Pathologies of Power Ch3

Reading Response 09/04/14

What struck me most in Chapter 3 of Pathologies of Power and also in When the Mountains Tremble is the emphasis put on the importance of education and its denial to so many communities within Guatemala and Mexico. In rich Western society, education is such a given that I rarely question it. Of course I appreciate the luxury of going to school, but it is not something that I thank my lucky stars for daily. As a result of the reading I was made to realise how great the disparity between western society and third world countries really is. “We have been denied the most elemental education so that others can use us as cannon fodder” (93).

In the film we watched for today we see a young Guatemalan boy working with the army to suppress the Guatemalan peoples from fighting back against their oppression. When he is asked why he is doing it he replies that he doesn’t know, and after a moment of hesitation, that he is doing his duty. By depriving people of education, oppressive regimes are better able to acquire armies of people who will willingly facilitate their own suffering, people who will accept that their future is as “cannon fodder” because they cannot foresee another way to live.