An open letter on Nicaragua.....

10/15

Father Luis

I wrote the following letter to Father Luis following the events at Holy Rood. Since he has not responded, I am making this an "open letter".....

Father Luis

I write you as a colleague pastor and  companero in the ongoing struggle to create a more just, humane, inclusive and sustainable world.  I am writing specifically about the mass and presentation yesterday at the Holy Rood Church 

I share your analysis of predatory  imperialist capitalism as being the principal threat to the peoples  of the earth and the earth itself and a truly demonic force. I have been with you in events under the aegis of the Revolutionary Communist Party and have been a guest on their Revolution Nothing Less web show. 

More specifically I have been involved in solidarity with Nicaragua for nearly 40 years now. I chaired  the Presbyterian Church USA Central American Task Forces between 1982-89 and co authored reports setting our church’s public policy in opposition to the US intervention in the region, most specifically the Contra War.  We declared Liberation Theology to be the most significant development in church theology since the Reformation, indeed a new reformation. 

With others I stood on the border between Honduras and Nicaragua to put our bodies between the Contras and the Nicaraguan people. This was the first action of what would become Witness for Peace. I have travelled extensively throughout the region. And have been involved in Sanctuary work for almost 40 years and was a cofounder and coauthor of the International Sanctuary Declaration and work group.  For years I served on the board of a small family foundation that made annual grants to Pastors for Peace and for many years have been on the faculty of the Newark School of Theology teaching Liberation Theology.

I could list more but will only add that I have gone to jail many times and  an active cultural worker and member of the Peoples Music Network. 

I do not list these as a boast but to indicate to you the profound struggle I had to go through to come to a point of deciding to break solidarity with the current Ortega-Murillo regime. To do so is not to break solidarity with Nicaragua, because Ortega and Murillo are not Nicaragua. As you are aware, the decision to break solidarity is one that can come only with critical analysis, reflection and prayer especially with regards to potential outcomes. My solidarity with the Nicaraguan people remains steadfast and ultimately requires my opposition to Ortega-Murillo.

During recent years, I have been to Nicaragua as recently as 2019.  I have met with mothers of children killed in the protests, families of political prisoners, as well as religious and political figures including those who remain connected to the regime. I have travelled to  Costa Rica and visited with the exile community there. Including students who not only have been expelled and cannot return but who have had their records erased as if they never existed. 

I have met with artists like Carlos Mejia Godoy, the creator of La Misa Campesina, and his brother Luis. And Katia Cardenal, the voice of the revolution. They are now in exile and cannot return. Politicians like Victor Hugo Tinoco, a FSLN guerrilla and foreign ministry deputy and UN. Ambassador, arrested and imprisoned. And now even revolutionary hero Sergio Ramirez has been charged and a warrant for his arrest issued! 

Are you aware that before his death Ernesto Cardenal, author of the Gospel of Solentimame, said of the Ortega regime, “it is a robbery of the people and dictatorship not a revolutionary movement”?

It is clear to me that Daniel Ortega has betrayed the revolution and tarnished the legacy and name of Augosto C. Sandino (presente.) What was presented in the service and Moncada’s presentation was all the right words, but does not reflect present reality.  It is the myth of what we wanted Nicaragua to be, el nuevo amanecer. But today it is not.

One image that will remain from what I observed yesterday  is of a well dressed young white woman physically barring the entry of a working class Nicaraguan woman in humble clothes to an event in solidarity with Nicaragua. Although well intended I am sure, the irony was jarring.

When another woman tried to pass on a letter from over 500 solidarity workers…including Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg and Margaret Randall, it was torn to shreds and tossed back.

More painful is what took place outside. It pained me deeply to see privileged white “progressives”shouting at a group of Nicaraguans who for the most part were minimum wage workers. Calling them “self hating Nicaraguans” who “should be ashamed of themselves.” The Nicaraguan group included people who had fought as FSLN guerrillas and served as diplomats. And a student exiled just last weekend. I was assailed as being in league with the CIA. Such behavior is shameful and unacceptable and surely not consistent with Jesus’ project of liberation.

In recent weeks, opposition leaders have held Jornadas with biblical reflection and critical analysis of the current situation including testimony from political prisoners from Honduras, EL Salvador and Guatemala. These families of political  prisoners see themselves in common cause. Ortega has become more a traditional caudillo and not a true revolutionary.

I am well aware of the history of US intervention in Central America. And continued trouble making. But that has nothing to do with those who are in legitimate opposition. In the ’80’s we used to say “ I don’t have to believe everything the Sandinistas do is right in order to know that everything we do is wrong.” Today the reverse is equally true…”I don’t have to  believe what the  US is doing is right in order to know what Ortega-Murillo are doing is wrong.”

My fear is that progressives…many of them people of privilege …will be willing to sacrifice the people of Nicaragua to preserve their belief in a myth.  We speak of autonomia…privileged progressives cannot proclaim themselves more knowledgeable about  what to do than Nicaraguans themselves. 

My only request of you at this point is to be open to a conversation with a representative group.  And see what might develop from that conversation,  Those who wish to see the revolution restored  to its original values deserve a hearing.  We say “Jesus es el camino la verdad y la vida.” Surely we can engage in struggle to discern what is true.

In peace and in hope for a better world…

Rev.Dr. Robert L. Brashear

Robert Brashear is moderator elect of New York City Presbytery, He serves on the national Central America Work Group reporting to the 2022 General Assembly (having chaired 3 Task Forces in the '80's) He is also on work group of the International Sanctuary Declaration.

Nicaragua: La Lucha Sigue

 10/12

Sandino presente

La lucha sigue Reflections on the Misa Comunitaria-Popular en Solidaridad con Nicaragua, Holy Rood Church. Washington Heights. As I enter the church, it all looks so familiar. Strangely, I am confronted by a tall, well-dressed, blonde white woman. “Why are you here?” she asks. I notice she is wearing a yellow wrist band, most likely indicating she’s on some kind of security team. “I am here for the mass, for the presentation,” I say. She eyes me suspiciously, then directs me to a check-in table for vaccination and ID checks.

My friend is with me. He is a former Sandinista militant and diplomat. He tells them that he is here to worship. And that he is here with me, his pastor, so they let him in. We will later learn that two dozen or so other Nicaraguans are being kept outside the church, denied entrance. The police were called by the security people, arrived, and quickly left. I see the ageless Joe Friendly with his long gray hair, baseball cap and video camera. He’s videoed every peace event I’ve been to on the Upper West Side for over 30 years. I guess his presence makes this event official. Sandino el Hijo The mass has been billed as a service for “Libertad, Autonomía & Solidaridad Frente a las Sanciones Estadounidenses. Dejen a Nicaragua vivir en paz.” The service unfolds in predictable ways. I could have been in a Managua “Street Mass” in 1982 with fireworks and a bullhorn- wielding priest or a “People’s Mass” in 1983 with litanies declaring parish martyrs “Presente.” But this Mass was even more partisan than those had been. The first reading was a poem by Rubén Darío. The congregation responded: “Palabra del Señor. ¡Gracias a Dios!” Sandino is referred to as “Tu hijo”; his portrait hangs beneath a draped cross.  As much as I love Darío and Sandino, this was a bit beyond what my Reformed tradition feels comfortable with.

I agree with the pastor’s analysis that: “...imperialist capitalism is the principal enemy of the people and the earth”. But I’m surprised that the “therefore” seems to be unquestioned support for “la lucha”, that is, the current Ortega-Murillo regime as the true embodiment of the Sandinista revolution. I know the chants ....Sandino vive, vive, vive....la lucha sigue, sigue, sigue... I am in the sweltering heat, crammed body to body, in Cine Sandino in Jalapa. We’re on our way to the border to put our bodies between the Contras on the other side of the Honduran border and the Nicaraguans. My friend, Jorge Lara Braud, a liberation theologian of the Reformed tradition, is preaching. The chants ring out. The glint of machetes waved by campesinos flash in the air.

Every time I hear those chants, see Sandino in his Tom Mix cowboy hat, I wish I could be there again. I had been thrilled to stand in solidarity with “The People”, to stand with the Nicaraguan “David” against “Goliath” US. The service proceeds as if nearly 40 years had not passed. I want to sing with full voice: “Adelante, el frente Sandinista” and join in the lucha against “el yanqui, el enemigo de la humanidad." I want to sing: Si Nicaragua venció, El Salvador vencerá y Guatemala prepara ya con fusiles de libertad Somos Centroamérica, una nueva humanidad

But then I remember...Carlos Mejia Godoy and his brother Luis Enrique are in exile; banned from their beloved homeland. The composer of “El himno Sandinista” cannot be in Nicaragua. Denis Moncada When the pastor introduces Denis Moncada, the current foreign minister, my Sandinista friend rises with his Nicaraguan flag. The tall blonde walks over and stands in front of him, seeking to block him. She uses her selfie mode to photograph him. Father Barrios  la bandera When the Eucharist is celebrated, I debate going forward, but ultimately do. The body of Christ is larger than any partisan expression. My friend comes forward too, bringing his flag. He seeks to engage the pastor but is met only with a smile.  When the service is concluded, there is a break to celebrate birthdays and then Moncada speaks again. The classic litany of revolutionary successes: The literacy campaign, the campaign against childhood diarrhea, more healthcare, etc. All 40 years ago. (To make similar claims for their response to COVID would be disingenuous....that has been an unmitigated disaster.) The history of US intervention is recited. And today, he assures us, el pueblo has the right to choose their leaders. (With the seven leading candidates in jail? I ask myself) And the people can voice dissent, continues Moncada. So long as they don’t threaten security.

Just before Moncada speaks, the Nicaraguans waiting outside are finally allowed in. Up to a point. I hold on to the image of a Nicaraguan woman, humbly dressed, seeking to come down the aisle, only to find the tall, blonde protector blocking her way with one of those large golf umbrellas. She moves from side to side as the woman seeks to pass. I’m certain the blonde woman felt that she was “defending the people” (¡No pasarán!) but I found the image to be full of irony. An old white woman, typical of the octogenarian peace activists I know so well, asks the obvious question about CIA designs on Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, and Moncada gives her just the answer she expected. (I love my old West Side Peace Action activist neighbors. When the Soviet Union fell, the joke was there were more Communists on the Upper West Side than Moscow. My church hosted many of their meetings.)

As the Nicaraguans pose questions about political prisoners, they are loudly chanted down. And the priest calls an end to the “dialogue.” When a woman attempts to deliver a letter signed by over 500 solidarity workers, including Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsburg, and the founders of “Witness for Peace”, it is torn up and thrown back in her face.

confrontation on the steps What happened later, outside the church, disturbed me profoundly. The Nicaraguans gathered on the sidewalk; the Ortega supporters looked down on them from the steps. From above, the self-styled progressive Ortega allies, mainly white, with a few Latinx and Afro-Caribbean folks, leaned over and waved a large FSLN flag in the Nicaraguans’ faces.  A white guy in a black sport coat and white cowboy hat with a hammer and sickle pin began to taunt los Nicas. “I’ll pay your way to Nicaragua,” he says. “You hate your own country.” This to people who can’t go back. (Our group includes a just-exiled student. And others whose names are “on lists.”) Another, even louder, white guy yells : “You people rape and murder nuns! Literally!” He is somehow confusing working-class Nicaraguans in 2021 with 1980s Salvadoran death squads. (Yes, I visited the surviving sisters of the murdered nuns in 1982 and shared dinner with them...) “You are self-hating Nicaraguans ....You kill your own people...You hate your own people...You should be ashamed of yourselves.”

The well-dressed white man is yelling at a crowd that includes workers, people who fought in the revolution, a former diplomat, an exiled student, relatives of political prisoners. My friends ask me to speak and as I begin, yet another white guy in a suit begins to shout at me: “Are you here for the CIA? Will you even now dare to denounce the CIA?” One of the Nicaraguan women says “White privilege...” The Orteguista chants go on: “El pueblo unido”... Seriously?

I am shaking. We eventually leave and head to a local Salvadoran restaurant for pupusas. Later we notice a small number of the Orteguistas at an outdoor table, enjoying native food in solidarity, I suppose. I consider going over to attempt a rational conversation but think better of the idea.

I am filled with so many thoughts....

First ...for many on the American left, it is impossible to let go of the myth of what we wanted Nicaragua to be, what we thought Nicaragua had become.

As Bruce Cockburn sang: “In the flash of this moment, you’re the best of what we are...don’t let them stop you now, Nicaragua.” We want to hold on to that and not confront the reality being suffered by Nicaraguan people today.

Perhaps more darkly, for the die-hard Orteguistas, there’s probably a dose of old-fashioned Leninist “end justifies the means” ethics in play here. If to defeat the capitalist imperialist project led by the CIA one must deny the reality of a generation of Nicaraguans and abandon them, so be it. The ultimate triumph will justify such actions.

As one who has lived as part of the Christian left, I saw in the Sandinista revolution a true sign of hope. I loved quoting the mythic story of Father Miguel D’Escoto who, when told by a Cuban that they could see a place for Christians in the revolution he said: “No. In Nicaragua
Christians are the revolution.”

I believed liberation theology was the new reformation. (I have taught liberation theology at Newark School of Theology.) I made nine solidarity trips to Nicaragua in 7 years. I believed...

Learning a more nuanced truth has been hard. I returned to Nicaragua about 10 years ago, and

then again in 2019. What had been a fluid situation in 2011 was now calcified. To cite only a few examples, I found:

• Former Sandinista Foreign Minister and presidential candidate Victor Hugo Tinoco in prison.

• Hero of the Revolution Sergio Ramirez declared an “enemy of the people” with a warrant out for his arrest.

• Los hermanos Mejía Godoy and Katia Cardenal - the voices of the revolution – forced into exile.

• Over 300 dead protestors

I have met with exiled university students whose academic records have been erased with malicious intent, as if they never existed. I have met with mothers of murdered children, and with former revolutionaries, who have had their houses raided by black-and-red bandanna wearing mobs, people who had put their lives on the line defending these colors of the revolution.

I understand more than ever the importance of my Reformed Calvinist conviction that no person, no party or movement can ever fully represent the will of God. All will fall short; all will be held accountable. The challenge has always been to discern how long one can be in critical solidarity before active opposition becomes necessary. That discernment requires study. And courage. Sadly, the truth is, you can start with Jesus’ Gospel of Love and wind up with the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition, or with the Doctrine of Discovery and the Salem witch trials or

believing that Donald Trump is the second coming and that vaccinations are the Mark of the Beast. You start with Marx’ passionate regard for the well-being of humanity and wind up with Khmer Rouge genocide and Sendero Luminoso and well-dressed white guys yelling at Nicaraguans,  the “everyday people” as Sly said. Ultimately, I find myself with my old compañeros, Miguel Unamuno and Ignazio Silone. Unamuno, the chancellor of Salamanca University, responding to the chants of “Viva la muerte” in the Spanish Civil War. Ignazio Silone, author of “Bread and Wine”. Both antifascist, anticapitalist, Catholic, existentialist, humanist Christians. Trying to deal with the fickle paradox of political reality. That is where I am. I can only be a Christian, a follower of the path of Jesus as I perceive it, seeking a more just, humane, inclusive, and sustainable world. The people of Nicaragua have suffered long and hard, forced to live through the same realities over and over and over again. But they are persistent. A movement is growing that seeks to forge alliances between political prisoner support groups throughout the region and develop an ongoing contextual theological exegesis of their struggle to rebuild spiritual resilience.

In the 80s, the world still was trapped in an East/West, Left/Right paradigm. Today it is authoritarian autocracy versus participatory democracy. We need to understand that shift and how to respond. The sound of angry shouts still rings in my ears....  for Nicaragua The people of Nicaragua will live.....

witness

Nicaragua Notebook

12/19

Nicaragua: La Lucha Sigue

Sandino stands watch

I. Notebook

During the 1980’s, as my plane neared Managua the pilot would dramatically announce “Bienvenidos a Nicaragua Libre!” And as the plane touched down on the tarmac, the passengers would burst into applause. Today the plane just lands. That’s it.

                                                                                ****

Our original 1983 Task Force had been profoundly moved by the experiment in living liberation theology that was Sandinista Nicaragua. The Christian Base Communities were combination Bible Study/Reflection and support groups and also building blocks for revolutionary community organizing. I was anxious to see what had happened to them in the intervening years. We met with leaders of one Base Community, one of only four remaining in that neighborhood. His brief summary of classic liberation theology was certainly a theology I could agree with. But it was disappointing to hear the leader describe the voices of opposition to the Ortega regime with a predictable litany of words like trouble makers, criminals, anti-social hooligans, foreign agents, etc.…More than a little disturbing to hear his wife confide to the person sitting next to her the her husband had been responsible for the removal of Auxiliary Monsignor Silvio Baez to Rome. 

Hoping for a deeper dialogue, I described to our speaker that as his country was painfully divided, so was ours. I asked how people of faith could reach out to those who were in disagreement and create dialogue, perhaps even understanding. He responded that they knew where their opponents lived and that “…we can visit them and explain to them where they are wrong and persuade them to change…”

It was as if the Base Community had become a neighborhood enforcer for the government. Nicaraguan friends generally agree that the Base Community movement has become simply an arm of the regime.

                                                                        ****

I had also wondered what had happened to el Consejo de Iglesias Evangélicas Pro-Alianza Denominacional (CEPAD). Originally formed as a way to organize the Evangelical community’s response to the 1979 earthquake, CEPAD had in effect become the Protestant Council of Churches in Nicaragua. It became both a connecting link with the Protestant community through a series of denominational mission partnerships (including the PCUSA) and an ecclesiastical network in solidarity with the revolution. Founder and coordinator of CEPAD, Dr. Gustavo Parajon, was a doctor, mission worker and mediator who had worked tirelessly to facilitate reconciliation with indigenous Atlantic contra groups and other parties in conflict. What was CEPAD’s role today?

After a Bible study based on Ecclesiastes, we celebrated birthdays and talked about the conflict. While more nuanced than our conversation with the Base Community leaders, it was clear that CEPAD participants were uncomfortable with criticism of the Ortega government and primarily saw their role to be in solidarity with the regime. Although still providing some important basic services, CEPAD does not appear to have any vital or creative role in the current political situation.

                                                                         ****

The Nicaragua Commission on Truth, Justice and Peace was established to establish  the facts of the political violence in Nicaragua and create a way forward. Death totals have ranged from somewhere between 300 and 600 and over 3000 injuries. The energy of the commission as presented to us seemed to be concerned mainly with establishing an accurate number of bajas with not much being said about processes for reconciliation. The commission has been criticized for its essentially pro-government makeup. It had been hoped that highly regarded priest Father Uriel Molina might bring an objective voice to the process. But his comments have not been encouraging. In February he was quoted a saying  that people in Nicaragua “owed” the “advantages in this country” to the revolutionary ideals that “live on in Commander Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo.” (Father Molina was receiving an award during our visit.)

The InterAmerican Council on Human Rights has also raised concerns about the Amnesty processionals announced earlier this year by Mr. Ortega essentially freeing any police or military personnel from charges stemming form the mani duro response to the protests. 

                                                                             ****

Overheard in the passport line at Augusto C. Sandino airport. Two businessmen, one Canadian, the other American (US). Both own houses in Granada and businesses in Managua. And spend half of each year here. One says to the other he has just returned from six months away. ‘So..you missed the …the…” says the one. “Yes” says the other. “ I find it best not to have an opinion on such matters.” “I agree” the other responds…

****

A visit with US embassy officials also raised a number of questions.  For all intents and purposes, Mr. Ortega had reached a workable place for himself. Internationally, his leftist anti-imperial rhetoric kept him in good stead with the progressive left community. (A wide thoroughfare has been renamed for Hugo Chavez and ends with a a large portrait of him surrounded by Rosario's arboles de vida. )

Hugo Chavez y los arboles

He had manipulated the constitution in such a way to virtually quarantine any efforts at democratic opposition and electoral or legislative vulnerability.  He had made peace with and was in alliance with the domestic and international business communities and the economy showed (comparatively) decent growth in a Chinese style authoritarian capitalist economy. Enough benefits were falling to the poorest of Nicaraguans so as to keep opposition to a minimum. Peace had been made with the church with his old nemesis Cardinal Obando y Bravo performing a Catholic wedding for Daniel and Rosario.  The most stringent anti-abortion laws in Latin America and been passed.   Even a modus operandi with the US had been reached. Despite its heated rhetoric (part of the “triangle of terror” for example…), the US greatest concern is stability. And that was working. Why throw all that away in responding to protests over changes in Social Security? 

The mano duro response has led only to greater and more wide spread protests, the erection of barricadas and tranques, international condemnation and US sanctions. There are wide ranging speculations, many involving Ms. Murillo, Ortega’s wife and effectively co-President. But no clear answers.

Now Ortega has created a widespread opposition. He’s lost the church again, with Ortega claiming to having discipled himself and Rosario  to a Neo-pentecostal preacher. He’s lost the artists with revolutionary popular musicians  like the Cardenals and Mejias in exile and unable to return. Broad based Nicaraguan expat groups organize in the US.  A US embargo has been put into place.  In response Ortega has doubled down with house to house block to block investigations. He has reportedly promised to arm his people to defend his revolution. And one of his sons has apparently claimed to be the reincarnation of Sandino.

                                                                                                        ****

For every scar on a wall

There's a hole in someone's heart

Where a loved one's memory lives

Bruce Cockburn

in the museum

On the University of Central America Managua campus, a pop up “memory” museum has been created by the Mothers of April Association (AMA), the mothers of children who were killed during the April protests.

Love and do not forget

There’s an intimacy to the exhibit, the items on display selected to portray the lives of those who were killed. Favorite t-shirts, hats, shoes. Photographs. Backpacks. Unique and personal items.

in memory

in the museum

A sense of profound sadness at what… and who...has been lost.  Mothers are present to tell their stories. Perhaps most disturbing are photos of the protests and videos showing turbas (gangs) with black and red bandanas over their faces brutally beating students. The slogan of the museum is  "AMA (Spanish word for love) and do not forget, museum of memory against impunity".

****

Saying no to sexual harassment

Signs as you enter the UCA clearly define sexual harassment, and how to recognize it and that it is simply not tolerated on the campus.

                                                                                            ****

We meet with one of the internal exiles. One who has not left the country but cannot go home, Her house has been broken into and vandalized at east three times. She does not feel safe. She is a lifelong Sandinista militant. I tell her about the images at the museum. Especially those of the turbas in black and red.  She takes a deep breath. “I cry every day” she says. A sense of betrayal at the deepest possible level.

Anther former Sandinista official says, “I don’t know…maybe we could  have worked  it out. If only he didn’t kill so many of us…”

****

Over a nacatamales dinner in Costa Rica, we meet with a circle of expelled…and exiled students. Not only are they expelled, but al their academic records have been erased. Disappeared. As if they had never existed. Graduate students. Medical and nursing students. Tech and science. Law.  Their records gone. They wait in Costa Rica, in a state of limbo.

Somewhere between 60 and 100000 Nicaraguans are now in Costa Rica. Though, compassionate, Costa Rica does not have the infrastructure to handle the crisis. Ticos (Costa Ricans) worry about the centralamericanizacion (Central Americanization) of Costa Rica. A thinly veiled word of anxiety about the impact of so many Nicaraguans. 

Resistance leaders among the exiles are increasingly frustrated. There is little or no ability to provide assistance for newly arriving refugees. A feeling of helplessness at such a distance  from the struggle. A feeling of it’s being time to return, in spite of the danger. Better to be doing something, engaged, and at risk than be safe and removed from the struggle.

                                                                                           ****

From high atop the Tiscapa hill we stand beneath the 18 meter tall Sandino memorial. Tiscapa is the site of the old Presidential palace where Sandino, leaving after having negotiated an agreement, was assassinated by agents of Anastacio Somoza.

Sandino

As we look into the city, directly below us we see the Interamerican Hotel and Bank of America, survivors of the earthquake. 

still standing

Beyond them we see the skeletal remains of the historic cathedral. To the left, we see the old city, still gap-toothed in what exists more than 40 years after the earthquake. Barrios where directions are still rendered as …donde fue…where was… To the right, the new city of shopping malls and commerce. And snaking through the streets the string of Rosario Murillo’s Arboles de vida, trees of life, her idiosyncratic vision of an icon for her Nicaragua. Many trees  show signs of having  been torched during the protests. 

Rosario's arboles

Looking to the Mostepe volcano, there is an empty hill side where once giant FSLN letters stood. When Arnoldo Aleman was elected President, he covered two letters so that it now spelled FIN (ie,  end) then had them removed altogether.

Beside Sandino, there are two large flags, the azul y blanco of the bandera national and the rojo y negro of the FSLN. The once ubiquitous red and black seems to be fading.

Sandino and flags

on Tiscapa

Ortega has declared public carrying the azul y blanco to be illegal.  Adelante el frente sandinista is no longer the defacto national anthem as the traditional Mi Nicaraguita  has returned to popular use. 

The towering silhouette of Sandino looks our over the city, the country.   

****

II. Conclusions

In the flash of a moment, you’re the best of what we are.

Don’t let then stop you now, Nicaragua.

Bruce Cockburn

1. Looking back, for many, both people of faith and political progressives, it was too easy to over romanticize the Nicaraguan revolution. It was almost as if we wanted the Nicaraguans to live out the revolutionary

vision we could never create for ourselves. Those of us from the reformed theological tradition forgot to bring along our historic hermeneutic of suspicion. The infrastructure of the revolution insulated itself from a criticism of solidarity which could have corrected more serious errors of judgment or execution. ( Liberation Christians involved in the struggle seems to grant  to the revolution an unquestioned authority like that previously afforded to the Roman Catholic Church from which so many came…). We truly wanted to believe what Canadian singer-songwriter Brice Cockburn sang: In the flash of a moment, you’re the best of what we are.

This is not to say the earlier PCUSA task force was wrong in its theological or political analysis. Certainly, traditional liberation theology provides an appropriate and biblically based lens through which to view the world around us. And we were right in critiquing US intervention in Nicaragua as well. As William Sloane Coffin, Jr. said so many times, I don’t have to believe everything the Sandinistas are doing is right to know that everything my  government is doing is wrong…

An important question moving forward in times of social change is how to bring a critical analysis within the context of solidarity and then how to know when solidarity can no longer be extended. When does it become necessary to break solidarity?

The danger of idolatry as can be applied in Nicaragua is clear. Belief in the revolution became so central, in a way with theological and spiritual dimensions, that many can not give it up. It’s especially difficult for North American veterans of the 1980’s solidarity movement to make this change. Those seeking change in Nicaragua today feel they are left on their own with no interest shown by old colleagues. 

2. Likewise, liberation theology is going through its own reassessment from the inside. Critics like Rubem Alves have pointed out the limitations of a theology that is primarily materialist based. The need for beauty imagination and creativity to sustain long term struggle is clear.  In earlier discussions, former Sandinistas spoke of pursuing a theology of transformation, both personal and societal. 

As Presbyterians, we need to recognize the gift of our own theological tradition in this context.

3. The ecclesiastical landscape has shifted significantly since the 1980’s. During those years, it was primarily a struggle between the traditional hierarchical Roman Catholic Church and the progressive, liberationist church of the people with the historic evangelical (Protestant) churches a minor sub set of that conversation. Today, the major dialectic seems to be between the traditional Roman Catholicism of the country and a rising tide of Pentecostal (especially neoPentecostal) religious expression. Of the latter, some  are based in the US but others from Latin America itself. 

4. The Ortega government retains a significant base within the population, especially among the poorest sectors of society with whom a client relationship has been established. Its benefits have been real materially although not politically.

5. Geopolitically speaking, the historic Cold War dialectic that informed the struggles of the 1980’s has been replaced by a multilectic in which Russia seeks to reestablish former Soviet relationships and China seeks to establish its own business and political influence.

6. A major change in Nicaragua since our previous visits is the emergence of climate and environment as a major issue.  Agribusiness has been devastating on the capacity for sustainable self sufficient agriculture. (And has led to broad campesino support for resistance.) The ill-conceived proposal for a new canal is an example of economic  development taking place with little regard for the continued environmental degradation taking place. 

7. Nicaragua has so far resisted the influence of gangs and drugs that has so affected other parts of Central America. Leaving aside speculative conspirational  theories a critical factor would seem to be the fact that regardless of what the governmental reality may be, the revolution has left Nicaragua with a social coherence and organizational capacity that continues to function at the barrio level. ( A similar observation could be made of the reality that the area most free from drugs and gangs in El Salvador is former FSLN stronghold Morazan province and similarly in the indigenous highlands region in Guatemala.) This capacity led to the rapid response in setting up blockades (tranques) and turn outs for manifestaciones. Clearly awareness of this capacity has led to the Ortega government’s strategy of “house to house” interventions and development of a network of informants towards the end of breaking up the solidarity of neighbors.

8. The Nicaraguan people have now been in a state of struggle for nearly a century now.

a century of struggle

a people of struggle

On the one hand, there is a sense of frustration and weariness in terms of how many times do we have to go through this?  On the other hand, this historic experience has led to a reservoir of resilience that continues to sustain the people through the ongoing struggle.  In Nicaragua, la lucha sigue. And despite all we can be confident in the hope that Nicaragua vivira. (Nicaragua will live…)

a  resilient people...Nicaragua vivira