Salon Newsreal | Rigoberta Menchú meets the press

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The trouble with Rudy
By Neal Pollack
Reaction to the killing of an African street vendor by police shows the growing protest power of the city's immigrant communities

Wake-up call
By Joel Dreyfuss
Police brutality has long been a problem for African-Americans, but it took immigrant blacks being brutalized for New Yorkers to take notice

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(02/11/99)
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(02/09/99)
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Rigoberta Menchú meets the press
_{THE NOBEL LAUREATE, ACCUSED OF MISREPRESENTING HER LIFE, TRIES TO SIMULTANEOUSLY ARGUE THAT SHE DIDN'T LIE AND THAT IF SHE DID, IT DOESN'T MATTER.}

BY JAMES PONIEWOZIK | In the 1983 book "I, Rigoberta Menchú," the eponymous author, a Mayan Quiché Indian and winner of the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize, speaks movingly of the bloody horror that befell her family over years of civil war in Guatemala. Moreover, Menchú states, "What has happened to me has happened to many other people too: My story is the story of all poor Guatemalans. My personal experience is the reality of a whole people."
A recent study suggests that the statement is more literal than it appears -- that in fact Menchú augmented her own story with that of the Indians of Guatemala generally, reporting experiences she either did not have or could not have witnessed and misrepresenting the violent history of her area of Guatemala to support her own cause as a Guatemalan guerrilla organizer.
Anthropologist David Stoll, who conducted some 120 interviews for his new book, "Rigoberta Menchú and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans," and Larry Rohter's subsequent New York Times investigation report that numerous Guatemalans say that the central land dispute in Menchú's story -- painted as an effort by wealthy landowners and the government to drive her father off his land -- was actually a long-running family feud; that Menchú, who claimed to be self-taught, in fact had a middle-school education; and that she described, movingly, witnessing the death by starvation of a brother who in fact died years before she was born.
In the ensuing controversy, conservative commentators like David Horowitz of Salon and Dinesh D'Souza dismissed Menchú as a fraud, while defenders, such as Greg Grandin and Francisco Goldman in the Nation charged that her story, if not always accurate, gets at the larger truth of the Mayans' repression by a brutal U.S.-backed government.
But Menchú herself had not directly responded to the charges since they broke late last year, except to cast doubt on the motives of her critics. (A statement from the Rigoberta Menchú Tum Foundation contended that Menchú's accusers want to restore a "paternalistic vision" and that Stoll's interviews are "of dubious seriousness," but the foundation did not address the "supposed inexactitudes.") Thursday, in New York to discuss a forthcoming United Nations Truth Commission report on Guatemala with Kofi Annan, Menchú held a press conference to address the questions.
The diminutive Menchú, dressed in colorful blue and yellow Guatemalan clothing and accompanied by several people from her foundation, faced a well-behaved group of 20 to 25 journalists, few of whom seemed inclined to press the Nobel laureate very hard. Good-humored and defiant, Menchú, speaking through an interpreter, charged that her critics had attacked her to strike at an indigenous people for daring to add "to the official story our own story." But her answers to specific questions were incomplete, puzzling or contradictory.
N E X T+P A G E+| What did she see and when did she see it?

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A L S O+T O D A Y The trouble with Rudy By Neal Pollack Reaction to the killing of an African street vendor by police shows the growing protest power of the city's immigrant communities Wake-up call By Joel Dreyfuss Police brutality has long been a problem for African-Americans, but it took immigrant blacks being brutalized for New Yorkers to take notice T A B L E+T A L K Tinky Winky is gay!? Share your reaction to today's news in the Headlines area of Table Talk ___________________ Want to learn more about Rigoberta Menchu? Click here to buy her books from barnesandnoble.com ___________________ R E C E N T L Y Clinton's dumbest education idea By Joan Walsh Ending "social promotion" won't cure what ails American schools (02/11/99) Scandal's silver lining By Art Levine Washington lobbyists profit from upheaval (02/10/99) Stalking Sidney Blumenthal By Joshua Micah Marshall Is it possible Christopher Hitchens and his "former friend" are both telling the truth? (02/09/99) The mysterious death of Tyisha Miller By Lori Leibovich Black leaders in Riverside, Calif., insist a police shooting victim would be alive if she were white. But would she? (02/08/99) The vanilla story By James Poniewozik Our long national bad date is almost over (02/05/99) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Newsreal Archives - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
		Rigoberta Menchú meets the press _{THE NOBEL LAUREATE, ACCUSED OF MISREPRESENTING HER LIFE, TRIES TO SIMULTANEOUSLY ARGUE THAT SHE DIDN'T LIE AND THAT IF SHE DID, IT DOESN'T MATTER.} BY JAMES PONIEWOZIK \| In the 1983 book "I, Rigoberta Menchú," the eponymous author, a Mayan Quiché Indian and winner of the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize, speaks movingly of the bloody horror that befell her family over years of civil war in Guatemala. Moreover, Menchú states, "What has happened to me has happened to many other people too: My story is the story of all poor Guatemalans. My personal experience is the reality of a whole people." A recent study suggests that the statement is more literal than it appears -- that in fact Menchú augmented her own story with that of the Indians of Guatemala generally, reporting experiences she either did not have or could not have witnessed and misrepresenting the violent history of her area of Guatemala to support her own cause as a Guatemalan guerrilla organizer. Anthropologist David Stoll, who conducted some 120 interviews for his new book, "Rigoberta Menchú and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans," and Larry Rohter's subsequent New York Times investigation report that numerous Guatemalans say that the central land dispute in Menchú's story -- painted as an effort by wealthy landowners and the government to drive her father off his land -- was actually a long-running family feud; that Menchú, who claimed to be self-taught, in fact had a middle-school education; and that she described, movingly, witnessing the death by starvation of a brother who in fact died years before she was born. In the ensuing controversy, conservative commentators like David Horowitz of Salon and Dinesh D'Souza dismissed Menchú as a fraud, while defenders, such as Greg Grandin and Francisco Goldman in the Nation charged that her story, if not always accurate, gets at the larger truth of the Mayans' repression by a brutal U.S.-backed government. But Menchú herself had not directly responded to the charges since they broke late last year, except to cast doubt on the motives of her critics. (A statement from the Rigoberta Menchú Tum Foundation contended that Menchú's accusers want to restore a "paternalistic vision" and that Stoll's interviews are "of dubious seriousness," but the foundation did not address the "supposed inexactitudes.") Thursday, in New York to discuss a forthcoming United Nations Truth Commission report on Guatemala with Kofi Annan, Menchú held a press conference to address the questions. The diminutive Menchú, dressed in colorful blue and yellow Guatemalan clothing and accompanied by several people from her foundation, faced a well-behaved group of 20 to 25 journalists, few of whom seemed inclined to press the Nobel laureate very hard. Good-humored and defiant, Menchú, speaking through an interpreter, charged that her critics had attacked her to strike at an indigenous people for daring to add "to the official story our own story." But her answers to specific questions were incomplete, puzzling or contradictory. N E X T+P A G E+\| What did she see and when did she see it? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Become a Salon member. Click here.