Mayan voter registration drive in Guatemala
While indigenous Mayans account for some 40% of Guatemala's population, they are largely left on the sidelines of the country's political affairs. But with presidential elections coming up this fall, there's a ray of hope that they may finally be getting more of a voice, with a voter registration drive specifically targeting four key Mayan languages:
A total of 35,000 announcements will be broadcast over 91 radio stations inviting indigenous Guatemalans to register to vote, as part of a drive to promote more participation in the upcoming September elections.
Supreme Electoral Court president Maria Eugenia Villagran said the broadcasts would be heard throughout Guatemala, but would focuse on regions where most the indigenous communities are located. These include de Totonicapan, Solola, Quiche, Alta Verapaz, Chimaltenango, Baja Verapaz and Huehuetenango. The campaign is aimed about providing information on all aspects of the elections in a dynamic way, Villagran said.
Augusto Tul Rax, president of the Maya Language Academy, said the step was positive, but that it should be expanded to include more the country's 22 languages, including Garifuna and Xinka.
The two leading candidates in the elections are Otto Perez Molina, a retired general, and Sandra Torres, the current first lady. I wrote about Torres back in March, when she announced she was divorcing her husband, President Alvaro Colom, in order to bypass a constitutional law prohibiting immediate family members from running for office. It remains to be seen whether courts will allow that move.
For his part, Perez Molina is soon heading to Washington in an apparent effort to enlist key support for his candidacy from US officials. He'll be met with protests as well, though, because of a rather questionable track record on human rights during his tenure as a general during the civil war. Current polls show Perez Molina with 37% of the vote, and Torres significantly behind at 21%. The indigenous population seems to slightly favor Torres.
Meanwhile, in a major setback for UN efforts to curb rampant corruption in the country, former president Alfonso Portillo was surprisingly acquitted on Tuesday of embezzlement charges. The UN commission expressed its disgust, saying the ruling “reflects the real state of justice in Guatemala.” Portillo may still face extradition to the US, where he's accused of laundering the tens of millions of dollars he's stolen through US banks.
The President’s immigration speech
Photo courtesy of The White House
Yesterday in El Paso, President Obama gave a speech on "building a 21st century immigration system." Although immigration reform is a divisive issue for some, seemingly everyone agrees that the status quo isn't working. So I'm glad that Obama is bringing the issue back into focus, and while there's not much indication this will happen, I sure hope it may signal a new beginning for constructive, healthy, bi-partisan debate that will lead to real results that work both for our immigrant families and for our country as a whole.
For thoughtful, Christian perspectives on the immigration debate, I'd recommend two books:
Welcoming the Stranger: Justice, Compassion and Truth in the Immigration Debate by Matthew Soerens and Jenny Hwang, both with World Relief, the humanitarian arm of the National Association of Evangelicals.
Christians at the Border: Immigration, the Church, and the Bible by M. Daniel Carroll R., a Guatemalan-American seminary professor and author.
Justice and the death of a terrorist (three perspectives)
Like so many across the country and all around the world, I watched Sunday night as President Obama announced that the United States had conducted an operation that resulted in the death of the most wanted man in the world. Osama bin Laden, after all these years and after all this terror, had been brought to justice. I watched my Twitter feed as the reactions began. Some cracked jokes. Some quoted Scripture. Others expressed relief or disbelief. I held my tongue, mostly, because while I could have found myself saying any of those things, I didn’t trust myself in the moment to know or to say what was good and right and true. I still don't, to be honest.
But I came across two opinion pieces in Christianity Today, which I think are thoughtful and worthwhile. Michael Horton from Westminster Seminary in California asks, what kind of justice has been done? I’d urge you to read the whole thing, but a couple of his more salient points:
Cultures are the most dangerous when they invoke holy texts for their defense of holy land through holy war. However, Christians have no biblical basis for doing this in the first place… As Paul reminds us in Romans 13, secular rulers are given the power of the temporal sword—finite justice—while the gospel conquers in the power of the Spirit through that Word "above all earthly pow'rs."
He continues:
[T]he divine wrath that rulers execute is temporal and finite rather than eternal and infinite. Such justice is never so pure that it is unmingled with injustice, never so final that it satisfies God's eternal law. In view of the image of God stamped on every person, justice must always be tempered by love.
In the second CT opinion piece, Gideon Strauss, the South African-born head of the Center for Public Justice writes that justice has indeed been done, but what’s less clear is how we ought to receive the news:
The question that does trouble me is how we as Christians should respond to the news of this death, especially those of us who are citizens or friends of the United States of America… Rejoicing in the death of another, however wicked, involves forgetting the depths of our own depravity and the astonishing reality of our own salvation… Our best next response, I believe, to the news of Osama bin Laden's death, after we have sought our own hearts for the wickedness that resides in all of us, and have thanked God for his amazing grace that has rescued us from our own evil, is to join President Obama on May 5, this year's National Day of Prayer, "in giving thanks for the many blessings we enjoy" and "in asking God for guidance, mercy, and protection for our nation." And perhaps we can add a prayer for our enemies, that God may win them to himself and in his own good time bring into the relations between this nation and those who now seek her destruction some foretaste of the just peace of his world to come.
Finally, my friend Jeremy pointed me to a reflection -- on a sports blog of all places -- and it's stunningly poignant. In a piece titled “The Arithmetic of Payback," Jeff MacGregor writes:
"Payback" is easy. Payback comes out of petty cash. Payback is an elbow when the ref isn't looking; payback is a pitch up and in; payback twists your arm and steps on your hand after the whistle. Payback is short-form accounting.
But "justice"?
Justice reckons the infinite. Justice counts the cost of the universal and settles all debts. Justice doesn't truck with revenge. Better than anyone, sports fans understand that justice, true justice, lies far beyond the reach of any one of us. It is thus never ours to deliver.
Each of these three, in their own way, I think, say it well.
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