>The scorched lowlands of the Paraguayan Chaco, once known as “the green hell”, are hardly the most welcoming place in the world. But the scrubby, stunted forests were good enough for the first Mennonite settlers fleeing communist Russia in the late 1920s in search of a place to practice their religion in peace
>When they were given permission to live there by the Paraguayan government (the land was considered useless)
>Today, though, they represent a delicate and unresolved social problem that has only grown with the Anabaptist group’s remarkable economic success — now enjoying living standards comparable to Spain or Portugal, while Paraguay as a whole remains one of the poorest countries in South America
>For decades after they arrived in the Chaco, the Mennonites lived in almost complete isolation as subsistence farmers. They survived in harsh conditions by planting peanuts and cotton.
Thanks to their enterprising spirit, however, by the 1980s they began to grow wealthy through dairy farming, attracting the attention of “outsiders” seeking jobs
>”We used to think that the Chaco belonged to us. But we are a minority now,” laments Agatha Harder
>This mass influx of these often-impoverished newcomers, seeking a better life, puts pressure on services that were initially designed just for the Mennonites
>”We have reached breaking point. Our people don’t want to keep financing the rest,” says Heinz Bartel
>Before long, non-Mennonites could even start to appropriate political institutions too. “If the indians were only able to agree among themselves, they could easily elect a governor, a mayor — whatever they want,”
>Whites create something great
>Non whites move there
>Whole thing goes to shit
Where have we seen this before...
