Poshdeluxe

December 22, 1997. People wrap up their Christmas shopping and soak up the holiday glow. In Mexico, a paramilitary death squad armed with machine guns and machetes slaughters forty-five defenseless Mayan Indians, mostly women and children, as they pray for peace in a makeshift chapel near their refugee camp in the village of Acteal, Chiapas.

They had said, “We are prepared to die for this cause, but not to kill.” And when their time came to demonstrate this, they did. On the day of their burial, as we bit our tongues to hold back our rage, a woman commented to me in a low voice, “What cowards the assassins! Why did they choose this weak and defenseless group to kill?”

I did not respond, but I kept thinking about this. Today I think I understand a little better. They are by no means a weak and defenseless group, though they may have been seen that way by their attackers. A group like this, armed only with love and truth, is the most dangerous and threatening to defenders of the status quo, because it more effectively unmasks their injustice.

~Oscar Salinas