Wellesley professor unearths a horror: Syphilis experiments in Guatemala
I don't have a lot of time to write this up very formally, but I thought this was a noteworthy article that was forwarded to everybody in SPH by another student.
My question is what is a government to do 70 years after the fact? Obama has apologized for this to the Guatemalan government, but if I remember correctly (I read this a few days ago), there was also a question of possible reparations of some sort. Personally, I don't really see what good it would do. The impression I got was that there were unlikely to be any descendants of these people. In that case, the suffering inflicted can not be undone or assuaged. The horror some may experience now is unlikely to be any higher than you or I might experience reading about this. And with a Guatemalan government complicit in the act at the time, how are the United States any more guilty than they?
What are your thoughts?
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Like Steve, my time is limited so I apologize if my message is not completing coherent. Hopefully the main theme is…I think most should be able to spot the similarities I am trying to point to…
ReplyDeleteMight I suggest we analyze this story similar to how we would if discussing reparations for African Americans. I’ve heard a similar argument that reparations (e.g., affirmative action) do not actually help the original victims of the crime, therefore we are only punishing current day whites while giving privileges to current day blacks. Of course, I don’t believe any of us would take this argument seriously, but we’ve all heard it made at least by one individual or another.
With slavery (and lets be honest, it did not end in 1865, it ended in 1964) even if an individual was not a slave him/herself or a descendent, they were subjected to a culture that still viewed blacks as inferior. What made the news were lynchings and riots, while the real subversion to equality were the impoverished neighborhoods and schools blacks had to rely on. So, even in America all individuals are not born into the same opportunities for success. And it is this inequality that produces and reproduces socio and economic disparities to this day.
Now to Guatemala. Nothing can be done for the Guatemalans that were treated as less than human by the United States. But what can (and should) be done is the United States prostrating before the Guatemalan people and apologizing, then offering to build and maintain (for at least 70 years) clinics in major cities in Guatemala with free STD healthcare. Americans already tend to view Governments and people in Central and South America as something second-class, and this new information lends to that stereotype that perhaps they are “just above animals” like some indigenous tribe in Africa or something. Reparations need to be made not to those affected directly by the experiments, but to the current day citizens. Reparations would also be an important message to send the American people.
In all honesty, I think building and maintaining hospitals for 70 years just isn't going to happen. I don't think congress will make that commitment (especially in the current environment), nor would they stick to it if they did. Consider the halting of the billion dollar aid promised to Haiti because of $5 million that was potentially duplicative. And imagine what people would be saying if we were still paying the south for some war-time atrocities committed during the civil war. By the time you get a life-span past something (which we already are), I think people in general don't really care. It kind of gets accepted as something that happened and you can't do anything about. And I have to say that's where I tend to stand. That isn't to say I don't think the Americans shouldn't make an apology and some further demonstration of remorse. But I think a 70 year commitment is too much. Also, while discussing this with a classmate the other day, she brought up the point that we're already working in Guatemala with USAID. Now the use in being there and merit of the work done by USAID in Guatemala is another issue to discuss, of which I know virtually nothing. So I wouldn't feel comfortable praising or critiquing their work. But there at least is some effort (and financial intervention) already there.
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