The History of a Military Man

I'm spending a lot of time attempting to discern the dispensation. We're not sure yet, but we start by methodically investigating in what framework are the questions being asked? We have sets of questions, see, dozens of them, that people ask. I try them on- I'll ask some to blank faces, rearrange in different order to warmer smiles and casual returns. And then we may say to ourselves "Ah, here it is," but only with the emphasis on the right syllables. And only with group x which is actually a split off of a split off of a fraction of the whole.

Which brings me to the next question- who are we asking what questions are you asking? We could ask the leaders- maybe frame it in terms of Spiderman, "With great power comes great responsibility." Therefore, you are obligated to answer for the disparity. Secretly we would hope to be overpowered by the veracity of their vision, but we would have to be realistic and say, like many here, that I remain unconvinced.

The irony is trying to convince the unconvinced that convincing is half the battle. And that's my point. You've gotta get on the bus, even if the windows are broken and you're gonna get robbed. You've gotta go shopping, even if they blow up the mall with a car bomb. You've gotta vote, even if they don't count it. The problem is setting the conditions- if the leaders are wrong, we're not gonna sit down with it, right? And you're always gonna have them. You must have them. Yet divided we (or they) fall. An interesting slogan for a country built on tolerance.

So what is worth taking on in the name of progress? What is worth riding with double negation? What is worth selling your soul to the devil? These are the questions of presidents and citizens.

It seems that the current conclusion of president Alvaro Colom's term is that centrists do nothing. Much like the divided U.S. government, they're not benefitting from a diversity of opinions, they're suffering from it. It's the ugly face of democracy- try getting anything done here with 13 million opinions. Or like Protestantism- try developing an orthodoxy without any authority. But what are you gonna do? Take away their voice to get things done?

So we arrive at what I've been thinking is the central paradox of the Guatemalan elections- democracy or safety? Guatemalans are in a binary position. For the first time in 30 years, they're not at war, yet they're now being terrorized by Mexican drug cartels and violent city gangs. Many people currently consider Guatemala City one of the most dangerous cities in the world. I heard somebody say the average homicide rate here is 12 a day. In Philadelphia, a city of comparable size and already questionable reputation for safety, it's about .8.

So you can continue to have your voice, but unfortunately the reality seems to be that the killings will not cease until you lower the level of diversity. Yet surrendering your rights to a dictator in the name of getting things done is precisely what makes you vulnerable to things like "ethnic cleansing." As far as I can understand, this is exactly what happened in the war- the government attempted to unify to people against the threat of Communism. But at what cost? The cost that not even genocide was sufficient grounds for halting the progress.

So you can vote for your representative and fear for you life, or you can walk the streets and shut the hell up. It's a terrible choice, a decision that no one should ever have to make, the decision between representation and personal safety. Yet this is the practical reality, and these are the competing goods.

In the elections this week, it seems they've already swung the other way, voting to elect the "strong hand," the one who has promised to be toughest on crime, the one who promises "security and employment." Yet can you guess what his background is? He was a general during the war, the war in which 90% of the civilian deaths were found to have been directly perpetrated by the army.

Yet the people have spoken. They have formed their questions within the framework of the priority of security. Or so it seems, to me.

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Decision Libre