Truth is more heart-breaking than fiction
It’s easy to pick on the details a movie gets wrong, like how the colony’s village was laid out wrong or how names were mispronounced, but those details were not particularly important to anyone we spoke to about Women Talking.
Instead, the primary concern was that the fictional account overshadowed the actual abuse it was based on and that abuse on the colonies is worse than depicted and much more challenging to address.
The premise of Women Talking is that the women who have been raped gather to discuss what they are going to do in response to the leader’s demand that they forgive their attackers and move on.
Could that conversation happen?
“Do you think there’s any scenario in which that kind of conversation could have taken place among them?” This is the question posed by a friend of journalist Jean Friedman-Rudovsky, who covered the story of the rapes in Bolivia. “I don’t know,” was Friedman-Rudovsky’s answer. As close she says as she was to some of the women in her piece, “their old-colonist Mennonite world and mindset was, and still is, very foreign” (source).
Elizabeth (Lisa) Janzen, Diana Peters and Bill and Ester Kehler, for whom the Mennonite world and mindset are much more familiar, believe they know the answer to that question, and the answer is “No.” Women on the colonies would not have the kind of conversation held in the movie Women Talking.
For them, one of the most striking things about Women Talking was the sense of agency felt by the women in the movie versus the inability of women on the colonies to imagine any way out of their situation. The sexual assaults are not shown in Women Talking, but for watchful viewers, there are hints that reveal some of what happened. But when women in the movie learn what has been happening, they have the capacity and the will to express their anger or sadness, consider the most effective and appropriate response and act on their own behalf and for the benefit of their children—they believe they can change things and prevent further abuse. It is that capacity to tackle the problem that Diana Peters, who assists Mennonite newcomers to Canada, considers inaccurate. She says it’s virtually impossible when you look at it through a cultural lens.
It is virtually impossible for women in this culture to imagine themselves fighting back and succeeding or fighting back and not losing their salvation by going against authority. Leaving is just as impossible—the world outside is a frightening place, one where they only barely speak the language or don’t speak it at all, don’t understand the culture and have no economic prospects without the network of family they have on the colony and land to farm. Even if that were possible, to leave is to risk losing their salvation and is strongly discouraged or even forbidden.
Janzen agrees and adds another element. The women not only think there is no escape, but they believe this is what they are there for. Janzen grew up on a Mennonite colony in Bolivia and returned as an adult to serve the people living there. Sexual abuse and assault are widespread on the colonies she said, both within the family and the broader community. Nearly all the women she counselled during her years there had been sexually abused, and they believed that suffering is required for salvation and so the only choice they have is to endure. Janzen adds that the use of anti-depressants among women on the colony is very high.
Bill and Ester Kehler currently minister in Bolivia with colony members, and like Peters and Janzen they cannot imagine a conversation between women as shown in Women Talking. However, they believe the questions posed in Women Talking are the questions women are asking themselves, though maybe not in the same way. Though formal education is limited, there is wisdom and insight, and they do not believe that it’s right that they should just forgive and their assailants get away with what they’ve done.
The nature of forgiveness on a colony
Alvin Plett, who served on ten mission trips to Bolivian colonies, visited both the men in prison and the colony elder and learned that if the accused men wanted to be restored to the colony, they would be required to write to the colony elder to ask forgiveness. Plett reports that the elder he spoke to refused to forgive the men saying the crimes were too serious. Plett also spoke to the man who was expected to replace the current elder and this man said he would consider it. What is striking in his account is that at no point does it seem to occur to either the men in prison or colony leaders that it was the women to whom they should repent.
Janzen confirmed this, saying that nobody would ever think they needed to ask the women for forgiveness. Women would be told they needed to forgive.
The Kehlers expanded further saying that if men get caught in an abuse situation, they would go to the minister’s meeting and confess. They may then be asked to come to church the following Sunday and meet with the brotherhood after the service, where they would confess and ask for forgiveness. The brotherhood has no option to say no, so forgiveness is granted, and the sin is considered dealt with. The accused would never need to confront the woman he abused, and there would be little or no punishment for him if it was a first offence. The woman or women would be informed that her abuser confessed and now she must forgive. She has no option to refuse.
It's open knowledge, the Kehlers stated, that there is no real repentance happening and, therefore no change in behaviour on the part of the abuser. The women who were raped in this case never received justice, counselling, comfort or compassion, they added.
The extent of abuse
But abuse in colonies is not limited to sexual abuse of women and girls. Lisa Janzen recounts the treatment her brother received at the hands of colony leaders in her book An Opened Gate (pp. 55, 91). After her father died tragically, her brother was caught on several occasions, blindfolded, tied up and beaten by colony leaders, which enraged him but did nothing to curb his drug and alcohol use.
John Froese, who ministered in Bolivia with his wife Helen, also told of two young men; one who was beaten so badly he nearly died and another who has terrible scars both from beatings and from being tied to an ant tree for several hours. An ant tree has hollow stems which are home to aggressive and venomous ants.
It is this level of abuse that casts doubt on the guilt of the men who were arrested and tried for the rapes in Bolivia. The men were apprehended (rounded up) by men of the colony to whom they admitted guilt, in what was almost certainly a coerced confession. Torture to gain confessions is common, Janzen reported. The men were then handed over to Bolivian authorities in Santa Cruz, where they were tried and imprisoned. Colony leaders have access to a lot of wealth, and Plett suspects that it was used to ensure the men would be held as colony leaders instructed.
Both Janzen and Plett doubt that the men who were accused are necessarily the perpetrators. They acknowledged that it’s normal for prisoners to maintain their innocence, but the circumstances and the known methods of colony leaders make it very possible the wrong people were apprehended. Both Janzen and Plett also spoke about one of the men suspected of the rapes who died as a result of injuries he sustained while being “questioned.” Janzen, who visited the site where he had been hung from a tree for hours, saw evidence of a party she believes took place during the torture.
What is the hold on colony members, why is it so powerful and change so impossible?
Why do people stay where they have so little freedom and allow themselves and their families to be subjected to this level of abuse? One of the beautiful things about the movie Women Talking is precisely that the way the story is told makes it very human. In among the pain, life is still lovely in many ways. Laughter is mixed in with sharp disagreement. Childhood is still playful, and the views are beautiful. Leaving the colony means leaving behind the life people know, including relationships that are familiar and good, and economic stability. For many, the good outweighs the bad and the worst of the abuses are felt by others.
But for many people, the colony is a dark place and the reason they stay is fear. Colony leaders have a lot of power over the members, including the economic and spiritual destiny of colony members and they hold the line using fear.
Rebellion, particularly, it seems, that of young men, is dealt with using brutal physical punishment. Janzen also describes in her book how intimidation is used. In her family’s case, two preachers descended on their home unannounced, berated her widowed mother for an hour and then conducted a search of their home for books and music they did not approve of (p. 53). After her mother died, a sixteen-year-old Janzen was visited by a dozen ministers in black who “placed themselves in [their] seating area” and proceeded to tell them how they were splitting up the family. (p. 95)
Economic pressure is also a factor for colony members. Although property is privately held on the colony, it is legally owned by colony as a whole. A man who wishes to buy land needs to be baptized before the purchase will be approved. If a family is under discipline, they will not be allowed to sell the goods they produce, and their children cannot attend school. If someone leaves the colony, they may need to leave everything behind, making it very difficult to start over.
But it is the fear of God that may be the most effective in keeping the hold on members of the colony. Colony members do not attend church services regularly and struggle to understand the message and Bible reading when they do, because it is in High German, a language only used in church or German class in school. Independent Bible reading of a version in their native language is discouraged or outright forbidden. This means that knowledge of who God is and what following him means is learned through what leaders preach and enforce. And what preachers treat as most sinful is anything modern or from outside the colony, including messages of God’s love and forgiveness coming from other Mennonite groups through visits, Bible studies, music, counselling, reading material or radio.
As a result, colony members know God as someone very restrictive, someone who punishes harshly and expects his followers to suffer to gain heaven’s reward. Deviation from colony expectations risks the displeasure of the colony leaders, and displeasing colony leaders is the same thing as displeasing God, and that is a short step from eternal damnation.
It is difficult from the outside to grasp just how powerful this fear is for many colony members.
Is there hope?
The people we interviewed agreed that the hope found in the movie Women Talking was not realistic for women of a Mennonite colony, though they wished that the women could see the movie. They thought, or at least hoped, that seeing their questions and pain expressed in the movie would help women who experienced the trauma. They hoped, too, that the film would have a more significant impact on people who saw it, both here in Canada and especially for the evangelical churches in Bolivia. So far, they report, they don’t see evidence that this has happened.
This doesn’t mean women and men suffering abuse on the colonies are without hope. People, including some from EMC, are serving the colonies through Misión Evangélica Menonita (MEM) and Mennonite Central Committee. Colony members who are willing to risk the disapproval of the leaders can meet with workers to be counselled and discipled in their homes. Counselling, safe houses and economic help are also available for those who leave: the ones who have nothing to lose, Kehlers say, or are too rebellious to stay. Villa Nueva is a community MEM started for those who needed to leave the colony because of their faith, and all of its school and church leadership has recently been turned over to local leaders. Hacienda Verde, a larger community with the same purpose, celebrated their seventh anniversary earlier this year.
But it’s not an easy road. In our interview, Lisa Janzen mentioned her disappointment that freedom in Christ was not talked about in the movie, but she also pointed out how difficult it is for the people who’ve grown up on a colony to grasp the idea that God loves them—it requires unlearning a lifetime of messaging that tells them God is harsh.
There is darkness here. Bill and Ester Kehler spoke about their sense that their battle is spiritual and wished they had more information on how evil spirits worked. Other MEM workers reference an oppressive sense of darkness just being on a colony. Lisa Janzen writes in her memoir that one night her brother woke her to sit with her, hoping he could escape what he was seeing in his room, like “snakes and other ugly demonic things that are after me” (p. 89).
The women who were raped did not all leave the colony together as portrayed in the movie, the abuse hasn’t ended, and women have not developed the capacity to fight back. Still, a few women, men and their families leave the colony. It is a trickle compared to the growth of colonies, and working with traumatized colony members is emotionally difficult. Janzen reports that she needed counselling herself after counselling colony members. But a few—on and off the colony—find freedom, not just from abuse and fear but the life-giving freedom that comes from knowing God loves them and that forgiveness is genuine and complete. The young man Froese spoke about, who was beaten until he nearly died, did not die. He lived and became a pastor, declaring that he would never turn his back on Christ.
