I AM APRIL AND MAY, AND JULY…
Rebellion against the Somoza dictatorship: Easter Sunday, April 4, 1954, on the path to the popular victory of 1979.
“My personal revenge will be the right / of your children to school and flowers. /
My personal revenge will be to give you / this song born without fear.”
Tomás Borge (August 1930 – April 2012).
On Easter, Christians remember the Passion of Christ, not because of death, which is suffering and darkness, but because of Resurrection, which is joy and light. It is the Christian event that gives origin and meaning to the faith professed by a third of the world’s population and 81% of Nicaraguans. Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles, wrote in the 1st. Letter to the Corinthians: “and if Christ is not risen, our faith is in vain” (15:14). The Passion was betrayal and sacrifice, it is commitment and hope, Resurrection is victory… “Death has been definitively defeated. O death, where is thy victory? O grave, where is thy sting? (15:55). Sing the Easter proclamation with joy on the solemn Easter Vigil: “This is the night in which Christ has conquered death…” When Jesus conquered death, Christianity was born, which is the revolutionary commitment of service to others, of hope and of faith. To be a Christian is to be a revolutionary, it is to be at the service of the common good and of those in need: “Blessed are you who are poor, because yours is the kingdom of God.”
Sandino said on 4 May 1927, in the face of the betrayal of the traitors of the Motherland: “It is a celebration because it was on that day that Nicaragua proved to the world that its national honor cannot be humiliated; that there was still children whom with their blood would wash away the stains of others”, for that reason, that date was declared the Day for National Dignity, not because of the Pact of submission signed by Gral. José María Moncada and the North American representative Henry L. Stimpson, under the shade of a black hawthorn tree in Tipitapa, but because of a group of Nicaraguans, – “there were thirty with him” -, that did not agree to submit to the invading troops and together with the Army for the Defense of National Sovereignty, defended the national dignity.
From April to July 2018, three years ago, we need to say: never again! It was the painful and victorious recent path with high costs to overcome the hatred and violence that unleashed destruction and death, that opened old and new wounds and tried to dismantle hope treacherously; that overflowed opportunism; that contaminated instinctive emotions through virtual and media manipulation; which used naivety, which constructed falsehoods and articulated local complicities sponsored by external actors… It was the selfish misunderstanding of the weakening savage capitalism; the decadent oligarchy that refuses to lose its privileges in order to share the benefits with equity.
The Hero of the Segovias said: “The pessimists will say that I am too small for the task I have undertaken; but my insignificance is outweighed by the haughtiness of my patriotic heart, and thus I swear before the country and before history that my sword will defend national decorum and that it will be the redemption of the oppressed.” Rubén Darío wrote in his poem Return: “A vibrant, strong, passionate, haughty People; / People who have the consciousness of being alive…” In it lies the strength of hope, struggle and victory.
April was passion, betrayal, sacrifice and hope, and from the strength and dignity of Sandino’s children, we moved ahead for a victorious July to continue… There were doubts, certainties, betrayals, fears and heroism, panic was sown with threat and terror. The intentions to disturb the peace, upset public order and citizen security, interrupt social, economic and political progress in solidarity and community, were stopped by the popular impetus of dignity, commitment and good will. We celebrate, because death and destruction did not win, and will never win, because life and hope is ours and will always prevail despite adversity. “The virtue is in being calm and strong; with inner fire, everything blazes” (Rubén Darío). We could recognize, in the face of recent history, according to the Mexican writer Octavio Paz: “More than the brilliance of victory, we are moved by strength in the face of adversity.”
We Christians extend our hand, we accompany with fraternity, we build roads and bridges; We Sandinistas do it with patriotism, commitment and self-determination, promoting solidarity for the common good, which is a sign of resurrection for the construction of a better world, it is Easter that is renewed and strengthened. The 12th century Muslim Andalusian philosopher, Ibn Rushd Averroes, identifies that “Ignorance leads to fear, fear leads to hatred, and hatred leads to violence. That is the equation.” Fear was fed with lies and misinformation which is a consequence of ignorance and bad intentions, but it did not prevail, because the truth, sooner or later, comes to light, because life will always conquer death. Christianity and all religious beliefs coincide with Buddhism in stating that “love is the supreme method of solving all problems.”
From April to July it was demonstrated that violence, confrontation, manipulation and destruction are not the way, but only the path toward failure; that our successful inclusive model and this imperfect human society must undertake their own legitimate path to move forward together, with “a preferential option for the poor”, to offer the most vulnerable and excluded, and everyone, “a real opportunity to live with dignity”, to take advantage, with sustainability, of our natural wealth, human capacities and opportunities as a nation, with equity and for the common well-being, that exceeds private interests. “On July, Julio was born…” says a verse to Julio Buitrago by the young Estelian poet Leonel Rugama. In July, “It will always be 19…”
“It will always be a heroic people, always advancing without retreating. / They sowed the sun, they sowed love, / and today we defend life, / the blazing harvest, the revolution.”
Amidst the despair, the destructive fire, the provocation of the coup conspirators, the grief that dismays us, the slanderous insults, the “roadblocks of death”, the pack of “wolves disguised as lambs”, “the malice” sown, the terror and the paralyzing confusion that snatched thousands of jobs, the conditioning and aggressive imperial campaign, the arbitrary and illegal sanctions and threats; Arose, like a growing and fresh natural wave that bathes the coasts of our seas, like the unstoppable blooming of the shoots in the fields with the rains of May, the unconditional solidarity and thousands of voices, eyes and arms of committed patriots to defend, such as the “Crazy Little Army” named by Gabriela Mistral, the sovereignty, dignity and the obligation to continue on the path of prosperity that we have undertaken with firm optimism, without stopping the march due to the pain caused which dismays us, but always looking straight ahead with enthusiasm, joy and with the certainty that victory is ours.
Health and Peace.
