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Rick Steves' Travel as a Political Act Blog

A traveler's focus evolves from budget tricks to art and culture to gaining a global perspective. With this year-long, three-times-a-week blog, I share how I've grown politically through my travels. These entries come from the fascinating challenge of writing my new book, Travel as a Political Act. For related articles, audio and video clips, and a thriving message board, see ricksteves.com/politicalact.

El Salvador's beloved Archbishop Oscar Romero was gunned down while saying Mass in 1980. And during that time of repression, many nuns and religious laywomen were also murdered. Their spirit, like Romero's, clearly lives on in the feisty women of the church so outspoken in El Salvador today. The nuns I met through my educational tour had a passionate message and lots of quotable quotes:

"The soldiers have faded into the background. They're not shooting people any more. The new martyrs are poor children dying in the face of indifference from people who don't care and whose wealth is harvested from the suffering of others. Excluding and dehumanizing the poor is a kind of terrorism."

"Latin America has one of the biggest gaps between the rich and poor. As the gap grows, it's a kind of war. Hunger is violence. There can be no peace when there is still hunger."

"The push of globalization here has taught us that as humanity learns to worship the god of productivity, a civilization of hopelessness is being created. In traditional rural societies — like in America during the age of small family farms — a social fabric protected the poor. Agri-business has sent the rural poor into the cities in search of better jobs. Today's urban poor are isolated, alone, without community. In San Salvador today, we see many finding answers through escapism — escapism through drugs or through religious fundamentalism."

"'Forgive and forget' is the mantra of the privileged class in El Salvador. The unprivileged can forgive, but they do not want to forget. We need to become 'professors of never again' in our society."

"The US-supported government would prefer to just forget Romero and all he stood for. It controls the media. It writes the text books. On the 10th anniversary of Romero's death, not a word was seen in the newspapers. On the 20th anniversary, Cardinal Mahoney of the US came to the memorial Mass with 40,000 people attending. That was covered modestly in the papers. This year, on the 25th anniversary, the local papers are devoting many pages to the biggest rallies and marches yet. Romero vive!"

"With the spirit of Romero so alive, El Salvador is becoming the school for the globalization of solidarity. As we globalize economics, we need to globalize love and compassion. At the end of our lives, the question will be, 'How much have you loved?'”

"Suffering and sadness are not synonymous. Salvadorans laugh as hard as they cry. They love to say, 'If God wills, tomorrow will be better.' Here in El Salvador we believe that, on the day you meet your maker, you will be met by an angel to wipe away your tears. Woe to you who arrive with dry eyes."

Priests and nuns are routinely excommunicated in Central America for their political activism. While technically booted from their Church, they continue their work without missing a beat, believing, as one priest told me, “Part of our vow of obedience to the Church is disobedience to the Church.”

Posted by Rick Steves on November 06, 2009
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The reason for my 2005 visit to El Salvador was to remember Archbishop Oscar Romero on the 25th anniversary of his assassination. Marching with thousands of his followers through the streets of San Salvador, it was clear to me…just as Romero prophesized, they killed him yet he lives through his people.

I'll never forget the parade that day. Everyone in our group crayoned Romero Vive ("Romero lives") on our white T-shirts. We piled into the repainted but obviously recycled circa 1960s American school bus (the standard public transport in Central America today), drove as close as we could, and then spilled into the streets. Joining masses of Salvadorans, we funneled through their capital city and to the cathedral, which held the body of their national hero. Entrepreneurs sold bananas from woven bins and drinks in clear plastic bags pierced by paper straws. Parents packed along children born long after Romero's day. Prune-faced old ladies who couldn't handle the long march filled the backs of beat-up pickup trucks adding so rolling “granny floats” to the parade of people. Banks, Western Union offices, strip malls, and fast-food joints seemed to stand still and observe as the marchers shut down the city. Soldiers looking on appeared humbled by the crowd.

Just being there put me in solidarity with a powerful and surging people's spirit. Being a head taller than anyone else and clearly a norteamericano, I had lots of friends. Judging from the smiles I encountered, my presence was appreciated.

The parade culminated at the cathedral where, in his last sermon there, Romero had directed his words to the soldiers: “You are brothers of the poor. These are your people. More important than any order from your commanders is God's order: Thou shalt not kill. I beg you. I implore you. In the name of God, I command you. Stop the killing.” The next week, while leading a Mass, Romero was shot dead.

The symbolic resurrection of Romero in his people is depicted in colorful murals showing the people of El Salvador rising like tall stocks of corn with big smiles and bullet wounds in their hands. In Latin America, crosses are decorated with peasants and symbols of their lives — healthy stocks of corn. While this is a land of martyrs, it's also a fertile land of resurrection.

Oscar Romero is not yet a saint. While the Vatican sends mixed signals, the local Catholic hierarchy is gradually trying to sanitizing his image to be less offensive to the rich. But priests, nuns, and people throughout Central America are not waiting. For them, Oscar Romero is already "San Romero."

Posted by Rick Steves on November 04, 2009
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Every empire in history has been plagued by angry forces on its fringes that refused to play by the rules. Romans were pestered and ultimately defeated by barbarians. The British dealt with and lost to colonial American guerilla patriots. The Habsburgs were plagued by what they derided as “anarchists”...and were eventually defeated. And today, if you're hugely outgunned — as all enemies of America are — you get creative. You shoot from the bushes like we did when we fought the Redcoats. Sure, we might like our enemies to follow our rules…to line up in formation so we can carpet-bomb them. But our enemies know that if someone decides to fight the US, they have two choices; be dead, or be “a terrorist.”

In our generation, America risks going broke and selling its soul to fight its “War on Terror.” The problem is that there's always been terrorism and there always will be terrorism. It's a technique, not an enemy. And because the targeted “enemy” is a technique, you can fight a “War on Terror”...but you cannot win it.

On a recent visit to Washington, DC, I heard lawmakers using the terms "hard power" and "soft power." Hard power assumes that military might is the best way to get what you want. Soft power respects the influence of something less tangible: goodwill. Winning the "hearts and minds" of our would-be enemies, and improving the so-called "Brand of America," makes it harder for foreign terrorists or bombastic leaders to mobilize people against us. Imagine a US president presenting himself in a way that makes it impossible for the leader of a country we're at odds with to demonize the American president in order to stay in power. Imagine using our military to build bridges and highways instead of blowing them up. It'd be better for the innocent people who live in those places (not to mention better for our troops). While this might seem a little too "touchy-feely" for our militaristic society, it's less expensive — and certainly less destructive — than hard power.

If we can soften the way we wield our power, we might find some solutions that work better for us...and for the rest of the planet. Is this naive? Maybe. But as we've seen, it's clear the opposite approach has its flaws.

Even when people around the world are frustrated by our policies, they're still inspired by the ideals of America. And, after nearly four decades of travels through political ups and downs — even when I talk with Salvadorans whose families were torn apart by US-funded soldiers — it's clear to me that people across the world want to like Americans. My travels have taught me that we have friends everywhere ready to put the past behind them and to once again be inspired by both our ideals and our leadership.

Posted by Rick Steves on November 02, 2009
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In my travels — whether to El Salvador, Europe, or Iran — I find that many people outside our borders think of the US as an "empire." But anytime I mention this back home, I get a feisty response. (Don't shoot me. I'm just the jester.)

Americans hate thinking of themselves as an empire. After all, weren't we fighting an "empire" in our Revolutionary War? And wasn't it an "empire" that crucified Jesus and persecuted his followers? The USA — that bastion of freedom and democracy — might not literally claim other countries as part of our own territory. But only we can declare someone else's natural resources on the far side of our planet “vital to our national security” (but in reality, are vital only to our accustomed material lifestyle).

You could debate long and hard about whether the US is an "empire." But actually, what you and I think is irrelevant. The fact is, much of the world views us that way, and therefore they — especially our enemies — will treat us as an empire.

Why are we perceived as an empire by so many people? For starters, look at our United Nations voting record: According to the UN website, in 2007, the US voted “no” more than any other nation. In 40 percent of those "no" votes, we were outvoted by at least 150 to 4. Who stands with us as we oppose issues such as creating a declaration of rights for indigenous peoples, the human right to food, child labor laws, dropping the embargo against Cuba, and restricting illicit small arms trade? Israel, Marshall Islands, and Micronesia. Even if you write off the United Nations as a group of one-world-fixated loonies, many other countries take it seriously...and our dismissal of it speak volumes about our willingness to engage in peaceful and constructive problem-solving.

When others look at us, rather than see a hardworking policeman of the world defending freedom wherever we can, they see a nation with military bases in 130 countries. They see a nation with 4 percent of this planet's people spending as much as everybody else put together on our military.

Many Americans consider the emblems of the Bush years — Iraq War, Guantánamo, the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, world isolation, domestic surveillance, loss of civil liberties, and so on — a reasonable price to pay because we avoided another terrorist attack. Much of the rest of the world saw these as an overreaction to a tragic situation. The wave of sympathy that poured into America after 9/11 could have lifted the whole world to an unprecedented new unity. Instead, our leaders manipulated our national grief to justify acts that have alienated us from many of our allies and swollen the ranks of our enemies.

Some might brush off questionable American policies by saying, "Well, that was just our government." We are our government. We cannot rest on the notion of the "innocent civilian." Morally, when it comes to a free and powerful nation like ours, I believe there are no innocent civilians. If I pay taxes, I am a combatant. Every bullet that flies and every bomb that drops has my name on it. It could be a good bomb or a good bullet. Sometimes military action is necessary. But right or wrong, I take moral responsibility for it. That's simply honest, responsible citizenship.

Posted by Rick Steves on October 30, 2009
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Today in El Salvador, the FMLN — formerly a guerrilla liberation movement — is a legitimate political force. In fact, they made huge strides in the 2009 elections. Rather than the more sinister black and red of its guerilla rebellion days, FMLN propaganda comes in a cheerier white and red. And yet, even as they gradually take over the government, I'm struck by the queasy sensation that they're welcome only as long as they don't get too powerful. Democracy in countries that function as the quarries of capitalism reminds me of a bonsai tree: You keep it in the window for others to see, and when it grows too big, you cut it back.

If Salvadoran voters embrace the FMLN, then who does the cutting? It's still the USA. Much as US corporations exert an undue influence over Latin American business, the US government continues to exert its authority over "democracies" south of our border. For example, in El Salvador's 2004 presidential elections, the left-wing FMLN candidate seemed poised to win. The US sent an envoy, Jeb Bush, to El Salvador to feed the rumor that if the FMLN won, the US would expel the two million Salvadorans living in America. The loss of money from these Salvadoran expats sent to their starving relatives back home would be devastating. A TV ad showed a woman opening an envelope from the US and reading a letter from her son: “Sorry, mom, if the FMLN wins, this will be the last money I can send from the USA.” A week later, the right wing and US-friendly ARENA party won big.

You can argue whether American meddling in Latin American politics is justified. Either way, it makes me uncomfortable to think that a nation founded on the principles of liberty and democracy wields such a strong influence south of the border. In recent decades, throughout the developing world, the US has made it clear that if the left-wing candidates win, “relations will suffer.”

I asked Father Jon Sobrino (a leading Jesuit priest and scholar at the University of Central America) about America's influence on Salvadoran politics. He said, “These days, when I hear the word 'democracy,' my bowels move.”

Posted by Rick Steves on October 28, 2009
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There's a popular saying in the poor world: Feed the hungry and you're a saint. Ask why they are hungry and you are a communist. In the 1970s, Central American priests started asking why. These Liberation Theologians threatened the powerful…and were killed.

When Oscar Romero was made archbishop in 1977, wealthy Salvadorans breathed a sigh of relief. If his reputation as a fairly conservative priest was any indication of how he would run the Church here, they believed the right wing had nothing to fear. But the growing violence against the poor and the repeated killing of church leaders who grappled with economic injustice drove Romero to speak out. Eventually this mild-mannered priest became the charismatic spokesperson of his people.

As a Liberation Theologian, Romero invited his followers to see Christmas as the story of a poor, homeless mother with a hungry baby. Romero taught that the lessons and inspiration offered by the Bible were tools for the faithful as they dealt with the struggles of their day-to-day lives.

Because Archbishop Oscar Romero asked why, he was gunned down in 1980 while saying Mass. Then, dozens of worshippers were murdered at his funeral.

After the killing of Romero, the poor — emboldened by their Liberation Theology — rebelled, plunging El Salvador into their long and bloody Civil War. The united guerilla front (FMLN) expected a quick win, but the US under Ronald Reagan spent $1.5 million a day to keep that from happening. With the success of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua in July 1979, Reagan was determined to stop the spread of what he considered to a communist threat.

Salvadoran forces assumed, because the guerillas were maintaining their strength, that innocent civilians in territory leftist forces controlled were no longer innocent. Civilian women and children were considered combatants — fair game — in order for the popular revolt to become less popular. As if draining the sea to kill the fish, right-wing forces targeted and terrorized civilians with a brutal vengeance. Notorious "death squads" wrought havoc on El Salvador's poor. Today this policy, considered an option for quelling insurgencies around the world, is known as the “Salvador Option.”

While the FMLN could have fought on, the toll on their country was too great. In 1984, negotiations began that finally led to a 1992 peace accord. The negotiated settlement ending the Civil War meant the guerilla forces would trade in their guns for a spot in the government. Suddenly, the guerillas shaved, washed, and found themselves members of parliament representing a now-peaceful FMLN party.

Posted by Rick Steves on October 26, 2009
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The 1980s was the golden age of Liberation Theology in Latin America (explained in my previous blog entry). But, while it gave hope to millions of previously hopeless people, the movement also had many critics. Mingling religious authority with social, political, and even military power, Liberation Theology could lead to armed revolution. And it had a potentially corrupting influence on local charismatic priests, who created a cult of personality to empower themselves and their followers. Still, lacking an equally uplifting alternative, many people saw Liberation Theology as the only viable option for people dissatisfied with what they consider a social and economic structure that keeps them poor.

In the 1990s, after the peace accords ended the Civil War, this revolutionary movement morphed into a political party (FMLN), and the Christian Base Communities slowly lost their vibrancy. Today, Liberation Theology seems dormant as a political force. The progressive side of the Catholic Church has been tamed.

Instead, there's been a resurgence of "escape theology" — the apolitical yin to Liberation Theology's yang — in the form of fundamentalism. North American televangelists supplement this empire-friendly approach to Christianity by inspiring their followers to send money so the downtrodden south of our border can be taught to “just say no” when it comes to the political struggle for dignity. The charismatic, US-friendly Pentecostal faith — with an emphasis on building a personal relationship with Christ, rather than dealing with the root causes of economic injustice — is also booming. This “suffer now, enjoy later” theology keeps the opiate in religion. These days, in El Salvador, politics are taboo in many churches. When it comes to economic injustice, don't ask why.

Traveling — whether in Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist lands — you see how religion injects passion into local politics. Lessons learned on the road tend to give me both empathy for people's struggles and a respect for the importance of separation of religion and state. Just as I oppose prayer in school in the US, I don't like it when a Muslim society becomes a theocracy and legislates morality according to Quranic values. Yet when a politicized Church (such as the one that stood by the revolutionaries of Central America in the 1980s) fights for economic justice, I find myself rooting for the politicization of religion. My heart makes my politics inconsistent.

Posted by Rick Steves on October 23, 2009
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If economic elites use religion as the "opiate of the masses," Latin America's Liberation Theology movement is the opposite. Liberation Theology is a politicized view of Christianity popular among the world's poor and those trying to inspire the poor to fight for economic justice. Liberation theologians preach that every person is created in God's image, and God intended them to have dignity. They say economic injustice and structural poverty is an affront to God, and it is right for the downtrodden to mobilize and fight for their God-given rights now rather than docilely wait for heavenly rewards.

Liberation Theology has easy-to-trace roots. In 1959, the success of the Cuban Revolution inspired revolutionary movements throughout Central America. In 1965, Vatican II encouraged the faithful to take their religion a little more personally. In 1968, the Catholic bishops of Latin America met at Medellín (in Columbia). They called for Christians to live out the gospel and encouraged them to find dignity while on earth. Although it didn't have a name yet, this was Liberation Theology.

The movement was officially born in 1972, when Gustavo Gutiérrez published A Theology of Liberation. The 1970s saw the rise of the first Christian Base Communities, which incorporated this take on Christianity into their daily lives. In these Liberation Theology-driven barrios, resurrection is the responsibility of the community. When one is killed, he or she lives on in the community.

As it was in feudal Europe, the power centers in Central America have been the military, the landowners, and the Church. After Vatican II and the bishops' conference at Medellín, the Church decided to embrace Jesus' "preferential option" (or special concern) for the poor. When this happened, the old alliance (state, church, and land-owning elites) — which had so effectively kept the people down — began breaking apart. Revolution followed.

Liberation Theology was serious stuff, and the US took note. President Nixon dispatched future Vice President Nelson Rockefeller to Latin America to find out exactly what it was. He helped establish an American Cold War stance that considered this politicization of Christianity (with its Marxist underpinnings) a direct challenge to American interests in Central America.

From this point on, the story of El Salvador's struggle became a story of martyrs. First, politically active peasants were killed. From the 1970s on, Church leaders were targeted. "Be a patriot...kill a priest" was a bumper sticker-like slogan popular among El Salvador's national guard.

I'll cover more points about Liberation Theology in my next blog entry.

Posted by Rick Steves on October 21, 2009
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In the Bible, God calls for a Jubilee Year (Leviticus 25:10) — every fifty years, the land is to be redistributed and debts are to be forgiven. Perhaps God figured that, given the greedy nature of humankind, it takes about fifty years for economic injustice to build to a point that drives a society to violence.

Rich Christians can't imagine God was serious. But the sad modern history of El Salvador shows the wisdom in the Biblical Jubilee year. There's a pattern that I think of as Jubilee massacres: a dramatic spike in violence every fifty years. Twice a century, landless peasants rise up...and are crushed. In the 1830s, an insurrection and its charismatic leader were put down. In 1881, peasants suffered a big and bloody land grab. In 1932, after the great global depression and communist influence made landless peasants both hungry and bold, an estimated 30,000 were massacred following an insurrection. In the 1980s again, the people rose up and were repressed so cruelly that a 12-year Civil War followed. The 1830s, 1881, 1932, the 1980s — during the last two centuries, El Salvador has endured a slaughter every fifty years.

Thoughtful travelers who respect the Bible can make a point to read it as the majority of Christians on this planet do: through the eyes of the poor world. Christians with two different outlooks could read Matthew 25, where Christ says, “I was hungry and you fed me, imprisoned and you visited me, naked and you clothed me. What you have done to the least of people, you have done to me.” One could be motivated to find ways to tackle structural poverty in poor nations. The other might think that's naive, and continue pounding plowshares into swords.

Posted by Rick Steves on October 19, 2009
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Our Salvadoran hosts gave my educational tour group a history lesson unlike any I got in my schooling. In 1524, the Spaniards arrived in El Salvador. They killed people, burned villages, and named the place “The Savior” after Christ. Enslaving the locals — branding them with hot irons like cattle — those first conquistadors established a persistent pattern:

Under the Spanish, land long used to grow corn (the local staple) was re-cultivated to grow indigo (a better cash crop for export). As indigo needed flat land, locals were displaced and pushed into the hills. Later, when the rise of cotton wiped out the indigo trade, coffee became El Salvador's top cash crop. Coffee needed to be grown on the hillside. So the people were displaced again.

Rebellion after rebellion was put down as the land was Christianized. Making religion the opiate of the masses, the priests preached, “Don't question authority. Heaven awaits those who suffer quietly.” (Even today, when labor organizers try to mobilize workers against structural poverty, they hear, “No, our struggles are God's will.” Those promoting the left-wing people's party report that their challenge is to teach poor Christian peasants that it's okay to get political and vote for change.)

El Salvador won its independence from Spain in 1821. The local victors were not the indigenous people, but the descendants of those first Spanish conquistadors. They wanted to continue harvesting El Salvador…but without giving Spain its cut. Indigenous Salvadorans gained nothing from “independence.”

After the popular uprisings and massacres of 1932, indigenous culture was outlawed, the left wing was decimated, and a military dictatorship was established. Those who spoke the indigenous language were killed. Traditional dress was prohibited. After 1932, when a white person looked at an Indian, the Indian's head would drop. To be indigenous was to be subversive. And today, the word indígena still comes with negative connotations: illiterate, ignorant, savage. All these centuries later, some things still haven't changed.

Posted by Rick Steves on October 16, 2009
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