Building the Road Home
VOLUME 25, NUMBER 4, SEPTEMBER 2003
 Vicenta speaking about her participation in organizing women's groups in exile and for return to Guatemala. |
Inter Pares staff, Rita Morbia and Alison Crosby, recently facilitated an exchange between Burmese and Guatemalan refugee women, recognizing that these women have experiences in common, and much to share with one another. The exchange began in Guatemala in September 2002, and continued in February 2003 in the northwestern regions of Thailand that border Burma. This Bulletin describes the journey the women undertook together.
"If it had not been for the suffering, I would not be here today. Instead, I would be in my house, looking after children, cooking, cleaning." A young indigenous Guatemalan woman was speaking to a circle of women from far-flung places, all on a journey of discovery. In our time together, first in the green mountains of Guatemala and later following the winding river that divides Thailand and Burma, we learned to talk with one another, despite language differences. We interpreted the language of pain that comes from the experience of women who dare to speak out about the impact of war, about the use of rape as a weapon of war, and about women's exclusion from negotiations to settle armed conflicts. We talked about women's experiences of war beyond the bullets, and their participation in building peaceful, just and inclusive futures. Changed by this shared journey, eight women became companions.
The Guatemalan women, Vicenta, Ana and Marķa, discussed their experiences of organizing during a decade in exile in Mexico, and what they learned during the difficult return process to Guatemala in the 1990s. Their Burmese companions, Zipporah, Mra Raza Linn and Si Si, spoke about four long decades of painful struggle for a free and democratic Burma, and of their desire to return home. Together, we identified possible steps along such a journey back to Burma, what conditions are necessary for a return to be safe and dignified, what paths need to be taken, who needs to give the directions. A constant thread woven into the discussions was that all must participate in building the road home, women, men, young people, ethnic groups. Histories of exclusion have to be transformed into inclusive futures.
In our travels in Thailand, we could often see across the border to Burma, almost touch it, yet it remained out of reach. Today Burma is as far away as ever for the hundreds of thousands of refugees who have crossed the border, seeking respite from decades of repression and violence. During these years, Burmese women have been marginalized and brutalized by the ruling military junta; yet at the same time, many of these refugee women have transformed themselves, stepping out of the ashes of destruction. They refuse to be silenced in a silent land. They organize, they speak. And together, Burmese women and their Guatemalan guests spoke about their lives, their struggles, their hopes.
In our discussions, each woman was valued as the author of her own history. She was listened to, she was respected, her experiences validated, her knowledge understood. For women whose lives have been constrained by militarism, by racism, by exclusion, this recognition was invaluable, and in some cases unprecedented. Sometimes people have to leave home and travel far, stepping out of their day-to-day lives, to be able to say the things they know to be true in their hearts, and to have these truths heard and acknowledged - uncomfortable truth, even dangerous truth, but truth nevertheless.
This Bulletin explores some aspects of this journey through Guatemala and Thailand, voices of courage and sounds of laughter, intense learning, and mutual understanding. Burmese and Guatemalan women were introduced to one another through their extraordinary histories of struggle and resilience. In naming the world together from their differing yet similar places, women were able to go back to their communities with new ideas and renewed courage, to continue their work for a just future, strengthened in the knowledge that others far away are doing the very same thing.
| Reviewed June 1, 2004 |  |
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