EL SALVADOR

PERSPECTIVES
devastated the country in the 80s, and
both have controlled the political system
since the 1992 peace agreement.
For the generation that fought the war,
and the one that grew up during it, politics
have just become a continuation of
that war. In public forums, in Congress
and the media, members of both parties
constantly quarrel with their political
foes and blindly defend their leaders,
aware that any damage to their own side
means a victory for the other. That’s how
politics have been practiced for the last 25
years. But politics have never been so discredited
as they are now.
Enter the postwar generation. Those
born during or after the war. Although
also divided between left and right, they
don’t follow politics or defend their ideology
with the same intolerance of those
who embraced (or practiced) its more
violent expressions in the 80s. The recent
presidential scandals proved to them
that corruption is not related to ideology.
There are no good or bad sides; just good
ideas and bad people. And a few good
people too.
“The recent corruption scandals affect
my faith in the system, of course,” says
Aída Betancourt, 26, a lawyer working at
the local offices of the World Bank and a
very active promoter of her generation’s
participation in public life. “It brings me
hope. It makes me believe that there are
some brave people outside the corruption
rings and interests, namely the Supreme
Court judges, sending these clear messages
to stop corruption.”
It’s been 24 years since the war ended.
Enough time for Aída’s generation to
grow up and become adults and demand
their own spaces. And they are trying. At
least some of them.
That is, some of those privileged
enough to have an education, access to
information, the urgency to change the
country and their basic needs satisfied.
Middle-class urban postwar kids with a
social conscience. Los posts.
“My generation can be defined by the
lack of the political fanatism that the previous
ones had,” says Juan Martínez, 29,
an anthropologist who researches gangs.
Opposite page:
Students check
cellphones at ESEN
business university.
Above: Elsy Melara,
27, has embroidered
for big textile companies
since her 16th
birthday. Her embroideries
sell abroad for
more than 100 dollars
while she gets paid
one dollar. Below: a
textile factory.
“You can see guys in ARENA publicly
expressing their condemnation of Flores’
actions, but they still declare themselves
areneros. It’s the same on the left. The
Funesgate is a scandal. But they will
remain leftists. Now we have some certainties
about what these politicians do.
They steal money from the people. We
see these indictments as a step ahead, the
democratization process is advancing.”
These postwar kids almost speak a different
language. They are more tolerant
of ideological and sexual diversity, more
skeptical about almost everything and
curious and better connected with the
rest of the world through social media.
The guerrilla commanders, army generals
or death squad leaders—hailed by
my generation as war heroes—mean
nothing to los posts.
“Yes, we are still politically divided
by the same line that separates left and
right,” says Gerardo Calderón, 28, a
social activist who brought the TED conferences
to San Salvador and volunteered
for many years building houses for poor
people at an organization called TECHO.
“But it would be weird, for example, to
see an arenero from my generation hailing
Roberto D’Aubuisson, No, we are not
fanatics. We are pragmatic.”
D’Aubuisson, an intelligence army officer
and leader of the paramilitary death
squads that killed, among others, Arch-
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