Week 16 - Blood, Boobs, and Soccer Balls

A lot has happened in the last week. Unfortunately, much of it would be improper to write about on something as uncontrollable and public as the internet. Instead, I’m going to do something a little more anthropological than my most recent posts. Maybe it’s because I’m getting nostalgic for Carleton as it becomes almost a year since I left it, but I suddenly find it exciting to write something that would perhaps be a better fit as a term paper.

It occurred to me recently that there are only two major newspapers in Guatemala: Prensa Libre (Free Press), and Nuestro Diario (Our Diary). Of these, there is a startling division. The highly educated read the Prensa Libre, which is perhaps comparable to the New York Times: It’s large, the text is dense, and it talks about lofty issues, such as economic reform, world politics, and, about a month ago, the 50^th anniversary of the Peace Corps. The other, Nuestro Diario is far more popular in a country where less than 30% of the population complete 6^th grade. It’s comparable to a supermarket tabloid, and each issue is pretty formulaic: The first half is devoted to depicting in text and color photos the graphic murders, lynchings, and gang activities throughout the country. In the middle there is usually a full-page spread and Cosmo or Playboy-style interview of a scantily clad bikini model, and the final few pages are rounded out with in-depth coverage of the various Guatemalan soccer teams.

Some of you may remember that my senior thesis was done on the written texts of the Sephardic Jews. For those lucky few who made it through the whole thing, you might also remember me talking about the work of Benedict Anderson, a scholar who introduced a groundbreaking theory on the construction of nationalism that he called an Imagined Community. According to him, national identification is created through printed media, including national newspapers. I won’t get into the intricacies of the theory (you can read more about it here), but it would help if you’d agree with me on two issues: First, by reading a standardized text, it creates a sense of solidarity and common beliefs among the readers. Secondly, Nuestro Diario, with its huge market share and cemented position in the social imaginaire, is the de facto national newspaper of Guatemala. Even it's name implies this, since "Our Diary" explicitly suggests that its readers are somehow united in a manner beyond simple readership.

Please pretend that the previous two statements have been proven by a electrifying display of mental dexterity and the use of pretentious words like “hence,” “ergo,” and “vis-à-vis.” You are full convinced I should be the next keynote speaker at the American Anthropological Association’s annual conference. Thank you, I will be signing autographs in the lobby.

The reason I bring this up is that I saw the expected result of a pedestrian-vs.-camioneta crash on the highway as I was coming back from Panajachel this weekend. As the other Peace Corps Volunteers and I rubbernecked for a better view going past, one said with a shrug, “eh, it’ll be in Nuestro Diario tomorrow.”

My question is this: If Ben Anderson is right and national newspapers have the power to great a “deep, horizontal comradeship,” what does it mean if a community’s sense of identity is predicated upon blood, boobs, and soccer balls?

I guess I should probably have some theory that answers this conundrum if I’m going to present it, but the truth is that I’m not sure I do. I mean, there’s a lot of violence in Guatemala, a lot of treating women as objects to be harassed on the street, and a lot of soccer. Is it possible that Nuestro Diario is simply tapping into the three most crowd-pleasing topics in Guatemala? Almost certainly yes, but Anderson would perhaps suggest that the mirror of the newspaper to the reality of Guatemala is a self-reproducing cycle. That is, while the newspaper reports the daily news, it also in a certain sense makes it: Its lurid photos and stories make people more inclined to worship violence, sexualize women, and revere sports, perhaps even leading them to see it as ok to do those things.

I’m not arguing that reading Nuestro Diario turns people into zombies powerless to resist their single, driving impulse (though groaning “boooooooobs” does make it sound an awful lot like “braaaaaaaains”). Rather, I’m timidly suggesting that it inures the readers, over time, to the horrors of the first two. Soccer, for what it’s worth, deserves a rabid following.

Is there a solution? Should Nuestro Diario withdraw from the newspaper racket? Perhaps not, I just thought it was a rather odd union between what I had been exhaustively studying—or at least studying exhaustedly—during my final year of college and my life here. I’ve found myself trying to explain seemingly unexplainable oddities through the prism of culture more than I ever did at Carleton.

And while we’re on the topic of college, even though the veteran PCV’s still call my cohort “freshmen,” it won’t stop the next cohort from arriving tomorrow. Is it possible to feel like a newbie and old at the same time?

This week’s photos can be found at: https://picasaweb.google.com/sigrinj/Week16?authkey=Gv1sRgCPXas-HL_viJGA