I think that nonviolence is one way of saying that there are other ways to solve problems, not only through weapons and war. Nonviolence also means the recognition that the person on one side of the trench and the person on the other side of the trench are both human beings, with the same faculties. At some point they have to begin to understand one another.
Rigoberta MenchuI would get up in the morning and I would say, "How am I going to bother them today?"
Rigoberta Menchuunless a religion springs from within the people themselves, it is a weapon of the system.
Rigoberta MenchuThe human being is to be respected and defended, not protected like a bird or a river.
Rigoberta MenchuRacism in our countries is a fact in that the indian is not allowed to be a politician or aspire to being head of state. It has reached the point that 99% of the indigenous women have not gone to school. The indigenous are condemned to live in a situation designed to exterminate them. They receive a pittance of a salary, they neither speak nor write the language, politics dictates their situation. Is this slavery? I don't know what it's called. It is not the same as before because we are in modern times.
Rigoberta Menchu