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Revisiting Rigoberta
The New York Times reports that Nobel Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu finished sixth of fourteen candidates in Guatemala's presidential election on Sunday, getting a mere 3 percent of the vote. "The reasons for her poor showing," the Times says, "include her outsider status, gender and lackluster campaign." It was, says the headline, a "complex defeat."
Menchu, whose book I, Rigoberta is a canonical text in the world of Ethnic Studies, took home $1.2 million from Oslo in 1992 and, according to the Times, "invested in a chain of pharmacies." Because of this, "she found herself on the defensive" throughout her campaign; the icon of poor, indigenous Guatemalans "insist[ed] that she had helped her people and was not rich."
Oddly, Times reporter Marc Lacey fails to mention either the work of Middlebury College anthropologist David Stoll, author of Rigoberta Menchu and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans, or the shoe-leather reporting of his own newspaper, who, in 1998, published a "special report" called "Tarnished Laureate." Both confirmed that Menchu had invented large swathes of her autobiography.
As Larry Rohter reported at the time:
"A younger brother whom Ms. Menchu says she saw die of starvation never existed, while a second, whose suffering she says she and her parents were forced to watch as he was being burned alive by army troops, was killed in entirely different circumstances when the family was not present.
Contrary to Ms. Menchu's assertion in the first page of her book that ''I never went to school'' and could not speak Spanish or read or write until shortly before she dictated the text of ''I, Rigoberta Menchu,'' she in fact received the equivalent of a middle-school education as a scholarship student at two prestigious private boarding schools operated by Roman Catholic nuns.
Further Times coverage of the Menchu scandal here.
|9.11.07 @ 4:02PM|#
Rigoberta Menchu has the dishonesty part down, and she has the wealth in place, but she has not murdered nearly enough people to be president of Guatemala. She would need to murder a few thousand peasants a month to get in tip-top shape for the next election.
|9.11.07 @ 4:03PM|#
Yay Professor Stoll! He was a badass at Midd. If only there could have been more professors like him...
|9.11.07 @ 4:07PM|#
The narative was right even if the facts were wrong. The fact that Rigoberta is a liar and a fraud and her books if filled with lies and outright fiction doesn't matter. What matters is the point she makes and the truth of her narative. It it brings to light the struggles of the oppressed and the greater truth of the macro narative and raises the reader's politcal conscience level, it doesn't matter whether the "facts" presented in a work of nonfiction are in actually "true". Since the facts acurately present a larger and imporant narative they are "true". It is the same reason why those Duke Lacross players should have gone to prison. The narative of rich white males oppressing and raping a young black woman was true regardless of our subjective perceptions of what happened that night.
|9.11.07 @ 4:13PM|#
The narative was right even if the facts were wrong. The
fact that Rigoberta is a liar and a fraud and her books if filled
with lies and outright fiction doesn't matter. What matters is the
point she makes and the truth of her narative. It it brings to
light the struggles of the oppressed and the greater truth of the
macro narative and raises the reader's politcal conscience level,
it doesn't matter whether the "facts" presented in a work of
nonfiction are in actually "true". Since the facts acurately
present a larger and imporant narative they are "true".
John, I call BULLSHIT. Facts don't matter?
|9.11.07 @ 4:16PM|#
I think john tried to troll and forgot to change his name. The troll who is trolled by his own trolling!
|9.11.07 @ 4:16PM|#
J Sub D
I was being a smart ass. Yes they do matter. But what is amazing is
that Menchu is still required reading in colleges all over the
country even though we know now the book is full of lies. What we
can't find a true account of someone who grew up in poverty in
Central America? The justification for ignoring Menchu's lies is
pretty much what I just wrote, although I added the Duke Lacross
stuff to take it to rediculous extremes. It just drives me nuts. If
the book is lies and purports to be the truth, it shouldn't be
required reading.
|9.11.07 @ 4:28PM|#
Damar,
That pissed me off. Fuckin' Coens. Haven't been great since
Raising Arizona, either.
|9.11.07 @ 4:33PM|#
"Does that mean I can't make others watch Fargo?"
No, it just means that you can't make your freshman English class
read it as an example of the oppression of funny looking people by
Minnisota housewives turned highway patrolman.
dhex|9.11.07 @ 4:43PM|#
so all fiction is out?
hmm.
john what do you think about things fall apart? achebe was writing
about stuff he never actually experienced firsthand, really.
not that the whole twas all bullhockey bit isn't a pretty sick joke
or whatever, it just seems like your ire is...misplaced.
SIV|9.11.07 @ 4:43PM|#
Lucky for Prfoessor Stoll he had tenure before conducting his racist, sexist "outting".
M|9.11.07 @ 4:47PM|#
John - except for your second sentence, your satire rings a very distinct and familiar not-intentionally-satiric bell that tolled when all this was in the news. I may be recalling it from its have been quoted (with deserved disdain) in National Review, which I read in those days.
M. Ram|9.11.07 @ 4:47PM|#
There's a rather recent phrase to describe John's first post:
Fake but accurate.
Good to know Rigoberta Menchu's book is "fake but accurate". I
might have to take an ethnic studies course as part of the Gen. Ed.
requirement for my school.
|9.11.07 @ 4:50PM|#
SIV,
It was indeed lucky for him, especially with the political climate
at Midd.
|9.11.07 @ 5:30PM|#
That pissed me off. Fuckin' Coens. Haven't been great since
Raising Arizona, either.
Huh? The Big Lebowski wasn't exactly poopoo. O
Brother, Where Art Thou? is great too.
|9.11.07 @ 5:43PM|#
Text of an actual letter to the editor:]
What is the point of questioning the autobiography of the Nobel
peace prize winner Rigoberta Menchu (news item, Dec. 18; editorial,
Dec. 17)? Whether the details of Ms. Menchu's life as set forth by
her are accurate, does anyone doubt that her book accurately
portrays the living nightmare endured by millions of impoverished
indigenous Guatemalan peasants?
If Ms. Menchu took liberties in telling her own story to more
effectively depict the realities of her people's lives, so what?
Another Nobel laureate, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, used a
magical-realistic style to convey the reality of repression in
Latin America.
The literal truth of all the details of Ms. Menchu's book is of
little importance compared with the truth of the Guatemalan
reality, the complicity of the United States and what Garcia
Marquez calls ''the solitude of Latin America.''
End quote
Parody? Sometimes its hard to do.
|9.11.07 @ 6:38PM|#
Well, if part of her $1.4 million prize money was given on the premise that she was writing an autobiography and not a work of fiction (and most of us do have different artistic standards for fiction and non-fiction), that's fraud at a minimum, wouldn't you say?
M|9.11.07 @ 7:23PM|#
Shannon, I heartily concur with your sentiment; a technical point might be whether she checked some box labeled "Non-fiction" when she sent her manuscript in with the box top to Mr. Nobel, or whether caveat prize-giver obtains instead, if the initiative came from the dynamite factory philanthropists without need of affidavit.
|9.11.07 @ 8:51PM|#
John-David,
I cannot concur. Good, yes. Great, no.
Though I'd like you to call me the Dude from now on.
|9.11.07 @ 10:53PM|#
I was wondering why all the press is focused on her all the time
to analyze Guatemalan politics and not in the fact that the next
President might be either someone involved in ordering
seriouscrimes against civilians, even babies, and other or someone
linked to organized crime. She performed poorly, and the results
are the evidence.
But I certainly consider that mass killings and dangerous allies,
of the other candidates are more serious than writing a book, with
some facts not that accurated.
I did a lot of research on her story, and their parents were people
fighting for their fundamental freedoms, both of them murdered by
public officers. With the money of the Nobel Prize she created a
fund, to help indigenous people www.frmt.org, helping a lot of
people to improve their life.
|9.12.07 @ 8:07AM|#
So her story has as much truth as Robert Howard's Conan
stories?
I demand human rights for Aquilonia!!
|9.12.07 @ 9:42AM|#
"that's fraud at a minimum, wouldn't you say?"
It's sort of like that Road to 9/11 movie. Some of the characters
were composites, some of the scenes were altered to highlight a
fundamental truth. We can argue over the ultimate truth of Road to
9/11, but Rigoberta's story seems to have been vetted and agreed
upon to be an accurate vignette of life in Guatemala.
|9.12.07 @ 9:59AM|#
Toxic,
does anyone doubt that her book accurately portrays the living
nightmare endured by millions of impoverished indigenous Guatemalan
peasants?
Well? Does anyone? Do you?
|9.12.07 @ 10:02AM|#
"Fake but accurate" wouldn't apply here. The events described in
I, Rigoberta Menchu didn't actually happen. That is, it is fake,
and inaccurate, as far as the specific events happening go.
The events described in the infamous fake TANG memo, for whence the
"fake but accurate" phrase was coined, did occur.
If I wrote, "I was at the Battle of Bunker of Hill, and it was
actually on Breed's Hill," that would be fake but accurate.
Ir I wrote, "I watched the Patriot army fight off the British on
Bunker Hill," that would be fake and inaccurate.
|9.12.07 @ 1:27PM|#
When you publish a non fiction book, you are essentially taking
an oath that the events related inside are to the best of your
knowledge (and you did the research) true.
Letting lies slide because they communicate a greater truth is why
we have a thriving fiction genre.
You don't get to make shit up and call it nonfiction. Anyone who
does is dishonest and should die in a fire. There's any number of
ways this woman could have gone about it without, you know, LYING.
If she lost some rhetorical impact, well thats too bad. The truth
hurts.
End o' story.
|9.12.07 @ 2:02PM|#
"If she lost some rhetorical impact, well thats too
bad."
That's the point. Despite her dishonesty, her book did not lose its
impact or validity.
|9.13.07 @ 5:42AM|#
Er... yeah, it did.
People might ignore it if they like the message of the book and
consequently don't really mind a little fibbing.
But someone who doesn't like the message can point to the fact that
at sizable parts of the story are in fact lies designed to make
people feel bad, and ignore the rest of the message. Practical
stuff aside, can you really be so casual about nonfiction authors
who are actively LYING? This doesn't bother you? It's hard enough
to find a reasonably approximation of the truth through books
anyway, authors getting away with fraud and getting smiled at by
assholes who don't care about the truth makes it even harder.
Oh well, nobody is going to read this.
|9.19.07 @ 2:25AM|#
Genocide vs. Lies?
She was an uneducated activist who sided with the guerillas. It was
fantastic enough to get the world to look past the proganda (which
none of you have questioned) and to actually give a shit about
Guatemala and the thousands of people who were slaughtered.
She wasn't the first to write a book full of lies that inevitably
changed the world. The Bible?
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