We were a couple of hours into a journey that would take most of the day, a ferry down the Rio Escondido toward Nicaragua’s Atlantic Coast.
From our position near the bow, I looked back at our guide, and past her to the machine gun nest on the boat’s roof. We had been invited to these best of seats, she explained, not only because Americans who were violating the U.S. embargo by even being in Nicaragua were assumed to be the “good guys,” but also because U.S.-backed terrorists frequently attacked the ferry. They would not attack if they saw gringos on the boat for fear of bad publicity. Our visibility was protection for the locals, and indeed, the only American who had been shot while making the journey up to that point was an African-American, for descendants of enslaved Africans live on Nicaragua’s Atlantic Coast, so he looked like a local.
Being the “good guys,” we felt righteous and smart, that great vice of educated white liberals, the temptation of the savior complex. After all, we were there to learn, but our very presence also showed support for the government that had thrown off a brutal dictatorship, the victorious Sandinista movement that was rewarded with a resounding victory in the nation’s first free election in decades. We were meeting with top Sandinista officials, even attended an event with the president of the country.
Last Sunday, the leader of that great struggle for liberation, for literacy and freedom and opportunity, cemented his autocratic rule of Nicaragua.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Daniel Ortega is simply Anastasio Samoza redux, the corrupt head of an evil dynasty.
And lest we should be tempted by that same self-righteousness my fellow travelers and I were feeling on that eastbound ferry, let us remember that the United States put the Samoza dictatorship in power, and U.S. Cold War paranoia about creeping communism created a state of perpetual threat in Nicaragua, laying the foundation for the Ortega dictatorship.
Bullets and bombs and children dropped out of helicopters, for dropping their children from helicopters we supplied was one of the ways the Samoza regime interrogated prisoners in the 70’s.
I don’t see why we have a need for a metaphysical hell. We seem more than capable of creating hell right here. Continue reading “14 November 2021 “Swords and Bullets, Bombs and Drones: A Faithful Response to Human Violence.””