Clueless about Central America

I’m reading more investigative reporting from Central America, and I so so wish every nice, kind person who is wailing about toothbrushes in detention camps, cheering for dispensing with detention and agitating against a wall could read it.

One report I read is about gang rape in El Salvador. More often than not, the gang rapists are not adults. The adults are in jail or left (and often directing the rapes by phone). The rapists are usually boys. Ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen years old. Doing unimaginable atrocities for fun. Raping in groups of ten, fifteen, twenty. There are also girls, often very young girls, who encourage and facilitate the rapes.

El Salvador, which is not the most violent and gang-ridden country in Central America, has the population of 6,000,000. Do you know how many people are associated with the gangs as participants, aspirants, facilitators, family members and sympathizers? About 400,000.

There is another report about women gifting one of their children to a relative or acquaintance who needs a kid to cross the border.

And so on.

The journalists who wrote the reports are all local. Which is why the articles are all in Spanish. So no, I didn’t hear any of this on Fox News. Nobody at Fox News reads Spanish and is remotely aware of the scope of the problem.

People are well-meaning but spoiled and clueless. They chatter endlessly to make themselves feel noble and heroic. I just read a devastating report about a girl called Magaly who was gang-raped by 18 boys – not men, boys – from her school. And what’s really confusing is that the same people, it’s always the very same people, who are into affirmative consent, #MeToo and feminist Disney Princesses are unstoppable in the drive to import what happened to Magaly here. Because it makes them feel better, because they believe they will be immune. Because they have the kind of magical thinking that any two-year-old would envy.

Again, these are leading Central American journalists writing for readers in Central America in Spanish. This wasn’t invented by any of your favorite bugbears on the US right.

29 thoughts on “Clueless about Central America

  1. \ The rapists are usually boys. Ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen years old. Doing unimaginable atrocities for fun. Raping in groups of ten, fifteen, twenty. There are also girls, often very young girls, who encourage and facilitate the rapes.

    I wouldn’t have imagined sexual torture comes naturally to children who haven’t sexually awakened yet.

    Regarding the young girls “who encourage and facilitate the rapes,” how are the victims selected? Why are those encouraging girls not attacked themselves?

    I understand crime and poverty, but in the 90ies Donbass in Ukraine, I haven’t heard such stories. What is missing in your posts for ignorant like me readers is the cultural-historical context about the reasons behind such sexual violence and women’s position in general. Would be interesting to read a post on the topic.

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    1. Absolutely, we didn’t have anything like this in Ukraine. The Hispanic culture is a culture of extreme machismo. We can’t even comprehend it because our culture – with all its problems – hasn’t had anything like this in recorded history.

      Women are called bichas, meaning insects. They call themselves that. Hurting a woman is like squashing a bug, literally. It’s how most of the world lives. We are spoiled because we live and come from small oases where things are different so we can’t even begin to imagine this. And because of that ignorance we are pissing away our oasis.

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      1. Female gang members gain admittance to the gang by “pulling a train,” which means being raped simultaneously by all members of the gang. They agree because if you are going to be violated anyway, at least you can get something out of it, like being part of the gang.

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    2. About what comes naturally. As somebody very brilliant once said, “nature is death.” Death, violence, brutality and atrocity are natural. Long, comfortable lives free of violence and filled with respect for individual agency are extremely unnatural. Creating conditions for these very unnatural forms of life takes a lot of time and effort. Taking them apart, though, is easy because nature always triumphs with ease.

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  2. We do
    Have the responsibility to take care of those in American custody according to our laws. Sorry that concept doesnā€™t seem to be something you can understand.

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          1. We already have, with credible accusations of sexual assault against the children there.

            https://www.google.com/amp/s/beta.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/07/10/teen-migrants-allegations-sexual-assault-by-arizona-border-agent-sparks-federal-investigation/%3foutputType=amp

            A spokesman for CBP confirmed in a statement to The Washington Post that the complaint is under investigation, along with other claims of mistreatment and retaliation against children contained in the incident reports compiled by Department of Health and Human Services case managers and cited by NBC.

            Now, find someone to blame and call them animals. Thatā€™s your usual style, isnā€™t it?

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  3. Try linking to some of these reports if they are available online. Are they such that someone with a small foundation, a decent dictionary and grammar book and Google Translate could not decipher? I know you hate machine translation with a passion but news reports are written at different levels than primary sources or anything remotely literary.

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      1. To make it even easier that would be

        http://www.salanegra.elfaro.net/

        My Spanish is pretty dormant at the moment but the short blurbs seem easy enough (after acquiring some basic topic-sensitive vocabulary). Strong nerves look like they are called for though….

        I was confused at the beginning by a report that there are no maras in Berlin “Gott sei dank!” I was thinking until they mentioned that Berlin has 17,000 inhabitants and I realized it was a place in El Salvador…

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  4. Again, I will share it on my Facebook and I ask a former Salvadorian (whoā€™s the only colleague who did not betrayed me when I was in Economics) to read it.

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    1. I don’t like it either. In fact, I hate what’s going on in El Salvador. It really breaks my heart. But whether we talk about it or not, the tragedy of people like Magaly remains and is endlessly repeated.

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      1. Hereā€™s mainly what she said: (no judgment from my part, Iā€™m ignorant as fuck about this)

        ā€œ She is being opinionated about a topic that she doesn’t know about! Some things are factual others are just her opinion and/or perception . I am still better off here. That includes the living standard.ā€

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        1. Thing is, I’m not expressing opinions here. I’m retelling a book written by 5 famous Central American journalists who are currently in El Salvador. I obviously didn’t interview Magaly personally. Roberto Valencia did. Many times. I’m simply retelling the book for those who don’t speak Spanish.

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