By Nataly Erazo
There is something mystical about the presence of Rigoberta Menchú Tum; she is so plentiful and yet so humble and measured. For Latin American people, her figure is iconic, her name memorable, and her cause universal. For that reason, the first time I saw her, I felt that day as one of those that I treasured in my memory to later become an anecdote and the first lines of a story. This story.
I was listening to her in Guatemala, her country. It was there that she welcomed delegation of women leaders on a journey for the defense of a dignified and just life. The delegation included Jody Williams, also a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, a group of activists from different countries, a wonderful group of philanthropists, and was organized by Nobel Women’s Initiative and Just Associates (JASS), both organizations dedicated to promoting peace, justice, equity, and equality, especially for and by women.
As I write this text, dozens of voices echo in my mind. Some of them are in English from Africa, others in English from North America. I can also hear Latin Spanish, as well as Mayan language, which I cannot understand but could feel with every fiber of my body. In that symphony of so many women’s voices (and women who are a voice), I was reminded of the greatness of the verb: to listen.
A whole week, from the early hours of the morning until sunset, we listened with openness and full willingness to the messages from these women: indigenous, garifunas, young, grandmothers, trans, victims, leaders, diverse and plural who have so much to say.
In this deep, empathetic, and generative listening journey, our mission, in addition to the powerful exercise of conversation and the healing that comes from exercising through spoken word, was to accompany the voices of the Nobel Peace Prize laureates in front of decision-makers, local and international governments, and media. All this to advocate and speed up the transformations and demands they shared with us.
We cried with Virginia Laparra, unjustly imprisoned for denouncing corruption, we cried and chanted at the altar of 41 girls who burned alive while demanding dignified conditions in a state run orphanage, and we swallowed our tears as we accompanied the victims of Manuel Benedicto, accused of genocide of entire Guatemalan communities. He, impassive to the testimonies, with a strong, expressionless face, arms crossed, let the narratives pass by like background noise. They, the victims and survivors, recounting with their tired voices the horrors of the war. We, the witnesses to that historic moment, reliving and receiving all that pain.
These stories are part of one of the many episodes of an armed conflict that lasted for 36 long years. Other stories rest in “Guatemala: Never Again” a titanic effort led by the Catholic Church to ensure that “memory fulfills its role as an instrument to rescue collective identity1.” When I was in the courts and the testimonies of suffering flooded the room, memories returned to the stories of my people, of my town, in Colombia. Two years ago, we also received our own war report: “There is a future if there is truth,” summarizing 60 years of violence in that legacy.
Guatemalan peasants talk about their massacres and detailed with painful precision the excessive cruelty they endured; Colombian peasants also tell about the abuses, atrocities, and savagery with which the armed conflict thrust itself in their lives.
After all, pain has no identity or measure; it belongs only to ourselves and at the same time to nobody. And war is so blind and absurd that even though I was hundreds of kilometers away from my country, I sadly felt at home.
But—thankfully, there is always a "but"—I also felt at home in the hugs of the women I met in Guatemala landscapes. I received the warmth from “bean tamales, pupusas, and pulique” (all traditional dishes); the warmth that comes from their ancestral, communal, and loving preparations, from the food that is medicine. I lived in poetry because I recognized the immense wisdom of indigenous women, guardians and defenders of water, protectors of Grandmother Lake, defenders of the earth: Mother Earth and the body as territory.
I learned that all causes lead to the same destination: living in fullness (Utz' k'aslemal). And I also learned that the word Guatemala, originally “Quauhtemallan”, comes from the Náhuatl language, meaning "place of trees," and that the trees were women. Guatemala came from women.
From this great collective action, there remains: the learnings, the tasks and commitments to elevate their voices; to continue establishing in the public agenda the need for a governance that puts life at the center of everything. Also, the follow-up to the peace agreements to ensure reparations and justice, the accompaniment of women who continue to be victimized and criminalized, and the declaration that together we are a big forest sustaining life.
Por favor, haz clic aquí para leer el artículo en Español.
Nataly Erazo Ospina is a communicator and storyteller for social change and good living. She has led various communication strategies to change paradigms and behaviors, especially to prevent gender violence in her country. One of them, called “that is violence,” has impacted 190,999 people in different regions of Colombia. She currently leads the communication and mobilization area of “Fundación Mi Sangre”; is part of the co-creation team of the Latin American well-being summits, developed by The Wellbeing Project; and was part of the Sister-to-Sister program of the Nobel Women’s Initiative in 2023.
Photos used in this article are by Camila Urrutia taken during NWI's Delegation to Guatemala.