Carlos Midence
Nicaragua’s Ambassador
Homeland is a word with a deep meaning. In Nuestramérica (our America), and in the case of Nicaragua, it gained strength during the first decades of the 19th century, once it started being introduced into the international geopolitics as an independent and sovereign nation. This process of independence would be developed by the nineteenth-century elites, within the western logic of trying to make of Nicaragua an autonomous State-nation. Nevertheless, this planned process never happened. Decades passed until the Homeland, understood with the current semantic load, took shape. The Homeland we celebrate today did not acquire that character until well into the 20th century. Many battles were fought to achieve it. It was the Sandinista movement the one reconsidering the process of the Homeland’s re-conformation. It promoted, not only its re-foundation, but also that of socio-political practices and categories such as justice, transformation, freedom and others.
Three moments marked the milestone, between the failed process led by these elites and the rebirth of the Homeland: a) the presence of Augusto C. Sandino fighting against the North American intervention; b) the overthrow of the Somocist dictatorship in 1979; and c) the election victories of Sandinism. We say this because people cannot ignore that Sandinism, as a sociocultural movement, was a turning point in that, since the inclusion in the structures of power of the subjects that had always been left aside has been a highly positive process, which has reshaped Nicaragua’s image: women, youth, farmers, native lands and entrepreneurs have become the main figures in the exercise of their rights. Furthermore, this has projected a new image of Nicaragua: gender equality, very high levels of security, socioeconomic stability and fair redistribution have turned it into a real Homeland.
These days, these celebrations are firmly maintained due to the membership, security and feeling that all the activities of the Sandinista Government, presided by the president, Commander Daniel Ortega, and the poet vice-president, Rosario Murillo, offer wellbeing to the community in general. Therefore, this new movement of the Homeland, both regarding its meaning and its creation, entails the deep question of the protection of common social, economic, cultural and ecological purposes.
Having said that, how has Sandinism been able to claim and at the same time reconsider the creation of a Homeland with such a productive appearance? Sandinism has been able to understand and accurately describe what is required to constitute an organization of things consistent with the population’s demands. It has achieved, through different mechanisms: dialogue, horizontality, reciprocity, agreement, elections, among others, to articulate a foundation for the idea and practice of community and, from there, to take the effective ways of the creation of a Homeland seriously.
Since the emergence of Sandinism, the Homeland has been created and promoted as a democratic tool that brings together demands and solutions from nationals, that combines hopes, which enter the dimension of social compensation, solidarity and integration when being materialized. Therefore, a Homeland is created by honouring its symbols, loving it, talking about its independence, its epic achievements and heroes, as we have learned. However, we have re-learned, with Sandinism, to take seriously the way of creating a Homeland, to achieve the dream of the Homeland free of poverty, moving, creating the way towards the common good, as our vice-president always says.
14/09/2017. © All rights reserved.
