A cry of agony.

The child's crying.

The heavy silence.

The comrades of the guerrillas watch successively, seven others who fight in the climax of an armed conflict, the genocide against the Maya in Guatemala. After Spanish colonialism, acculturation and ethnocide against indigenous peoples, a culture that is already taught as extinct, breathe proudly. Human rights do not apply to rebels ; the military government placed in power by the US during the Cold War does not even consider the Mayans as human beings, anyway. In 1981, this is the 27th year war between the forehead of the people, compound 15% of educated people and 85% campaigns rebels, mostly indigenous, against racist and capitalist authoritarianism.

Another deafening cillement, tinnitus.

The military tank having drawn is behind the cloud of dust in suspension.

The battle continues.

It is real.

All over, the fear, the blood, the bodies, fire, bombs, The balls, screams, pain, suffering, the comrades who fall, relatives who collapse, the family, the love of their life, a look that loses his life light, rape, the torture, the carnal envelopes stripped of their members, their dignity, any breach hole, massacre, open bellies, the head of a living parent was diving in the still warm viscera, concrete that erupts. "The gurgling blood resonate to the beat of my own heart beat. I'm in the guerrilla. My name is Maria. My husband has been missing for a few months now, but my subconscious knows that I would never see him again. My eyes burn, because dust, tears, some blood, shrapnel, no time to learn, I have to fight and in my head, one sentence, one idea ; the struggle for the people, the freedom struggle, for equality. A stronger idea that the horror of war, that requires me to advance again and again, past values ​​and understood through education and training that I received in the mountains, I am suffering, with the other comrades, because I believe in humanism, I love humanity. »

Maria is a woman who participated in the war against the Mayan genocide. Being herself Maya, its mission is to raise awareness of the hidden horrors in Guatemala. Despite his advanced age, it still militates in a group of awareness against sexual violence, cultivates a coffee ground with her second husband and acts as spokesperson with other people in his community to denounce the crimes against humanity committed between 1960 and 1996.

When one part of a militant middle, one is faced with ideas, values, methods that must include, then assimilate, advance or reject. What drives us to join, is mostly, I believe, because it is recognizable in the basic foundations of a group and we have a desire to have an impact on our world, or on the world. On the other hand, What drives us to stay ? At the left active, one of the first shock we are facing, is violence against us, both in terms of judgments in attitudes or the way we approach. Second choc, is violence against people who do not have our privileges strikes. As for me, even having made several interventions in situations of harassment against the oppressed people, I never could conceptualize violence in its entirety, even when the police hit me pleasure to make me suffer, had it not been for the testimony that I heard in Guatemala, all the more horrifying than the other, painting a gloomy picture straight out of Sade cellars ... Despite all this, my moment of the strongest shock was when I walked in the capital with comrades, one of the people pointed me an old building made of concrete bricks and said : "Look, These are impacts that date back to the war ", then, to see the dozens of bullet holes, which had targeted and killed or there 20 years, imagining all these stories in a flash.

It all goes back to the reasons to become and remain active in the militancy : the common point of all heard stories was about how to address violence, which was based on the acceptance of the situation and a desire, since then, to change, the cost of his security and his life. The love of humanity, solidarity and empathy of the people suffering were what the comrades clung to continue fighting, to get over the fear, cold, hunger, the agony. Gavino, a rebel community, said moreover, towards the end of my stay, it has lost the military organization, is that their struggle was based on hatred, which greatly undermined the solidarity between units, thus making them vulnerable. Finally, Gavino summoned me to fight, not by hatred, but philanthropy, communitarianism, desire for equality and understanding, and this is where the hippies are right, but also to never cease in favor of a personal emancipation, because the real danger and the fundamental point of our struggle is to educate and take actions before the situation escalates to the point where we are at a critical point, So to make the revolution and not the insurgency.

Emma Parsons