas), they'll take it, and if the guerrillas are going to increase their food, then they'll back them." (CRV, op, cit., Panel Transcript, p. 6)

And so far the guerrillas have not been able to offer much more than an early death. When Galleano asked Cesar Montes, the most important guerrilla leader still alive today, what did he promise the peasants, the guerrilla said, "Promise? We promised them nothing. We promised them a struggle, we urged them to fight for their rights, for the things they needed." (Galleano, op. cit., p. 40)

These guerrillas have not been left alone in the hinterlands to set up liberated territories. The jets can be anywhere in a half hour. Sometimes it seems so hopeless.

Another big advantage the press has is an information monopoly. The papers carry stories of the guerrillas hacking defenseless women to death with machetes. There is Radio Havana, but this is a foreign voice, especially for the peasant. For the present, the most important source of ideology is still the Church. Remember that the other European colonizers never succeeded in imposing Christianity on the population as a whole; they merely cultivated it in their elites. Only the Spanish and the Portuguese conquered for Cross as well as gold. Orthodox Latin American Catholicism has always been profoundly degrading for the masses, especially in an Indian nation like Guatemala, where it is still preached by the descendants of their conquerors.

Guatemala's top clergy is largely foreign, not to mention white; the director of the National Secretariat of Bishops is an American. Americans usually head the continual drives for funds, for obvious reasons. Many "paganized" forms of Christianity have evolved, but the Church does everything it can to suppress these, explaining "these minority groups frequently cause situations of conflict with the rest of the population." (See official introduction to Aldous Huxley's "Practicas Religiosas en Mesoamerica" (Religious Practices in Central America). Semenaria de Integration Social Guatemalteca, No. 11, 1965. Quote is from footnote #5 on page 29)

Luckily for Latin America (and for Christianity), there are nascent movements of revolutionary and reform clergy. Some read Martin Luther King; some, like Camillo Torres, have died fighting with the guerrillas. In Guatemala there is a fairly liberal clergy movement called COSDEGUA (Conference of Guatemalan Priests). As mild as it seems to be, it is being vigorously suppressed. When I was in the capital, eight of its members were suspended.

At one church, where Father Palencia was removed, the parishioners refused to let a curia spokesman, an assistant Bishop, come into the church. A crowd of over 500 surrounded his car and nearly destroyed it before letting the terrified Monseigneur escape. That the renegade priest was far less militant than his flock was shown clearly when he led a mass asking God to forgive the violence. The crowd was obviously not very contrite; immediately after the mass a thousand people were dancing in front of the church. (El Grafico, Aug. 6, 1970, p. 8. Interview with two of the suspended priests appears Ibid., Aug. 12, p. 4)

Most of the radical clergy are probably not doctrinaire on the question of violence. As is stated in a radical position paper presented at the Second General Conference of Latin American Bishops (CELAM) in Medellin, Colombia, "The form of the social revolution varies greatly. There is not just one method.... Everything depends on the objective conditions and the desires of the people. There are peaceful methods and there are violent methods." (P. Comblin, "La Iglessia y el Tercer Mundo," La Nacion, Aug. 9. 1970, p. 8. From this summary, the document appears to be a Marxist analysis, even examining the problem of state power, and advocating something which sounds a good deal like the dictatorship of the proletariat, though that is not the term used. The statement was presented by some 500 priests, mostly Chileans and Argentines. It is significant that Guatemala's tightly censored newspapers would carry this).

But when priests turn revolutionary, revolutionaries can become Saints. Father Bonpane speaks on the ideology of the Guatemalan guerillas:

I have met many guerrillas. I've talked to them. I admire them. I think that the ones I've met are very well read. They are generally much less irascible than I. They're usually more calm than I and they are not as emotional as I am, perhaps. They are a very dedicated people, and very religious. Their first step is to say "I am going to lose my fear of death before I join this movement." Their second step is to consider themselves as a seed. (As Jesus said, "The seed has to fall to the ground and die or remain by itself alone.") They have a deep belief that they are the seed of a new order. They are not kidding around. They are not afraid of anyone. I think they are very brave and admirable people and that they would listen to a non-violent alternative if there were one. But they will not play games.

The model for this, of course, is the passion of Che, which is explicitly Christ-like. Tortured by the unresponsiveness of the peasants, and, some say, betrayed by the Bolivian Communist Party, Che is said to have cried in his last moments of life, "No contestant, no contestant." (They do not answer, they do not answer).

Father Bonpane continues:

While the peasant may not identify with the living guerrilla, he is much more likely to identify with the dead fighter. He identifies with him in a Christ-like relationship, whereby he feels: "This man died for me." (CRV, Panel Transcript, op. cit., p. 11 and 16)

In the parts of Bolovia where Che fought, the Indians call him Santo Che.

This ideal of revolutionary self-sacrifice is tremendously powerful for many young Latin Americans. Shortly before his death in 1967, the young Guatemalan poet-guerrilla Otto Rene Castillo wrote:

My country, let us walk together, you and I.

I will descend into the abysses where you send me,

I will drink your bitter cup.

I will be blind so you may have eyes.

I will be voiceless so you may sing.

I have to die so you may live.

But, terrible as this choice to die for people and country is-the real choice is even worse. For most of the people are still a long way from picking up the gun. Maybe someday, after a revolutionary clerics' movement gains momentum, or after a reform clerics' movement is crushed. But not now. When the guerrillas come to a village, the people are likely to be terrified not of the guerrillas, but of the interrogations, arrests, and even the destruction of their village which could follow. So they may beg the guerrillas to leave.

Che hoped for many Vietnams, and all who wish to see America's empire broken might wish the same. But when I look at the beautiful highlands-the canyons, ferns, pine trees, volcanoes and mineral springs and consider the hell of Vietnam today-I cannot wish that on Guatemala. She may yet take it on herself. But before anything like a majority of the people have actually decided to support the revolution, Guatemala will be committed to a long season in a hell much fiercer than the grinding misery she now knows.

The guerrillas realize that the Guatemalan Army is only a first obstacle, and that before it sees its puppets destroyed, the United States will intervene massively. We already have some 1000 military "advisors" in Guatemala, according to Miami Herald reporter Georgie Anne Geyer (Dec. 24, 1966). Less than 500 guerrillas now. A few thousand more and it is decided.

At first it was very discouraging for me to realize how "unmajoritarian" this all is. I had come to Guatemala in hopes of seeing a popular revolution, and partly to get away from this country, where the majority's in difference to its government's war crimes daily invited a revolutionary to go crazy.

It is different in Guatemala. Most of the people are sympathetic to the guerrillas, but are very threatened by the aura of death. Which invites Latin American revolutionaries to make the most terrible choice-to presume to wage war on a genocidal enemy. The latest Tupamaro (urban guerrillas of Uruguay) watchword lays it out-"If there isn't a homeland for all, there won't be a homeland for anybody." ( Granma, Havana, Oct. 18, 1970, "Tupamaros Interview" reprinted in NUC (New University Conference) Papers ?? t, Chicago, 1970)

Che's choice of "Patria o Muerte" (Country or Death), means more than the death of individual fighters. Guatemala will be its own country, or it will die.

And I learned that it is no easier in Guatemala to be a revolutionary, and no more important. The third world will not make our revolution for us. And we will not help the third world by treating the people of America as our enemy, an error the Vietnamese have never made. With the repressive power of the United States so great, it may well be that much of the third world will not be able to free itself until we stop the rulers of our country from making war on the people of the world.