Berkley Center

Background: In this April 2010 telephone and email exchange with Katherine Marshall, Wendy Tyndale recalls how she came to be engaged with the start-up of the World Faiths Development Dialogue in 1998 and reflects on the experiences, especially in Central America, that inspired her interest in issues for women’s roles in peace. Over her long career as a journalist and leader in Christian Aid, Tyndale was often and deeply exposed to conflict situations, especially in Central America. Mayans and especially Mayan women faced special hardships during the conflict, and the specific roles of some heroes and heroines within the Catholic Church stand out. Well-intentioned though somewhat marginal efforts to support women's empowerment were carried out by mostly foreign NGOs during and after the conflict. Although there were positive impacts, most noticeably in boosted confidence for women, these NGO projects had little effect on women’s overall economic status in Latin America. The project approach in Guatemala, for example, focused too heavily on small microfinance projects instead of addressing the structural problems of infrastructure and capacity issues the women faced. Religious and secular NGOs alike failed in most instances to find a common goal or vision, leading to disconnects in agendas and a pervasive lack of trust overall. Education and changes in traditions driving early marriage and constant child-bearing were and remain the major obstacles to women leading more meaningful lives within their communities. Tyndale also highlights critical roles that women, many inspired by theological reflection, played in the transformation and reunification of Germany after 1989.

You spent several years in Central America, during the period of intense conflict, and returned recently to spend two years in San Marcos, Guatemala, working with the Catholic diocese and especially Mayan women’s groups. Can you tell the story of your experience there and what insights it might offer for our exploration of women’s roles in conflict and peace?

I had never been to Central America until 1986, when I joined Christian Aid. I lived in Peru and in Chile for two years each, and was well acquainted with the Southern Cone. I was then asked to head the Latin America Department for Christian Aid, and did so for nine years. So I did a lot of visiting in the region, and would go for a few weeks at a time to the countryside. I found Central America to be very different from other parts of Latin America. The sharp separation between social classes was not unfamiliar but was accentuated in Guatemala by questions of race and there, too, the horrendous acts of violence committed by the army, which were equally a feature of the civil conflict in El Salvador, were mostly perpetrated in areas populated by Mayans.

I went to live in Central America for the first time in 1995 and stayed until just after the peace accords had been signed at the end of 1996. Christian Aid’s Latin America Department was rearranged at that time, and I went to help set up an office that would work jointly with ICCO, Holland, Bread for the World, Germany, and DanChurchAid. The office for DanChurchAid and mine (Christian Aid) were in Guatemala, and the others were in Costa Rica. The idea to have a joint office might have been a good one but it didn’t work out in practice. Among these organizations, DanChurchAid was probably the clearest on what it wanted to do. Women were very high up on their agenda which focused on peace and gender issues. What they did was varied. They supported some groups of women who were widowed in the war. If I remember rightly, they also supported a middle class feminist movement and they supported peace and reconciliation workshops. Some of these may well have been run by the Mennonites who made a significant contribution to peace education in Guatemala at the time.

Christian Aid was also working quite a lot on women. However, looking back I think sometimes our work veered towards being based on wishful thinking rather than reality. As I recall it, we were hoping that through small development projects such as supporting weaving skills, we would help women directly to make advances in their lives. To a certain extent, I think that this does work. We had a cow project with women, and at the end of it they all said, “Before, our eyes were closed, and now they’re opened.” They had learned how to handle money for the first time. They’d worked as a group of women outside their houses for the first time. They were entranced with the benefits of the cow’s manure for their maize. No mention was made of milk or cheese or anything else; it was the manure that was most important! But really, what was most important for them was the boost in their confidence. They realized that they were able to do things that they’d always been told they couldn’t do. So I do believe, on that level, that these tiny projects did make a qualitative difference to the lives of those who took part and also threw up a few women who afterwards played wider leadership roles. But, to be perfectly honest, their economic results were very modest and far less than we had hoped at the time. The evaluation of what the different programs for women accomplished were not very encouraging. The basic handicaps that women face—constant child-bearing and, even more, the huge gaps in education—kept them from getting ahead.

Was it largely groups from Europe, especially the Scandinavians, and Christian Aid that had this special focus on women during the Central America conflict?

It was foreign NGOs, I would say, that were focusing most on women, certainly not the governments. And it was certainly an effort whose impetus was from outside and it was focused in these groups: the Danes and Christian Aid. ICCO also focused on women, but it was much more on the level of technical development on agriculture and things like that.

During our recent consultation with faith-inspired organizations, we were struck that when we approached some women’s organizations, we hit a wall when we asked about religion. Was that your experience?

I would say exactly the same. Religion was very often a point of division among women coming from different groups. The middle class women wanted nothing to do with religion while for the poorer women, especially in Maya communities, it was absolutely central to their lives.

In Guatemala, there was a middle class movement led by women, perhaps even two or three, and they had a feminist agenda. But with the class tensions in Guatemala, they were miles away from the grassroots women. I found their goals very unrealistic. The women I knew, the women in the poorest communities, mostly in rural communities, felt quite fearful about their feminist compatriots, because they always saw that kind of feminism as breaking up the family. They were always suspicious.

How did you see women involved in the conflict itself? Were they participants? Or were they more victims of the conflict?

Women were victims. And the Mayan women were the main victims of the conflict. Just to highlight one point, all their families were killed. However, there are many women in Guatemala who, guided by their faith, have worked relentlessly for peace ever since the time of the internal conflict.

How did you see the practical role of churches during the period of acute conflict?

In the actual conflict, the Catholic Church was, as always in that region, very divided. On the whole, though, it was far more in solidarity with the victims than any Protestant church. This is partly because it is so much bigger.

To complicate matters, it was during this period that the Pentecostal churches were sent down from the United States to counteract the Catholic Church, which was considered to be too left wing. Since then, the Pentecostal churches have all become indigenous churches, but that was not the situation during the war. At that time, therefore, the Protestants were not seen as part of the revolutionary movement and thus engaged directly in the conflict in any way.

However, the Catholic Church was involved, at many levels and in many ways, up to the point that there were a lot of Catholics involved in one branch of the guerrilla movement. But the effects of the war were felt right across the Church, and loads of Catechists, priests, and nuns were killed, but mostly the Catechists. Many church people showed great courage, hiding and defending people, and they lost their lives. Sister Juana Maria was in the Quiché Diocese until the Diocese was actually closed down. It was closed down because the Bishop felt it was irresponsible because too many people were getting killed (I’d never heard of a Catholic diocese being closed before). Just before that happened, Sister Juana Maria was told she had to leave, and given just days to do so, because she was giving shelter to victims. The Catholic Church was definitely out there in a way that the others weren’t, especially around the Western Highlands.

Bishop Alvarro Ramazzini, who was in San Marcos at the end of the conflict, was interviewed just before the Peace Accord was signed. He was asked, “What’s the most important thing you’re going to do after the Peace Accord?” His response was, “Make up for all we’ve done to the Mayan spiritual tradition.” He was definitely there, and without a doubt would have been on the side of the oppressed.

What was the role of nuns during the conflict? Where did they come from?

There were many nuns working in the areas, and they came from several different orders. The nun I know best is a Guatemalan from a Guatemalan order, but Belgian in origin. There were also foreign nuns, Canadian and American, and other Guatemalan orders. They kept working through the conflict.

The nuns, I think, were the most heroic of the lot. Many of the priests played a very important role, too. Most of them were foreign priests, many of them Belgians. But the nuns were always very close to the people because they have no post of authority and they’re more invisible. Perhaps it is because they haven’t got that aura of a priest. I think that was definitely true in Chile as well.

One nun I know has dedicated her life to indigenous people, during the conflict and afterward. Juana María Mansilla Samuy (who I mentioned earlier) is one of the most courageous and committed people I have known. She is a Catholic, quite critical of the church’s attitude to women. She works with indigenous women and knows the situation of their lives and their culture intimately. She is thus not at all inclined to romanticism. She has spent at least 35 years working in Mayan communities. Her peace experience is focused mainly now on local land and water conflicts between people from different municipalities. She lives high up in the mountains in Ixchiguán.

Were the nuns a part of the peace process in any visible or formal way?

No, I think the church leaders were much more involved. There were Bishops involved. They wouldn’t have listened to the nuns, and I don’t remember any nun playing a very prominent role.

The World Faiths Development Dialogue, in its infancy, looked at some country cases and Guatemala was among them. The idea, coming from your inspiration, was to see how interfaith networks saw the implementation of the Peace Accords. This was in 1999 to 2001. What is your reflection on that?

WFDD's effort was interesting but in general a disappointment. The idea was to support an interfaith process in Guatemala, as a pilot, aimed at nudging forward some of the ideals and agreements of the Peace Accord. And we wanted to have women included in the process. That was very difficult, however, and the meetings themselves tended to be rather dominated by the older male leaders, in keeping with the tradition. As the group's focus turned to ethics and education, it was rare that women's issues or voices truly came into the conversation.

What did you find when you returned to Guatemala to live several years later?

I returned ten years later, from 2006 to 2007, to live in San Marcos. Obviously, it was different in that there was no guerilla warfare going on anywhere. The repression was far, far less, but common crime and assassinations and kidnappings had risen hugely.

There were still many problems and much violence—not so much in San Marcos, but in other places, especially in Guatemala City. From the point of view of social advancement, I didn’t see much that had happened. Even the measuring of the land in order to begin a land reform had still not been carried out. There was a lot of land whose ownership was unknown. That process had still not even started, even though it was part of the peace accords and was essential to lay the foundation for land reform. There has been some action to give land to the campesino, but it was only because with the sharp drop in coffee prices, the land owners lost interest in the land, not to mention that they were running out of money. That, or they were selling their land and speculating on housing and other areas. Still, to this day, there has been no progress towards the systematic land reform that is vital.

Other things had been introduced that marked progress, like bilingual education for primary schools, a big advance.

But the basic divisions and prejudices are still very strong. While there is more respect for indigenous culture, there still is little for indigenous people. A Mayan anthropologist I knew told this story: she was walking along a road one day, and somebody said, “Would you like to come and be my maid?” When I was living in Guatemala I had two Mayans over to visit. The owner of the house, who had many landholdings, said, “Have you got some Mayan servants in to help you pack?” It was completely incomprehensible. That behavior is going to take ages to change.

When you ask, “What is needed to enhance women’s roles?” I would see the education of young women as an absolutely top priority. Family planning would also be a priority, and acting to stop domestic violence. Many of the women are on their own now, but the ones who are unfortunate enough to have men living in the house have a dreadful time.

I knew couples who were not like that at all, where the man would not help in the house but could be perfectly nice. But there were many others with a different story. When I was working with the Campesino movement, there were women who would come to meetings and then got beaten up when they got home because their husbands had said they weren’t allowed out.

Did the Peace Accords include anything about gender roles that you recall?

I don’t remember. They may have something, but it certainly wasn’t a prominent piece of them. It was much more about the role of indigenous people.

Would you view the kind of oppression that you talk about within Mayan communities as traditional or something that got passed down in the colonial period?

They always say that the ancient Mayans had a view of the human condition as two wings of a bird: the man and the woman are the two wings, and unless they were both equal, the bird would be unbalanced as it flew. And the anthropologists, especially, would say that it was the Catholic Church that brought in gender discrimination. I don’t know. At present, all I can say is that prejudice is deeply, deeply embedded in the Mayan families I’ve known. But it certainly isn’t part of Mayan philosophy.

The hypothesis for this investigation is that women have probably played more important roles in peace processes and in post-conflict situations than the literature would suggest. That’s because it’s the men who are at the table. Often when women are an integral part of decision processes, the agenda reflects their concerns. Can you think of examples where this might apply, beyond the observations we have discussed?

As I think of women’s leadership and women’s roles, I think of people like Rigoberta Menchu. She has played a very important role without a doubt, but within Guatemala is viewed with an enormous amount of suspicion. The reason is partly because she has been so internationalized and removed from her roots. She’s undoubtedly an interesting woman.

How would you describe her religious links?

I would say they’re very tenuous. She probably has some linkages with Mayan spirituality, but I have never heard her saying anything on a religious level.

What about other situations you have encountered?

I have focused a lot on Germany over the years, and women and religion figured in Germany’s transformation in interesting ways. ‘Women for Peace’ [Frauen für den Frieden] was one of the first peace movements to be set up in East Germany. It arose out of a daring demonstration staged by 400 women in 1982 in protest against a new law that was to make it possible for women to be called up to the armed forces. It was headed up by the artist Bärbel Bohley who became one of the best known women leaders of the protest movement. From it, women’s groups arose all over the GDR and GDR-wide seminars were held regularly on the situation of women.

Although Bärbel Bohley, who always saw the church as a force for control rather than for the promotion of the peace movement, insisted on working (very boldly) outside church structures, Women for Peace had a strong Christian presence. The reflections on feminist theology carried out by many of its groups influenced theological thinking throughout the church protest movement. Women for Peace also sought protection and help and worked not only with the Protestant Church but also with the Catholics, since another of its leading members was Luise Kinzel, from the Catholic Action Group in Halle, one of the very rare Catholic protest groups in the GDR.

In the highest echelons of the Protestant Church’s hierarchy, there were no women (bishops or superintendents, etc.) but there were women pastors, often themselves married to pastors, and also lay pastors’ wives who played an important role at the level of the grassroots. An example of the latter is Almuth Falcke, who was married to one of the most prominent theologians in the GDR, Heino Falcke. Despite the whole family being constantly persecuted by the Stasi, she was a leading member of an organization in Erfurt called Women for Change.

In December 1989 she headed up the first ever occupation of a Stasi building in the GDR after smoke had been seen coming from the Stasi office’s chimney. While Almuth Falcke kept the colonel in charge of the Stasi in Erfurt talking, other women from the organization searched the building and found ovens in the cellar with the files to be burnt laid out on a long table. They then occupied the building for three months until the elections in March 1990, making sure that no documents were either burnt or smuggled out.

You undertook a long research project on religiously inspired movements, reflected in your book Visions of Development. What themes from that might be relevant for the women, religion, and peace initiative?

As you have noted, the work these groups do (and so many are led by women), is really about community building or empowering women except the one in Chapter 5 on Chile, written by Rosa Parissi. There she, and, for example, the school girl she mentions, were staunch members of the Base Christian Community that planted the seeds for a nationwide movement against torture.

Tell me what you’re working on now.

I finished a book called The Protestants in East Germany. It’s with the publisher but it’s virtually finished. Since the book, I’ve been in a state of enforced idleness which I rather enjoy!