My impressions of El Salvador after one week

08.02.08

I want to give my impressions of El Salvador after one week. El Salvador is a complicated place. On one hand, repression still exists, and it is literally dangerous to be a leftist organizer or member of a leftist organization here. Yet on the other hand, many people are on the left (my impression is that most people in El Salvador are), and one of the two main political parties is the former armed revolutionary group, the FMLN, which seems to at this point have more popular support than the party which is currently in power, ARENA.

There are extremes of poverty and wealth, as there always have been, and the war doesn’t seem to have achieved much in terms of getting the things that the people took up arms for, such as an end to unequal distribution of land and wealth, an end to crushing poverty, access to education and health care for all, freedom of speech and a truly democratic political process.

The current government issues a lot of propaganda that presents El Salvador as a beautiful, prosperous place, which is experiencing economic and social progress; a place in which everyone can achieve their dreams and live a comfortable life. The people I have talked with here say that people who are uneducated and ignorant believe the propaganda, because they don’t know any better, and (I think), because it is comforting to believe in the idea that you can have a better life without doing much to get it yourself ... it is a nice idea that the government will simply take care of you ... it gives one hope, without having to work to understand the situation or to have to work for change. This kind of thinking is prevalent in many countries, including the United States.

There is a culture of paranoia and terror that is always present in El Salvador, on the sides of both the government and the people. The government is afraid that the people will rise up and rebel and the people are afraid that the government will repress them brutally as it had done so many times before (and continues to do). This is a result of a history of repression of the poor by the wealthy and a tradition of resistance, organizing and uprising from the poor.

As I mentioned above, the civil war doesn’t seem to have achieved the changes the people in the FMLN fought for, and which the leaders of the peaceful resistance movements (such as union leaders, etc.) struggled for. There is still an enormous amount of poverty and grossly unequal distribution of wealth. Many people do not have access to basic resources such as health care and education, and the current government is not addressing these problems. Thankfully, the FMLN political party has the majority of popular support at this moment, and presidential elections are coming up in March 2009.

Yesterday, one of our teachers thought aloud ominously, saying, “Well, the same issues still aren’t resolved in our country ... and these things seem to go in cycles here. In 1932 there was an uprising. And then again 30 years later, in the 1960s, things started boiling up again, and now it’s almost 30 years later and the FMLN have a lot of popular support ... well, no, since the Peace Accords of 1992, it’s been almost 17 years ... well, we will see what happens in another 13 years ... the same issues are still unresolved ...” I imagine that there are probably a lot of people in El Salvador who feel as our teacher does. Her internal dialogue expressed the impression that I get of El Salvador’s history: That this country has a history of popular uprisings motivated by the same issues, and an equal history of repression. It does feel cyclical ... and that is a phenomenon that is reflective of the refusal of the people of this country to stop demanding what they need to have a dignified life, and also reflective of the continuing refusal of the people who have power in this country to recognize or respond to the needs and basic rights of the people.

Therefore, a culture of paranoia and an undercurrent of terror still exist ... a paranoia on both sides that an open conflict could start at any time. The paranoia on the side of those in power manifests itself in extreme (and often clandestine) repression of the people whenever the instruments of the left (unions, education, their political parties) grow stronger with popular support. Therefore, the musings of our teacher make a lot of sense, because the political party of the left (the former revolutionary party) the FMLN, is strong right now, and a presidential election is approaching. Ella tiene razon. She has reason (to think those thoughts).