Echoes of the Sandinista Past in Nicaragua’s Current Protest Moment

In mid-April, protests rocked the small, colonial city of León, Nicaragua – an area known throughout Central America for its vibrant political past. In these demonstrations, citizens of this struggling country rejected their government’s plans to tax workers’ salaries at a higher rate and cut the pensions of current recipients. The government had originally passed these measures as a means of paying for the country’s faltering social security system. As University students, pensioners, and street vendors fled the shots of rubber bullets fired by police forces and erected barricades of burning car tires to shield themselves from such aggression, they did so in front of murals that recounted the city’s past. Upon the walls of León’s streets are paintings commemorating the country’s literacy crusade in which León’s students travelled to the countryside to teach Nicaraguan peasants to read and write during the early years of the country’s late-seventies socialist revolution. The silhouettes of the country’s hero Augusto Sandino – a peasant who waged a guerrilla war against the US Marines during the 1930s – grace the top of a government building. Perhaps most eerily, a painting memorializing a 1959 street battle between University students and the National Guard in which four students were shot dead, lines the very street on which current protesters faced off against the police. In other former Sandinista stronghold cities like Masaya, a city to the southeast of León, protest leaders have declared their independence from Ortega’s government. Masaya was originally the first city seized by the Sandinistas during their late seventies revolution. Since the protests broke out on April 18th, police and Sandinista paramilitary groups have killed more than one hundred seventy Nicaraguans nationwide. Many are still missing. In 2018, the Nicaraguan past surrounds the protests currently unfolding in the present. But, perhaps, not in the way we might expect.

(Pictured: Sandinista guerrillas, 1970s)

While many Nicaraguans are now calling for current President Daniel Ortega to step down, they had once, not long ago, viewed his Sandinista Party’s ascendance as an indication that democracy and opportunity might flourish in the small, Central American country. In July 1979, the Sandinista National Liberation Front successfully seized control of the National Palace in Managua, ending the Somoza family’s four-decade dynasty in the country. In the preceding years, the country’s former President, Anastasio Somoza Debayle, had grown infamous throughout the region for pocketing foreign aid money that flooded into the country after a 1972 earthquake devastated the city of Managua. As a result, Nicaraguan society gradually flocked to the Sandinistas’ guerrilla army, viewing them as an increasingly viable political vehicle with which to finally put Somoza rule to rest.

 As the 1970s ended, the Sandinista Revolution achieved important strides. The Party’s literacy campaigns cut the country’s illiteracy rate by more than half. They instituted equal pay for all genders and extended paid maternity leave for female workers. They distributed formerly Somoza-owned arable land to peasant families, allowing them to form agricultural cooperatives. Many Sandinista-affiliated unions were given seats in the country’s National Assembly, giving ordinary peasants and workers a say in the country’s governing processes. Feminist-led Sandinista collectives pushed for the sharing of community wealth among men and women, as well as an increasingly shared form child rearing. With this initiatives, Nicaraguan feminists hoped to reform the traditionally patriarchal nature of Nicaraguan society. In 1987, with the assistance of queer activists from the Bay Area, the Sandinista Ministry of Health established some of the first AIDS Prevention Programs in the Americas. Internationally, the Sandinistas were imbued with a sense of hopefulness. A chance to create a democratic form of socialism in a country formerly run by intense kleptocratic, oligarchical rule. Everyone from British punk rockers The Clash to then Columbia University student Bill de Blasio celebrated the Party’s achievements. Thousands of US citizens travelled to Nicaragua during the 1980s to support the Revolution. Encouraged by the Sandinista government's reforms, hoards of international leftists and progressives would assist in building schoolhouses, paint revolution-themed murals, help to harvest nationalized coffee and cotton, and even build hydroelectric dams in rural communities.

(Pictured: Sandinista Literacy Crusade, early-1980s)

(Pictured: The Clash's great 1980 album "Sandinista" that featured a tribute to the Nicaraguan socialists on their song "Washington Bullets." More punk rock tributes to Nicaragua can be found in the Minutemen's "Song for Latin America," Pink Section's "Jane Blank," and even in the pages of Maximum Rocknroll. The long-running punk zine published a report on Nicaraguan socialism entitled "Nicaragua is Punk Rock" in 1988.)

Yet, such progress remained short lived. As the Reagan Administration covertly pumped millions of dollars into Nicaraguan counterrevolutionary forces known as the Contras, the Sandinistas re-financed their national budget towards defense in an attempt to defend the Revolution. This reallocation of the budget resulted in Sandinista social programs falling by the wayside. Counterrevolutionaries burned agricultural cooperatives and destroyed the schoolhouses of the literacy crusade. Inflation soared. Due to a 1985 U.S. economic embargo, food and medicine became increasingly scarce. In 1990, Nicaraguan voters, weary of the Revolution’s ability to create equality amidst Contra violence, rejected Sandinista President Daniel Ortega for the UNO Party’s candidate Violetta Chamorro, a politician with ties to the Contras and more favorable to the interests of the United States.[1] The Sandinista Party was never the same.

(Nicaragua, 2018) 

The Daniel Ortega protested by Nicaraguans today is not the Ortega of the 1980s, but one that emerged after the Revolution’s end. After 1990, Sandinistas leaders bought up nationalized farms, businesses, and buildings in order to prevent them from being sold into private hands under the policies of a new administration. Yet, even after Nicaraguans re-elected Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas to the Presidency in 2007, these lands still remain in private hands. Such policies have allowed Sandinista leaders like Ortega and others to amass personal fortunes. After the election, as a means of winning over the Catholic vote, Ortega imposed some of the harshest abortion restrictions in Latin America. He has also consistently pursued economic policies designed to accommodate big business as a means of keeping them content. As of 2016, Daniel Ortega has begun his third Presidential term of the twenty-first century. His Party controls the most powerful offices of government and courts.

(Pictured: Nicaragua, 2018)

Many will want to paint these protests and the country’s current woes as ones illustrating socialism’s failure. Among the Right, comparisons to past socialist nations’ political woes abound.  Yet, as I have tried to show, the Sandinistas of 2018 are not the Sandinistas whose utopian aspirations were lauded by the international Left during the 1980s. This Party was significantly crippled by the aggression of the Reagan Administration, along with its goals of equality. In fact, the Sandinistas’ 1980s Minister of Culture and Party defector, Ernesto Cardenal, has repeatedly referred to the modern Sandinistas as a “family dictatorship.” Such a phrase inevitably brings to mind the very family that Ortega and his Party fought to overthrow almost forty years ago in the same squares and streets that protesters now occupy. Cardenal’s sentiments are echoed words of former Sandinista ambassador to the United States Alejandro Bendaña:

“We consider ourselves Sandinistas and believe that Ortega and his cohorts betrayed the Nicaraguan revolution. So, what we’re trying to—we are part of this broad movement that wants him out, but we do not renounce our ideals. We do not renounce Sandino. We do not renounce our identity. But he has to go, if there is any prospect of Nicaragua re-embarking on a path toward, first, reform and, eventually, more structural, institutional change. He is now the principal obstacle, as seen from a left perspective.”[2]

 Much like Ortega and his comrades once did, protesters in cities across the country are holding their leaders accountable.

(Pictured: The Ever-present comparison, 2018) 

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[1] News reports have recently covered Daniel Ortega as never being democratically elected during the 1980s, yet he was, in fact, elected to the presidency in 1984 by the Nicaraguan people. Prior to this election, a National Junta comprised of varying political factions governed the country. While I do not support Ortega in the present, I feel that this is important to point out.

[2] This quote is taken from a recent interview with Alejandro Bendaña on Democracy Now! The full segment can be found here: https://www.democracynow.org/2018/6/7/students_push_to_oust_nicaraguan_president

The Fans Must Have Their Say!: The Merits of Fandom

“But this threat is cathartic, a real cool time is had by all, and the end is liberation.”

- Lester Bangs, “Of Pop and Pies and Fun: A Program for Mass Liberation in the Form of a Stooges Review, or, Who’s the Fool,” 1970

Lester Bangs is one of my favorite writers. He’s got his problems, definitely. But, the way he dissects rock n’ roll - its historical legacies, its ridiculousness, and ultimately youthful, and thus ephemeral, nature - is admirable and refreshing. An album like the Stooges’ Fun House is not just an album to him, but a program of mass liberation. For him, rock n’ roll is a way of rediscovering some sort of youthful form of exuberance, the kind of feeling easily killed by the cynicism that often accompanies old age. His writing is one of a constant search for an authentic emotional experience associated with the guttural, impulsive experience of infatuation associated with hearing a simple, thumping rock song. An attempt to regain those youthful, utopian visions of the future associated with the early-to-mid 1960s amidst the bleak economic downturns and hard-drug infested realities that embodied the music scenes of the 1970s, the period in which the many of his most celebrated pieces were written.

It’s wild how constant this quest for utter liveliness is in his writings. It pops up everywhere. In this sense, his writing shuns any false sense of objectivity. The music he reviews has a deeply personal significance for him, one that has less to do, maybe, with the actual substance of the song’s intention and more to do with what HE WANTS to get out of the song.  Of course, this approach has its potential downsides, as many songs have very explicit messages and takeaways. That’s fair. But, I think this also reveals something about sharing art forms with other, sometimes nameless and faceless, persons that I think is important. After enough people have heard a song, is it really in that writer’s possession anymore? Or, does it become something bigger, something simultaneously collectivized and individualized, interpreted by those faceless persons for their own means. I think what’s really neat about reading Bangs’ musings is that they reveal so much more about albums like Astral Weeks and Fun House that I’d never considered before, albums I’ve listened to and read about, what seems like, thousands of times. His interpretation, although distant from the musicians’ own perspective, is one that’s worth hearing and considering. His excitement for music is nearly as exhilarating as the music itself. And, as a frequent audience member and music dork myself, It really makes me appreciate the merits of being a fan.

Lester Bangs as ABBA fan

It’s been almost three years since I’ve been in a band. Sometimes I miss the artistic release of playing music with friends, but I also find something equally rewarding in watching both friends and strangers alike rock out from a distance. Sure, there are plenty of bands I’d rather just be outside smoking a cigarette for, but there’s plenty more that I feel like I really get something out of by watching and experiencing. I love interpreting and decoding what’s exactly going on at the show. Like, is there anything political about a drummer’s style – the way they shun the conventions of elaborate fills in favor of a simple, plodding beat that elevates the collective nature of the sound rather emphasizing the musician’s own personal skill? Who are these chill, yet religious Unitarians? And, why are they so seemingly down to let punks use their facilities for wild forms of expression in cities throughout the United States? Do they see some sort of connection between spirituality and punk rock that I don’t? The constant questions are great, but so is the infectious nature of the music. That altered state of consciousness brought on by plodding drum rhythms, sick guitar riffs, and barely audible vocals slightly emanating from shitty PA speakers is what keeps me around and interested in spending my weekends at punk shows. This is something that all music fans experience; yet it is also something that seems strangely under-discussed.

Punk Rock is a somewhat confusing environment in which to be a fan because the lines between the audience and performers are somewhat blurred. Band and audience members are often friends. They drink beer and smoke cigs together on backyard patios in between sets at the warehouse and basement spaces that they both often frequent. It’s somewhat taboo to get over-excited about a band and approach them with your overflowing praises. They’re there to have a good time too and no one wants the egalitarian nature of the underground aesthetic messed with too heavily. To cross these lines too explicitly is referred to as “punishing” – a phrase I hear musician friends use a lot to connote the experience of being cornered by an audience member to only experience having their ear talked off – or, maybe talked AT – about how great their band is for minutes on end. I get the annoyingness of this inevitable outcome of a good set, but I also want to assert its importance. Sometimes the obligatory “good set!” comment just seems insincere. It feels good to get excited about music every once in a while!

55,000 Nameless fans with agency at Shea Stadium, 1966. 

If punk is really is as egalitarian as it claims to be, fandom’s importance must be recognized! Yes, everyone should participate - start a band, make a zine, book a show, et cetera - but sometimes it takes a while to work up to that. It’s hard to assert yourself in a scene where everyone seems established or accomplished. Obviously, fandom is a way of working towards participation. Everyone starts as a fan! You need to be inspired to create! But, let’s give the audience a little agency here. Maybe, better yet, it’s a form of participation in itself! That moment of lauding a band’s talents is the one in which the person in the back eagerly watching the music unfold is able to put their own spin on what is happening, explain its importance, and apply it to their experiences. In this sense, a fan’s excitement is not a passive act. We are not simply watching, but experiencing and interpreting.  We are not just bobbing our heads along to a band’s song, but USING the band’s song to express something about our ourselves.

Phil Ochs pays homage to his fans, 1970. 

I guess I wanna say it’s okay to LOVE a band, even if it is your friends’ project, maybe especially if it is. We shouldn’t have to feel lame about it because it often brings new value to songs that have been played probably dozens of times. It’s what makes artistic expression in a public forum continuous. Musicians would still in their bedrooms, singing into their 4-track recorders if it weren’t for us! THE FANS MUST HAVE THEIR SAY!

Sharing Authority

In artist Fred Wilson’s conversation with numerous museum curators, he reveals that he was ultimately drawn to the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore for his Mining the Museum project because it made him uncomfortable. “I’m a black man, and I went to an institution about the 19^th century where they had basically nothing (on display) about black people in a city that was majority African-American.” [1] As public institutions whose exhibitions presumably change over time, historical museums have an important opportunity not only to cultivate interest in history among visitors, but to right past institutional wrongs. By sharing authority with local communities, artists, and others without public history backgrounds, museums can create exhibitions that truly feel public in their representation and involvement of potential visitors. As the edited collection Letting Go: Sharing Historical Authority in a User-Generated World shows, there are numerous ways of completing such a task.

In the example of Fred Wilson’s Mining the Museum exhibit, museum curators invited in a local artist – untrained in the skills of museum curation – to use the Maryland Historical Society’s collection in creating an exhibit that addressed historical themes and topics lacking presence in museum displays. In the displays, Wilson placed slave shackles next to ornate silverwork, communicating American opulence as derivative of the upper-class’ use of slave labor.[2] Wilson’s displays ultimately resulted in mixed reviews. Some positive and some utterly appalled. Yet, this exhibit – in an extremely visceral sense – filled in the narrative gaps missing from the Maryland Historical Society for decades. Through the act of shared authority, Mining the Museum moved beyond representations of white bourgeois identity and showed the darker flipside that had provided for such comfortable lifestyles in Maryland’s nineteenth century past – slave labor.

Another example of shared authority once again enabling more inclusive exhibit is seen in the Oakland Museum of California’s section on Native California in the museum’s Gallery of California History. In this exhibit, Native Californians themselves structured the exhibit’s content, determining the focus of the content, editing video commentary, and selecting cultural objects that would be displayed in the exhibit.[3] Museums are often seen unfavorably in Native communities. Considering such institutions’ past as repositories of sacred cultural objects and occasionally human remains taken without tribal permission by anthropologists, such inclusions remain incredibly important.

When OMCA unveiled this exhibition, I remember it being a really big deal. I was in a Native California class at San Francisco State at the time and the teacher insisted that our class go to visit the exhibit. For a large portion of the semester, we had discussed the manner in which Californian anthropologists like Alfred Kroeber and others had looted Native grave sites and cultural ceremonies, storing such objects and human remains for preservation purposes in museums. The fact that the OMCA had consulted many Native Californians including my teacher Kathy Wallace – she is pictured on page 74 - to structure the exhibit around their communities’ historical interpretations and needs represented significant progress including Native communities in their representation. Through sharing authority with the communities that they represent, museums and other cultural institutions, curators gain the ability to correct the institutional wrongs committed by museums in the past.

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[1]Fred Wilson and Paula Marincola, et al, “Mining the Museum Revisited: A Conversation with Fred Wilson, Paula Marincola, and Marjorie Schwarzer” in Letting Go?: Sharing Historical Authority in a User-Generated World, ed. Bill Adair et al. (Philadelphia: The Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, 2011), 231-2.

[2] Melissa Rachleff, “Peering Behind the Curtain: Artists and Questioning Historical Authority” Letting Go?: Sharing Historical Authority in a User-Generated World, ed. Bill Adair et al. (Philadelphia: The Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, 2011), 218.

[3] Kathleen McLean, “Whose Questions, Whose Conversations?” Letting Go?: Sharing Historical Authority in a User-Generated World, ed. Bill Adair et al. (Philadelphia: The Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, 2011), 74.

Controversial Topics in Public History

When Ta-Nehisi Coates came and spoke with the History Department a few weeks ago, he remarked on the ways that historians consistently dispute each other’s portrayals of the past in order to understand history’s many complexities. Oftentimes, such portrayals challenge the ways that nations, communities, and individuals conceive of themselves in uncomfortable and inconvenient ways. “You guys have conversations that most people aren’t ready to have,” he said. In a way, this week’s readings speak to a similar dynamic. In the last forty years, Public Historians have sought to engage the public in such conversations through curated exhibits with varying results. While Museums have often functioned as monuments to the past in a commemoratory fashion, Public Historians in recent years have sought to use an exhibit’s display of the past to address community concerns and provoke larger conversations around controversial topics.

Andrea A. Burns’ 2013 book From Storefront to Monument: Tracing the Public History of the Black Museum Movement examined the development of black history museums around the country during the 1970s and onwards. Responding to a lack of coverage of black histories in nationalistic history museums, black curators applied the black nationalist politics of the late 60s that demanded black community control over its institutions and resources to museum curation. These Public Historians sought to create exhibits that addressed black pasts and engaged with the community issues of the present. For example, in 1969, the Anacostia Neighborhood Museum in Washington, DC featured an exhibit called “The Rat” that addressed rat infestations in the community. While the exhibit eventually proved to be a success, some museum officials argued against “The Rat’s” honest portrayal of urban life. These officials worried that the exhibit would depict the community in a negative light and thus, be rejected by its visitors.[1] In this sense, while museum exhibits can be used as a tool with which to inspire public discussion of difficult topics, those same topics nearly always invite controversy.

A similar case is seen in the National Air and Space Museum’s (NASM) proposed Enola Gay exhibit of the early 1990s. In its coverage of the dropping of atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the exhibit aimed to not present any one particular point of view, but present a variety of interpretations that accounted for the varying experiences affected by the bomb’s destruction.[2] Yet, conservatives and veterans’ groups pushed back against this attempt at wider conversation condemning it as revisionist and anti-American.[3] Ultimately, the intense controversy around the Enola Gay exhibit resulted in its dissolution. Unlike “The Rat” exhibit, the Enola Gay exhibit’s open interpretation of the Atomic Bomb dropping proved too controversial for public acceptance.

While exhibits can provoke important conversations around sensitive issues, unlike academic texts, they must grapple with the issue of public acceptance. The wider audience that an exhibit attracts can certainly be rewarding, Public Historians must straddle a fine line of acceptance between causing contemplation of new historical interpretations and alienating their audiences all together.

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[1] Andrea A. Burns, From Storefront to Monument: Tracing the Public History of the Black Museum Movement (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2013), 95.

[2] Edward Linenthal, “Anatomy of a Controversy” in History Wars: The Enola Gay and Other Battles for the American Past, ed. Edward T. Linenthal et al. (New York: Metropolitan Books, 1996), 18.

[3] Ibid, 21.