Linda Bimbi
in Peuples/Popoli/Peoples/Pueblos, n. 2 (September 1983)
When it went public, the research had just passed its systematisation stage but the factors that constituted its specific methodology were clear:
1. – Nicaragua is characterised by rapid structural and institutional transformations to which the categories valid for more stable situations cannot be applied, with a past whose components and variables are well known.
2. – Nicaragua is under severe foreign pressure and conditioning.
3. – Nicaragua is a symbol, the object of expectations and prejudices that make the balance between reporting, interpretation and objectivity precarious. It was and is a question of re-inventing a research methodology for emerging peoples.
The public moment of the research, i.e. the seminar, was hastened by the urgency of some clarifications: while Nicaragua burns, we could not wait until our research was well matured to organise a debate destined to have repercussions in public opinion. Indeed, there is a conflict between the occasionality and the systematic nature of the political debate on which we wanted to intervene, in order to escape the occasionality and systematically postulate a reading of the facts. One cannot continue to read from Europe, with the methods followed so far, the history of peoples who are very different in terms of culture and historical project. In reality, we have forced them into the pre-formed schemes of our chronicle and our ideologies, and it is urgent to create new valid points of reference. The seminar was an attempt in this sense, but it was above all the beginning of experiences and reflections that should reformulate precisely the methodology of information.
The various researches were divided into as many round tables, consisting of internal project scholars and external observers. Each panel was coordinated by a journalist specialised in the topic. The topics covered included education, health, the influence of economic choices on cultural models, women’s issues, artistic expressions, the presence of Christians in the revolution and finally the political-institutional aspects, i.e. the question of democracy. The Nicaraguan participants were Ernesto Cardenal Minister of Culture, Carlos Tünnermann Bernheim Minister of Education, Carlos Argüello Gómez Vice-Minister of Justice, the poet Michèle Najlis of AMNLAE. Nicaraguan director Ramiro Lacayo, prevented at the last moment for health reasons, was brilliantly replaced by Venezuelan director Fernando Birri, who organised screenings and debates of great cultural and political interest.
The debate never took on an apologetic tone, even if the unexpected audience of sympathisers that packed the Protomoteca in the Capitol made a real in-depth examination difficult in parts. However, an attempt was made to get to the bottom of the nature of Sandinismo, the strategic and ideological lines of literacy and post-literacy, the cultural transformations and clashes between the old and the new, and the nature of ‘exteriorist’ poetry, which according to Cardenal, being colloquial and capable of actively involving the people, is the only appropriate form for singing the revolution. The problems and debates that have arisen in the poetry workshops, the ‘talleres’, the (very thorny) indigenous question and that of women, still somewhat ambiguous but with prospects of opening up through pushes coming from the grassroots and which are well received in the sphere of legislation, have been exposed. Of course, the hottest topic was the last round table, on institutions and democracy. In fact, all the revolutions of our century have found their ‘tipping point’ when, faced with serious situations of objective emergency, they deemed it necessary to adopt a two-step logic: first defeat internal and external enemies and then advance in the construction of the new society and the new state. Thus, very often threats and aggression have served to accentuate authoritarian characteristics and to make a true project of democracy perish. Research, experience and debate were therefore articulated at this last round table in moments that were also highly dialectical on the functioning of the Council of State, on laws concerning political parties, on the state of emergency, on the initiatives of the ‘comités de defensa sandinista’, on the Junta’s stances on international politics. The Vice-Minister of Justice, Carlos Argüello Gómez, who chaired the round table, insisted that from the very beginning those in charge of the revolution sought to change men before laws. This would explain why, with very few people prepared and among the few a good percentage sensitive to the sirens (high earnings and more comfort) sounding from Miami, they have not yet changed the code of criminal procedure, even though the application is ductile and adapted to the new reality; instead, the Somozista constitution and the death penalty have been abolished. As for the special courts, they functioned at first for the 6,000 Somozi guards, but no death sentence was imposed and the maximum sentences were 30 years for the most compromised. In May 1980, these courts closed and were reopened in May 1983 as the external aggression worsened. The debate was lively on the issue of emergency laws; Argüello argued that normal legislation continues to apply in Nicaragua while the state of emergency is an instrument for exceptional cases. All human rights commissions that have visited Nicaragua recognise that there are no people arrested without trial. If injustices are committed, they are redressed. Argüello knows of more than a thousand cases of reparations that have been positively resolved by the Human Rights Commission.
The debate became heated on the issue of political pluralism: the law for political parties is under consideration in the State Council and should guarantee the possibility of expression in newspapers and the mass audiovisual media; all parties will be present in the State Council and will be able to compete for power as long as they are anti-imperialist and anti-Soviet.
There was also a lively debate on international politics: on the Nicaraguan side, it was argued that Nicaragua was much more aligned with Peru than with Cuba in UN votes.
The general impression gained from this last round table is that we need to be better informed, study more, learn about the small reforms that come from below, evaluate the weight of errors in relation to the absolute exceptionality of the attempt of a revolution besieged by the West and the East and which wants to express its small but profound originality. The ideological reading of the facts is absurd: the peoples who make history have unforeseen resources rich in human and political implications that do not fit into our schemes and that must be grasped with delicacy, application, and attention, in order to release men from the nightmare of the inevitability of predetermined destinies. Dependence on one of the two blocs and on imported models would not be so fatal for the peoples of the South if cultural and information workers in Europe were willing to review methodologies of approach and patterns of interpretation.
in: Peuples/Popoli/Peoples/Pueblos, n. 2 (September 1983)