Introduction

Abstract

Remembering the indigenous peasant mentioned in the preface, we also recall that he was talking to an official of the Guatemalan army. Such a situation is by no means an inter-subjective face-to-face encounter between “alter” and “ego” that develops its specific dynamics exclusively from itself. Instead, the peasant is a member of a Pentecostal church and not of a resistant Catholic base community. Moreover, the officer is a quite high-ranking member of an army widely known for its cruel massacres of civilians, “disappearances” of people, and a strong determination to extinguish any mobilization against the interests of the upper classes. Both peasant and officer are “not alone,” so to say. Both are doubly restrained by circumstances largely beyond their control.