The Shining Path: A Summary

In the reading “Journey by the Inner Light”, the author Meeta Kaur begins her story by discussing the routine of her hair baths and the importance of her long hair. As a child, Kaur didn't quite understand why she needed to take care of her long hair nor did she question why every woman in her family had long thick hair. When Kaur was in middle school, her mother allowed her to take a trip to India where she was able to learn more about her roots and culture. On the trip, Kaur began to read a bunch of comic books which helped her gain knowledge about her hair. She learned that her hair was referred to as kesh and that her kesh represents an external identity. Although Kaur was amazed with all the information she acquired about her culture, she still had trouble committing to the ways of a Sikh woman. As Kaur gets older, she becomes more Americanized as she is surrounded by people who have different values from that of her own culture. This begins to interfere with her daily lifestyle as she starts to question her own culture and that of American culture. Kaur notices how young girls at her University have unique hairstyles and she just wanted to be able to do the same with her own hair. At this point in her life, Kaur decided that she just wanted to fit in with American society and so she decided to cut her hair short. This caused a lot of problems with Kaur and her family. Not only was Kaur’s mother upset but she was also hurt and disappointed that Kaur cut her hair

Born in Blood and Fire text describe and explain Chasteen’s perceptions on the effect that important invents that occurred in Latin America had during the Cold War. Chasteen’s visions of the period were precise and outstanding. First Chasteen’s ideas reflect how during the Cold War Latin American governments started turning into a military rule with the United Sates as an ally and founder of their army. He explains how countries started revolutionary movements in order to fight for nationalism. Marxist ideologies and communist revolutionary guerrillas rose as well as anticommunist governments. Chasteen’s argues how during the Cold War period there was a constant increase of civil right abuses from the government’s army who impose their power with violence and brutality. Chasteen’s ideas are reflected and confirmed in the Guatemala Reader documents by describing specific events that occurred in Guatemala during the Cold War period. The Guatemala Reader goes beyond Chasteen’s ideas by giving detailed documents and historical facts of the social injustices that people had to go through every day. Born in Blood and Fire texts and the Guatemala Reader documents show the rise of civil wars and a period of political struggle in Latin America during the Cold War.

As Charles Bergquist observes, "Crises in Colombia tend to generate cycles of violence instead of mutations in the political regime." The reason is simple: regime changes in Colombia tend to produce very little change in anything other than nominal rule. Since Colombia's independence from Spain in the early 19th century, Colombia has seen a series of civil wars and secessions (Venezuela, Ecuador, and Panama the last coming rather conveniently at a time when the U.S. was prepared to pay millions for a canal through its nation preparation that later resulted in a multi-million dollar redress to Columbia). Colombia's political history, therefore, has been colored by outside influences pulling on the two dominant liberal and conservative parties, with violent exchanges, and long periods of instability being the consequences. While regime changes have occurred, they have not produced significant improvements. Rather, Colombia in the 20th century has become a nesting ground for paramilitary forces and drug traffickers, with U.S. Central Intelligence operatives contributing heavily to the violent conflict that has risen between regimes. This paper will examine the regime types that preceded the Rojas Pinilla regime in mid-20th century Colombia, analyze their similarities and differences, and discuss the extent to which Rojas Pinilla reached his goals and objectives.

Comparing Peru’s Civil War to Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution, Peru will fall economically and politically. Guzman goal is to control everything, and when a group of people are restricted or told what to do including what they can do and can't do everyday people get angered and start to speak out. Communism brings hatred between the government and its people but others can argue that it brings safety to the people. My argument is constructed on the basic natives/cons communism brought by Mao Zedong and that's the total deaths of about 40 to 80 million death, while Guzman movement has killed over

The terrorist group, Sendero Luminoso, also known as the Shining Path, originates out of the country of Peru. Abimael Guzman, a former university professor, formed the group in the late 1960s. Guzman follows the philosophy of blood is necessary to irrigate the revolution (Collyns). During this time the Sendero Luminoso became one of the most merciless terrorist groups in the Western Hemisphere (Pike). The Sendero Luminoso is considered to be a highly organized political party. The party’s powerful voice of protest allows its support to continue to grow. The exact number of members in the group is unknown, but is estimated to be up to 300 (Pike). The Sendero Luminoso was not the largest group in numbers until it reached its peak in power, which numbered in the thousand. The Shining Path uses the lack of governmental influence to its advantage to gain support of those who do not support the Peruvian government. With no allies, the party gained its members and support by influencing rural areas of Peru that had been neglected by the Peruvian government (Gregory).

Known as one of the most dangerous and violent terrorist organizations in the world, the Shining Path or El Sendero Luminoso in Spanish of Peru was unique in various aspects. Although now considered a menace to Peruvian society, the Shining Path still remains as a significant reference for revolutionary movements. Living in an age of terror, Peru was a country of disorder and corruption; the road to liberation was a far way to go. For years, demagogic candidates turned dictatorial leaders were filled with an insatiable hunger to fight for power and dominance. They mainly spent money on military forces, drugs, and other frivolous things; yet all failed to simply provide for the people who needed them most. Living was almost nonexistent and an illusion with an impoverished economy. The country remained socioeconomically stagnant. Promises were never made and Peruvians became more desperate, angry, and resentful by the day. Emotions gradually fueled their fires into strong burning passions. This was more than enough to spark a revolutionary movement to eternally live on. No matter how vile and wicked it would resort to, the people were ready. Everyone just wanted to survive. And that was exactly where the Shining Path came into the picture. Despite how unconventional this ‘shining path’ was, it brought a promising future to the voices dying to be heard.

The Communist Party of Peru is an insurgent organization that operates in Peru. The organization is more commonly referred to as Shining Path. The Shining Path was created in 1970 as a group that split from the Peruvian Communist Party (PCP). Shining Path was led and founded by Abimael Guzman and had a few dozen members initially. Guzman originally was a philosophy professor at the University of Ayacucho. Guzman initially began recruiting and training teachers of his ideology at the university itself. The teachers would then return to the rural communities and become the cadre of the Shining Path. Thanks to the spread of their ideology and the targeting of poor peasants for recruitment. At its height, the Shining Path fielded 10,000 men, with

Shining Path was a frightening guerrilla force, profoundly isolationist and sect-like. Established in the impoverished regions of Peru, formed by a group of radical university students, it produced to an army of about one hundred thirty thousand militants. Led by a former university professor, Abimael Guzman or alias “Presidente Gonzalo,” he was a fervent supporter of Communism. By methodically using primitive techniques to overthrow the old government, this was seen as the true approach into rebuilding a new improved one. Politically leaning on the left wing spectrum, the Shining Path modeled through guided principles of Maoism, Marxism-Leninism, and an ideology known as “Gonzalo Thought.” This eventually became the theoretical foundations of Communism. “A web of exhortations and formulas so dense that its adherents are reduced to desperate initializing whenever they attempt the simplest report.” (GP, Lima 1990, 74). As a terrorist group,

In fact, the FARC has become increasingly violent throughout its recent history, “today it plants land mines, takes police stations, and ambushes army patrols.” In order to protect themselves, landowners and drug cartels (who had become wealthy and, therefore, targets for guerrilla kidnappings) formed paramilitary death squads. The government fueled the flames, particularly under President Alvaro Uribe (2002-2010) by subtly endorsing and cooperating with these paramilitary squads, who claimed to be anti-communist, in order to eliminate the guerrilla influence. To do so, paramilitary groups invaded rural, peasant villages, and massacred the inhabitants, who were accused of sympathizing with guerrillas. The result was an increasingly violent, hostile war that pitted government-endorsed paramilitary organizations and drug cartels against the leftist guerrillas. The guerrillas target wealthy individuals in the city, whilst the paramilitary organizations target the poor, rural peasants, in a conflict that has overwhelmed Colombia and resulted in the shocking statistics in the introduction to this essay. Thus, historically, Colombia had been unable to peacefully resolve conflicts between guerrilla groups and the

In this article, social anthropologist Orin Starn accuses Andeanist anthropologists of missing the revolution. Andeanist anthropologists failed to consider that a movement like the Shining Path, could emerge in a rural, primarily indigenous area of Peru. As a result, Starn was particularly critical of the work of Billie Jean Isbell, whose book To Defend Ourselves, chronicled life in the same village, Chuschi, Ayacucho department, where the Shining Path announced itself to the world by burning ballot boxes during an election in 1980. By focusing on “traditional” culture rather than contemporary socio-economic conditions, anthropologists in general, and Isbell in particular, had “portray[ed] contemporary highland peasants as outside the flow

Joaquim faced three major challenges to the initiation of operations at Lake Titicaca. The first challenge was local hostility. The intended site was located in an area previously controlled by the Shining Path guerilla terrorist group (Wesley, 2006). The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (2012) notes that this terror group "pushed for the destruction of all existing Peruvian institutions" in order to "replace the destroyed institutions with organizations based on communist ideals" (p. 1). The group was also very hostile to external influence. While the Shining Path group dissolved prior to the initiation of Joaquim's progress, the hostile response of some locals suggests that some of the anti-capitalist

The Jivaro people also known as the Shuar people are one of the indigenous people that habitat parts of eastern Ecuador, and northern Peru. They live in small, spread out villages of approximately 22,000 square miles throughout the Amazon forest and foothills of the Andes mountains. The Jivaro people consist of different smaller groups of people such as Achuar, Humabisa, Aguaruan, Antipas, Mayna. The people can also speak over six languages: Jivoran, Quechua, Shiwar, Achuar, Awajun, and Huambisa. The purpose of this study is to discern how the history of violence to themselves and from others has impacted the Jivaroan way of life today.

Peru is a country long plagued by political violence. The Shining Path is by far the largest and most successful of Peru's terrorist organizations. Shining Path initiated its first operations against the Lima regime in 1980. In the intervening years, it quickly became the most serious security problem that the Peruvian government faced. Few political movements, inside or outside of Peru, could match its fanaticism and extreme ideology. The Shining Path must be singled out for its simple ruthlessness. Murder, dynamite bombings, and arson are its instruments of political violence. Few terrorist groups in modern times have employed violence with the same determination, lack of discrimination, and widespread effect as the Shining Path.

Paths of Glory is a film based on the novel by Humphrey Cobb and was directed by Stanley Kubrick in 1957, however, was not released in France until 1974. This film is based in France in the early 1900s depicting the French army in their war against Germany during World War I. This was a very controversial film of the time due to its portrayal of the French army. The French government halted the release of this film for many years because of the lack of empathy it shows towards the country. This film takes you through the hard times of the war touching on betrayal, disease, and the true meaning of patriotism, however, unlike most films about WWI Kubrick did not solely focus on the effects of the war creating this to be like so many anti-war films. Kubrick took this film to a new level by showing the hierarchy of the French military and more behind the scenes government work than most other war films. The choice Kubrick made to produce this film in black-and-white stands out on its own. This choice conveys to the audience that this is not a time of happiness and color rather one of dreariness and devastation. This paper will examine

During the last quarter of the twentieth century, Latin America was dominated by authoritarian military regimes and immense human rights violations. Especially in Chile and El Salvador, where human rights abuses were rampant during Pinochet’s dictatorship and the Salvadoran civil war. The region is still dealing with the legacy of terror from its authoritarian past. Cath Collins, a professor and researcher in the School of Political Science at the University of Diego Portales in Santiago, Chile, runs a project mapping recent human rights trials in Chile. A recent book by Collins, Post-Transitional Justice: Human Rights Trials in Chile and El Salvador, describes the struggle to obtain justice for human rights violations in two countries