Mennonites and Mammonites…in Paraguay

The Weekly Standard: Mennonites and Mammonites…in Paraguay

…This progressive Mennonite congregation has departed in more ways than these from the customs of their forebears. Mennonites have lived in Paraguay since the 1920s, mostly in the miserably hot Chaco, a region that was barely inhabited before they arrived, and indeed barely inhabited today. For the first 70 years, they kept to themselves and preserved the pacifist and isolationist ways that characterize the sect everywhere. But now they're at the center of one of the strangest phenomena in South American politics, a saga of corruption and faith that has left these world-renouncing Anabaptists in control, for a time, of the highest worldly offices in Paraguay–and wondering whether their newfound power is a blessing or curse….

…But the economic entanglements remain, and to retreat from politics might require them to curtail the astonishing economic boom that financed the Mennonite ascent to power in Asunción less than a decade ago. Their commercial habits are too ingrained, and the Paraguayan appetite for their milk and yogurt too powerful, for easy reversal now. The seal is broken. "They are family men," Abente says, perhaps channeling the early Mennonite fathers. "But the more they have to deal with a corrupt place, the more they corrupt themselves."

Twenty years ago, when I was a grad student at Eastern University, a group of us would periodically get together and play the table game "Risk: The game of world domination." There were Mennonites among us, and one of our favorite observations was how ruthless and successful the Mennos were in playing this game. We used to comment that it was good that they wouldn't get their hands on any real power. 🙂