Ellen in Paraguay

Speaking of oppression. Paraguay’s history is full of it not just in a spiritual sense, but in regards to its politics. Did you know that Paraguay was victim to the second longest dictatorship in the world, and in fairly recent history too? General Alfredo Stroessner’s reign lasted 34 years from 1954 to 1989, outlasted only by the dictatorship of Kim Il Sung. Of course, to maintain such a rule it required a lot of interrogation, torture, and death. Apparently his favourite thing to do with his opposition was to fly them over the Chaco desert region and drop them out of a plane. And it’s not just Stroessner, the last 530 years since the founding of Asunción are connected together by a common thread of REALLY BAD LEADERS! It is said that Paraguayans are a rather reserved people. You don’t see a lot of public demonstrations or hear about protest groups, and according to the reader’s Digest that I stole, it is rare to see someone get angry in public. This characteristic calm is attributed to so many years under totalitarian/corrupt governments; the people don’t know how to be in a democracy, or they are so used to their voice not being important that they just don’t care anymore. Anyways, it’s been really good for me to learn a bit and discuss politics with people, and surprising. One college-educated girl told me she thinks Paraguay needs another dictator, because at least then there might be more jobs available! It appears to me that not very much is made in Paraguay with the exceptions of chipa, jewelry, some low-quality furniture and the like; the service industry dominates, and people do and sell all kinds of useless things. (On a brighter note, everyone I know likes their job. I honestly can say I have not met one person who complained about his or her work.) The book I read painted a very grim portrait of Stroessner so I asked Ben’s wife Vivi if she could tell me any good he did. The best answer she could come up with is that he made a lot of roads. Anyways, the general was killed by his one of his right-hand men, who also happened to be his daughter-in-law’s father, and one author writes about the time since then: “Now the children were learning the national anthem in school, “Paraguayos República o Muerte” (“Paraguayans, Republic or Death”), but what they were being offered was not a choice but an epitaph” (John Gimlette, At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig).
Ben let me borrow this book, and also it was his birthday on Saturday. Feliz Cumpleaños Ben.