Revolución

Well hello, faithful readers! Welcome back. It's been a while, I know, but better late than never, right? So here's a quick run-down of what's been going on with me and then on to a history lesson. I know you are all dying to learn more about the history of Guatemala, so I though I would oblige.

As for how my life has fared since the last post, here's the whirlwind tour. I finished up in Rio mid July and spent a few weeks back in South Bend. Early August consisted of a fantastic visit out east to the wedding of some of my favorite people and a horrifying cross-country drive that included flash floods and a two hour tour of about 500 yds of pavement just outside the border crossing into Canada at Niagra Falls. Let's just say that while I have nothing particular against Canada, I was not feeling very sympathetic towards maple leaves or hockey players during that trip. After this happy jaunt I took a plane to Oregon and spent two lovely weeks with my Poekoelan teammates. I spent the next six weeks or so around and about, sometimes in South Bend, sometimes in Nashville. Somewhere in there I went to a U2 concert in Chicago, drove down to Nashville, made it to another U2 concert, this time in Atlanta (which was incredible, by the way), and drove back up to South Bend only to hop on a plane to New York. I spent about a week in NYC with my fabulous Poekoelan family there and then ended up in Guatemala City. Now I'm sitting in a cafe in Antigua, listening to Manu Chau on the stereo here and enjoying the mix of English, Spanish and French spoken by the patrons and staff.

Last week was the 65th anniversary of the October Revolution here in Guatemala. So I thought I would include a little bit about a revolution that until last week I knew very little about. From 1871 until 1944, Guatemala had been ruled by a series of dictators, the most notorious of which was General Jorge Ubico. He ruled from 1931 to 1944 and was once described by a the Sandinista Tomás Borge as "crazier than a half dozen opium smoking frogs" (see the wikipedia article on Ubico for this quote...ah, wikipedia, friend to those who want a quick overview). Though obstensibly an elected official, Ubico was an authoritarian dictator who sought changes in the constitution to allow him to be reelected to the presidency indefinitely (hmm, so this isn't that new, is it?). Into this context comes the October Revolutionaries, a group of students, professionals and military officers. After a wave of strikes and demonstrations by students, teachers and workers and the murder of a teacher by Army officers during a demonstration, Ubico surrendered power to his generals and stepped aside in July of 1944. The following struggles allowed to younger officers to finalize a coup against Ubico and his generals on the 20th of Octoboer, and after this coup the officers, Jacobo Arbenz and Fancisco Javier Arana, called for a general election. The period that followed is often referred to as "10 years of Spring." These years of spring, however, didn't last in part due to the power and influence of the United Fruit company, the US State Department and others who opposed the extensive land reforms carried out during this period. Funny how politics in Central America still follow a similar pattern. The actors change, sometimes even the roles reverse, but leaders are still trying to change constitutional restrictions on reelection and coup d'etats still abound (despite predictions to the contrary in come circles). Journalists and commentators here bemoan the loss of the ideals that inspired the October Revolution and despair in the face of corruption and apathy and violence. It's hard to guess in what direction the country may be headed in the future.