Alberto Esquit Choy
Introduction
The social and economical conditions of the Maya population: In a pre-conflict period. Peasants without land, land first: food production: Maize and Beans for surviving.
We can resist ethnic discrimination but we cannot resist famine or starvation. What should be the first step: solving ethnic discrimination or poverty?
Marx and the hungry for food: The answer for poor and indigenous people in their struggle in Guatemala, according to the Marxist ideology, guerrillas, and leftists was a revolution and the proletariat state. This solution come from ladino intellectuals often middle social class (civilians and revolutionary member of the army) that emerged in 1944 and became the guerrilla group after the cue of 1954 in Guatemala by the CIA (Bitter Fruit: The story of the American Coup in Guatemala).
Liberalism, the rightists, oligarchy and Guatemala white elite. On the other hand the Indians (Mayas) were considered lazy and their culture so primitive, their dialects rather than language are species of animal sounds. The causes of poverty and lack of advance into civilization, progress, and modernism are the Indians rather than they are the victims of poverty and social injustice.
The idea became a vicious circle of injustice in the idea that the Indians cannot be educated, and any opportunity for them is a waste time. They are good for hard work but not for education and high intellectual development. They are accustom live in poverty.
In no one of these ideologies the Maya culture was seen as positive element within the Guatemala state and society.
In the practice to overcome their social condition the Maya population were moving:
First: Achieving land for maize and beans production for surviving, and many people afford land through buying it generally from the Ladinos.
Second: house that let them to have a place where to live with their families and can pass it to their children, generally adobe constructions and with roof of palmate leaves.
Third: clothing (It had a long tradition of self-production). As a general tendency, once they have these three basic elements they move to education.
After these three steps formal education was the following and fourth step. In some towns complete elementary school existed, but only for Ladinos that discriminate the Mayas. Most of the children left school in the first three months in their attempt to get into the formal education.
Alphabetization or become literate instrumentally for reading and writing was only possible in older age, in the army or maybe in the church within the Accion Catolica or Catholic Action.
Access to formal education only became possible until the 60s. The children of local Mayan leaders started to get involved into high school in the seventies but they were still discriminated. They become what some scholars had called the petit Indian (Maya) bourgeoisie. Most of them were bilingual in their Maya language and Spanish and others lost their language and became monolingual in Spanish. Some of them continued university education.
A point in this group was the idea of civilized Indians or Indios civilizados.
The effect of a formal education strongly based in stereotypes, devaluating the Mayan culture within a social stratification where the Mayas are in the bottom of the pyramid, it became also part of the discourse of the educated Mayas, which differentiated themselves from the rest as civilized Indians.
Despite of their advances in their education, the Indios Civilizados were still ethnically discriminated. It is probably the cause of a strong focus on cultural and ethnic identity such as language, clothing and education in their culture as the priority in their demands.
Coming into conflict and agreement.
What should be the first step: solving ethnic discrimination or poverty?
In 1992 with the celebration of the five hundred of the American discovery the popular and the Maya movement were in conflict. On the one hand the Movimiento Popular was seen as too dependent, and influenced by Marxist ideology from urban Ladinos scholars or intellectuals as their leaders, although some indigenous leaders emerged such as Rosalina Tuyuc: http://www.prensalibre.com/pls/prensa/index.jsp
She was from a peasant origin that continues fighting for the social and economical rights such as land, and the widows of the war. She became a deputy in 1996.
On the other hand the Maya movement was leaded by educated indigenous, children of local leaders of the 60s and 70s. They were obviously in a better position than people in the popular movement. Later some of them became ministers or vice-ministers, such as Demetrio Cojti, or Otilia Lux: http://www.dialoguebetweennations.com/N2N/PFII/English/03MediaResources.htm
The conflict come to an end when a process of peace started between the guerrilla and the government, in Oslo Norway at the end of 1980s and a debate on the indigenous rights need the agreement between both educated Mayas and peasant Mayas in 1993, although the social differences in their education did not necessarily disappear. They agreed with a unify proposal for the peace accord.