In this book, anthropologist Leigh Binford analyzes the role of Catholic activists, and especially lay catechists, in the Salvadoran revolutionary war and the events that led up to it. Binford focuses his analysis on a single province, Morazán, in a largely rural region of northeastern El Salvador that became a major stronghold of the FMLN guerrilla army, and a single activist, Fabio Argueta. Through the experiences of Argueta and other catechists (lay religious celebrants), Binford shows that their work not only “underpinned much of the success of the progressive church before the war,” but also strengthened the political and military work of the FMLN (14). He argues convincingly that “catechists like Fabio Argueta offer us windows into certain key features of social revolutionary and social movement processes that have escaped the attention of most researchers in El Salvador and elsewhere” (13). His book provides a well-researched, clearly argued antidote to that gap in the literature.
Argueta is an impressive, though flawed, subject. Born in a small village in Morazán in 1943, he became active in progressive Catholic initiatives through a rural training center developed in the early 1970s to teach residents both theological and practical skills. These “peasant universities” (universidades campesinas) were especially important in areas like Morazán, which lacked sympathetic bishops like those in the Archdiocese of San Salvador, who sponsored a range of progressive initiatives. Like many rural residents, Argueta was transformed, religiously and ultimately politically, by his experiences at the peasant university. He was also strongly influenced by a charismatic young priest, Miguel Ventura, who came to work in northern Morazán in 1973. Argueta and other peasants trained as catechists worked closely with him to disseminate, as Binford notes, “a message of the peasants’ right to dignity, to respect, and to a decent life on this earth” (63).
Like many other Catholic activists during this time, Argueta initially hoped that these goals would be achieved nonviolently, but widespread corruption and repression eventually led him to conclude that armed struggle was necessary. As he reflected in 1995, if “we had been able to change the system, change conditions, not through war but through Christian efforts, seek change, that is to raise man's awareness and begin to form a new man for the purpose of transforming, advancing society, to make it more human, more fraternal, seeking out a distinct form, we would have done it. But the government forced us to take up arms” (143).
Argueta's experiences illuminate the intricate links between grassroots activists and the guerrillas. Binford shows that religion was a powerful source of education and inspiration for many activists, as well as a provider of key resources including leadership, education, funding, and infrastructure. Without progressive Catholic initiatives such as the peasant universities, base communities, and Bible studies, far fewer people, especially in rural areas, would have sympathized with, supported, and joined the FMLN. The history that unfolded in Morazán and other rural regions in El Salvador supports Binford's argument against the tendency, common among scholars of social movements, to downplay the role of religion.
Binford also rebuts the frequent claim that the Salvadoran revolutionary movement was dominated by urban elites. In many studies, he writes, “far too much attention has been paid to middle-class urban intellectuals who supposedly seduce simple peasants and workers into adopting radical ideas” (5). Binford relates this argument to Antonio Gramsci's concept of hegemony, which explains how the rule of dominant classes depends not just on coercion but also on “consent,” or “the acknowledgement on the part of dominated groups of the right of others to rule over them” (3). For Gramsci, Binford emphasizes, hegemony “is never totalizing, it never succeeds in saturating consciousness completely. Rather, the transformation of systems of belief always builds on pre-existing experiences and ideas” (2).
Even people as oppressed and marginalized as Salvadoran peasants, Binford argues, did not fully accept dominant justifications of social and economic inequities. Their “common sense,” in Gramsci's term, included criticisms of injustice and skepticism about the ruling classes and government, expressed in folklore, jokes, and gossip. These pervasive, albeit unsystematized, social critiques “preconditioned” peasants to accept the message of liberation theology (52). Here Binford echoes the arguments of Roger Lancaster, whose study of religion in the Nicaraguan revolution proposed that popular religion “promotes an ethical or ideological system that roughly, if unselfconsciously, corresponds to the social interests of the popular classes, and which already suggests a possibility and a direction of departure from the religion of the elites” (Roger Lancaster, Thanks to God and the Revolution, 1988, 38).
This raises my primary main criticism of Binford's book: it does not situate the events it describes in the larger context of religion's role in revolutionary struggles in Latin America or even Central America. While the situation in El Salvador, and Morazán in particular, is unique, it shares many common features with faith-based activism elsewhere in the region. Comparative analysis would strengthen Binford's arguments and enable him to make a greater contribution to the literature on Latin American social movements.
For example, he emphasizes that the Salvadoran church was divided—not all priests or bishops supported progressive reforms, and some actively opposed them. This contradicts the common suggestion that the entire Salvadoran church, represented by Archbishop Oscar Romero, embraced reforms. Similar divisions beset churches throughout Latin America, contrary to accounts that describe the church “changing sides” (for example, Lernoux, 1980). Binford's granular study of northern Morazán could provide important nuances to larger understandings of the Church's role in progressive politics, were he to make the connections explicit.
Despite this shortcoming, this book stands out as a careful, nuanced study of a fascinating and significant social experience. Binford deserves praise especially for his emphasis on the leadership of ordinary people, particularly peasants, his analysis of hegemony, and his portrayal of the complicated relationship between religious radicals and political militants. The book is well worth reading for anyone interested not just in El Salvador's recent history but also in Latin American revolutionary movements more broadly, and particularly the role of progressive Catholicism.
