This perceptive analysis about the lack of unity among the Nicaraguan opposition and what is needed to achieve it was written by Zoilamerica Ortega Murillo, the first-born daughter of Rosario Murillo, who in 1988 denounced Daniel Ortega for years of sexual abuse, and who years ago applied her personal experience of abuse to her analysis of what the dictatorship has done to the country.
By Zoilamerica Ortega Murillo
In DIVERGENTES Oct 30, 2022
I have had a long-term relationship with “politics” and “the political”. I was born into it. It was in the family history, in the relationship of my grandmother with Sandino and in the anti-Somocism that was the air I breathed from my infancy. Over time, I learned that the only different between “politics” and “the political”: politics has […]
I have had a long-term relationship with “politics” and “the political.” I was born into it. It was in the family history, in the relationship of my grandmother with Sandino and in the anti-Somocism that was the air I breathed from my infancy. Over time, I learned that only difference between “politics” and “the political”: politics is perceived by many as a scenario foreign to daily life; something that requires accumulating medals, trophies, awards to participate in. In summary, achievements to turn you into a public image that might justify reaching a different status. Nevertheless, in my particular experience, “politics” was something like a bubble to which one can belong or not. In it there are several dichotomies; do you study to become a politician, or do you have to participate in some “struggle”, battle or real or symbolic war to be a politician? If the latter were true, the conclusion would lead us to think that you must nearly be a hero to be a politician.
To complicate this reflection, basing myself also on my own experience, I assumed three variables: political hierarchies, political ideology and the “political line”. This triad would always ensure political power. In my moments of adolescence doing politics, I focused on these three things. First, protecting a political leader, trying to make sure nothing separated me from the political doctrine that I had learned, and a blindness that conditioned me to never discuss orders, but accept them with the submission of a true daughter of politics. Today, some of the experiences cited are the causes, among many others, of the fact that we have an authoritarian dictatorship and a political culture that abuses us.
In the current context, the liberation of our Nicaragua has stumbled over obstacles that seem to be as strong as the pathological attachment of the dictatorship itself with power. One of them has been the difficulties to have a large concentration, the organizational unity that would allow methods of resistance and civic struggle to be coordinated, and of course, for a programmatic vision for the future country to be able to be conceived. It is summarized in an alliance of groups that would allow all of us to know that we are going to get out of the dictatorship together and that, the day after the end of the dictatorship, we will be prepared to begin the reconstruction of our Nicaragua.
When you think about the list of reasons why we the different opposition groups are not walking together in an organized way, and some even flee from the so-called “unity”, every type of argument exists. Some are factors that combine historical, ideological and emotional elements. There are those who refuse to unite because they swore to not commit themselves to those who in the past acted in one or another manner. Others do not support unity because of the distrust that alerts them to the possibility of being betrayed by the same people as always. No one wants to run the risk, much less, pay the consequences. There are also those who propose themselves incapable of finding middle ground on ideological issues, such as the free market, gender or spirituality, among others.
To these arguments are even added the never resolved questions about the narrative and methodology for gestating these political alliances. Should it be called dialogue? “No, because before dialoging I need to know exactly what we are going to dialogue about,” say some. And if we call it “negotiation”? “No, because we have nothing to negotiate. We are united only to overthrow the dictatorship and we do not need anything else.” So, do we call it an “agreement”? “No, because that sounds like a pact and pacts are not seen in a favorable light.”
Needles to say that to these questions are added ones about the protagonists of the processes mentioned: With whom does a consensus need to be reached? With whom do you need to unite? And then come responses that devolve from experience: “No…they do not have people”; “No….they used to be in such and such a group”. Also, the most demanding ones condition their participation on who will represent those other groups. There we make it even more complicated for ourselves, because everyone, as they say, has a history. Added to this is the belief that behind every group there is a foreign government financing the so-called consensus of opposition actors. And then comes the principal suspicion: the very fearful possibility that a dialogue among the opposition is going to lead to a dialogue with the dictatorship. The latter now takes us to the conclusion that it is better to close off all options to organizing ourselves.
In conclusion, we want to join only with those who have never committed political mistakes, with those who ensure us historical rectitude and with whom we coincide on principals and programs.
All these positions ignore the fact that each one of us have been immersed in a context of brutal political violence. Our organizations and we as people are survivors or victims, or participants in this battle. All of us have a history, and in addition to that, we have all suffered betrayals, disillusionments or we have had to mutate from one group to another because someone purged us, distrusted, or saw us as a threat. We forget that the dictatorship did a meticulous and successful work of connecting us to them in some moment of their history. The dictatorship has tarnished our well-intentioned banner or, what is worse, created opportunistic divisions among us for their own convenience and we fell into the temptation of separating ourselves from some group and joining another. We all come from some piece of Nicaragua. We all come from some organization that was dismantled by internal conflicts or that the regime dismantled.
Doing this above description, everything seems to refer to the dimension of “politics” or “the political”: we forget that those who represent us in groups and organizations in all these processes are people. Within each one of us there are emotions, feelings, subjectivity, history… Said another way, the distrust, fear, doubt, warnings and repressed anger, or the antipathy toward a person (even though it be in the political sphere) are factors that form part of the area of the personality.
In opposition to all this, attitudes and values are needed, that is, social, emotional, and political competencies in order to be capable of accepting the other. It is a matter not of always imposing my criteria as the most important, of learning to relate with someone without giving them all my trust. It could be added that self-esteem is needed to have leadership without always being in the front row. Humility is a virtue that accompanies the capacity to cede the visible place to the other in an alternating and rotating way. Maturity is needed to recognize that it is now time to take a step back and cede representation to another generation; accepting that I am not the best bridge for transiting toward the future. All this demands of us an act of human greatness and profound personal coherence.
So, is personal coherence something different from political coherence? The question maybe is not understood until it is experienced. In my own history of violence, I have learned that the personal is political. Having a type of personal conduct different from political conduct implies a contradiction and a double standard. And that is why it is important that, sticking to the truth and ethics, we begin to recognize that we have not achieved political unity against the dictatorship because neither have we been able to accept ourselves and unite as different human beings. And political commonalities can be difficult, but human commonalities are in our essence.
Proposing for ourselves a consensus of ideas, purposes and vision of change and freedom for Nicaragua requires, first, being capable of having personal will. And I do not believe that people who do not accept one another, that cannot shake one another´s hand, look each other in the eyes or listen to one another can even find the minimal amount of political commonalities. The lack of acceptance leads us to intolerances, stigmas, prejudice, and a series of barriers that, in the end, justify our incompetency to discover in “the others”, be they called the left, the right, or another current, minimal points for the liberation and reconstruction of Nicaragua.
And if the personal is political, in this moment of my life I am learning about the congruence of accepting complementarity with love, embrace, and laughter, and even allowing myself to be intrigued by what is different. I dare to seek out what is different to understand it, to learn from it and even receive it in my heart for the rest of my life. There are surprises in what is different.
It is imperative to recognize that political will is not enough to reach consensus, there also must be personal will. This complementary act of personal will and political will is an ethical demand of Nicaraguan society for those of us who say we want a different country. Our incoherence in the face of the challenge of consensus building has represented hopelessness for Nicaraguans. We are also in the face of the opportunity to create precedents of new forms of relating to one another within the political scenario. To humanize the dynamics of the connections and communication among politicians, who will always be people, we hope, at the service of their community and society.