Ama la vida

Last Friday the Judicial Body of Guatemala launched a campaign against lynchings. Good luck with that.

As I have mentioned before, lynchings are rather common in Guatemala. Frustrated with and distrusting of an ineffectual legal system, people administer their own justice: Mayan Justice.

Case in point: A couple of months ago a tienda owner and employee in town were kidnapped and subsequently dismembered. For nearly a month, people were finding body parts— a hand, lungs, a leg, entrails, an arm, a head—washed up on the banks of the river that runs through town.

Townspeople from a nearby aldea of Tactic captured three men they claimed were responsible for the murders. The men were stripped down to their underwear and marched over a mile into Tactic, all the while being beaten with iron poles. The crowd grew to nearly 2000 people as the men were paraded all over town before being brought to the center park. The lynch mob was set to burn the men to death, but the police “rescued” them first and took them to the hospital and later prison.

And sadly this isn’t an anomaly in Guatemala. Usually at least once a week there is a report of a lynching in the news, and typically only the successful ones make the papers.

So a campaign against lynchings is definitely warranted, but only time will tell if this one is successful. The Judicial Body has chosen, “Ama la vida. No seas parte de un linchamiento,” (“Love life. Don’t be a part of a lynching.”) as the tag line for the campaign. I think I could do better.

Guatemala is a very religious society. I have never met anyone who has claimed to hold any religious beliefs other than Christianity, and upon meeting people I am routinely asked, “Are you Catholic or Evangelical?” as if any other beliefs are nonexistent. A supreme insult to use against someone who has ripped you off is, “No eres cristiano,” (“You are not a Christian.”) or simply the ominous, “Dios sabe.” (“God knows.”)

In light of this, if I were a part of the Judicial Body of Guatemala I would have gone with a religious don’t lynch people slogan. John 8:7 would be perfect. “El que de ustedes esté sin pecado, que le arroje la primera piedra. No seas parte de un linchamiento.” (“Let him who is without sin cast the first stone”) Or the previously mentioned “Dios sabe. No seas parte de un linchamiento,” I think would also serve well.

But I am afraid that no campaign against lynchings will be highly effective since it is a treatment of the symptom and not the disease. Until Guatemala has a functioning judicial system, people will continue to take justice in their own hands, regardless of my proposed catchy slogans.