Article: Racist History

Guatemalans face their racist history in new exhibit
By Frank Jack Daniel

GUATEMALA CITY, Aug 19 (Reuters) - Mayan Indians make up more than half of Guatemala's population but wealthy schoolgirl Maria Jose Soto knows only one -- her maid.

Soto, 17, visited a new exhibition in Guatemala City this week designed to combat racism in this violent Central American country.

Mayan Indians, most of them poor, are 60 percent of the population in this nation of 11 million people, where the white minority holds most of the wealth and political power.

The multimedia show, which opened on Wednesday, uses life-size photos, floor maps and sound to show a history of conquest and domination dating back to the ancient Maya civilizations.

"Let's face it, it's a discriminatory country, with a terrible history of exclusion and inequality," Vice President Eduardo Stein said at an opening ceremony. "Many citizens still believe that ... Indians are an obstacle that have stopped Guatemala progressing."

Racism is part of daily life for many Mayans, especially women, whose vivid hand-woven clothes make them easily visible both in cities and remote highland villages.

When Maria Tuyuc tried to enter an exclusive disco wearing traditional dress last month, she was refused entry by bouncers who allegedly told her "this place is not for servants."

Her sister was Guatemala's first Mayan woman legislator. In a video at the exhibition, Rosalina Tuyuc says that security guards often tried to stop her entering Congress.

Soto liked a video that juxtaposes images of wealthy joggers and a poor man struggling under a heavy load strapped to his head, but she doubted it would change attitudes much.

"We already know most of what we saw, but we do nothing to change it," she said.

But the decision by her exclusive school, Colegio Internacional, to take pupils to the show was a step in the right direction, organizers said.

"DEEP AND SERIOUS RACISM"

"We want to give people the elements to understand the way they feel about themselves and other people, before changing their ideas," said exhibition director Tani Adams.

"One visitor had tears in his eyes ... at the prospect of seeing things that have never been said out loud," Adams said.

Five years in the making, the project explores what U.N. rapporteur Doudou Diene called "deep and serious racism" during a recent visit to the Central American country.

The racism against Guatemala's Indian majority is more than just daily indignities and poverty.

During Guatemala's 36-year civil war, which ended in 1996, 200,000 people were killed or forcibly disappeared. The vast majority were Mayan civilians killed by the army, a U.N-backed truth report concluded in 1999.

Exhibition co-organizer Elaine Gurian is former deputy director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and has worked on ethnic reconciliation projects in Australia and New Zealand.

"The Holocaust museum opened 60 years after the Holocaust. The unique thing in Guatemala is how close to the destruction they are willing to have this conversation," she said.

Posted by elcanche at August 19, 2004 07:23 PM