The Colonial Gaze

Colonization was an epistemological conquest. The settle colonizers didn’t just occupy the land and wealth of the natives. They completely decimated any kind of identity they had- through mass murder and by making sure that any and every account of history was articulated through their point of view. Power is intrinsically linked to queries of representation- which form or representation has hegemony and which do not. Hence, there was few if any accounts written by the native people that were accessible to the general public and thus the colonial accounts became the dominant way of thinking. As the world progressed, and the colonial academia remained the leading medium for intellectual discourse, the assumptions of the western world about the eastern or “Oriental” world spread and the way of thinking morphed into the way of being. The non-divergent representation and nuance were what Obeyesekere was mostly concerned about in his book. He didn’t understand in the account presented to him, why it was believed that Captain Cook was celebrated as a God by the natives when he first arrived in Hawaii. Obeyesekere’s beef with the European accounts was that they aren’t as objective and rational driven as they claim to be- that they too are driven by a myth model. Hence, their objective observations about the inferior natives are actually as rational and objective as they claim it to be. Obeyesekere was in fact ahead of his time. Gradually, in the wake of postcolonialism, there has been an intended effort to give platforms to non-western authors and local witnesses. Rigoberta Menchu’s testimony is an example of such a text.

In Rigoberta Menchu’s biography, you see her take back the control of the narrative through her story. She uses language as a tool to reclaim her power. Well aware of her position in Guatemala, she decides to learn Spanish and communicate with all the priests and the nuns. It allowed her to communicate with a wide range of people and help protect and protest for her father’s freedom during his imprisonment by the “Ladino police”. She is also used it help spur people to take arms against their oppressors. Mostly though, Rigoberta used language to show her side of the story in the chaotic guerilla war between the Indians and the Latin Americans. In fact, she herself divulged, that she selected what she will disclose about herself and her people to Elizabeth Burgos Debray, the writer of the biography. The biography was a reaffirmation of everything that the “Ladino” tried to deny about her and her people. It was a reaffirmation of their complexities, of their sadness and anger, and hope and courage. It was a reaffirmation of their humanity. She used the biography to tell stories, not just about the war efforts but about her family. Rigoberta communicated about the difficulties of her parent’s life, her losses and hardships, the deaths of her brothers at the hand of poverty and the Guatemala army respectively but she also illustrated the good times, the love they all shared. She mentions how she and the army fought with stones and machetes and sticks and managed to still paralyze the economy. The testimony mentions her community and customs in great details. All in all, she paints a picture of a complex people- far removed from the one dimensional almost beastly picture that is painted from accounts of the Latin Americans.

Rigoberta Menchu’s biography has been criticised regarding the authenticity of her claims, such as her lack of formal education. She also herself claimed that she revealed selective parts of her life and considers this book, not a biography but a testimony of her people. However, criticisms asides, one can not deny the importance of this biography. the book does not exist to give a blow by blow account of the war between the two people but to give voice to the plight of her people.