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That quote from Victor Hugo was how I felt on the 15 of March 2020 as I prepared for my second trip to Managua. My flight was on the 17th, and one of the first cancelled because of Corona Virus in 2020. So finally after four and a half years wait, I get to return to the country that showed my sister Eleanor and I such kindness in October 2019 and whose minister for health invited me to provide chiropractic care in the Nicaraguan health care system. .
Nicaragua like Cuba appears very different depending where you are coming from. To most American and European tourists, with disposable income to fly to exotic places Nicaragua, the country appears very poor and run down. But to people from countries in the developing world who don’t have access to clean water, free health care and education, it’s impressive. .
I was recently in Tanzania, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. Foreign investment is encouraged, so unregulated travel companies are set up in the “free market”. You send them your money and the company picks you up at the airport in their nice jeep and take you to a hotel (that they might also own) where you are handed over to your guide who will take you up Kilimanjaro or on safari. The guides and porters who do all the work, are not on salaries and have to rely on tips from the tourists as their income. The don’t have medical insurance and if they got injured on the climb, they are just told by the companies, call us when you are better. This could not happen in Nicaragua, as the state provides free medical care, dentistry and education. These services must be freely available to poor people, otherwise for the vast majority their circumstances will never change
Nicaragua is one of the poorest countries in the World, with limited natural resources yet the FSNL government does its best to provide public services their people need, while rich countries like UK and US don’t seem able to. Yet the criticise countries like Cuba and Nicaragua for what they call “ human rights abuses” while in their own countries more impoverished people live, than live in both Cuba and Nicaragua together. Millions are living below the poverty line in UK and US, they struggle to get medical care and education and have to even pay for water. Surely these countries should get their own houses in order before lecturing others on the “human rights” of rich corporations to exploit and take advantage of some of the poorest places on earth. Perhaps it is the political establishments fear of the word Socialism and wealth distribution that bothers them, having to recognise trade unions and use tax payers money to provide good public services, rather than wasting tax payers money on futile wars.
No doubt people will make assumptions about my “politics” and try to pigeon hole me into the narrow caricature from their own experience or the newspaper they read. My politics are believing in fairness and treating people the way I want to be treated. Most Politicians like to polarise issues into binary choices between good and evil, right or wrong, when in reality life is nuanced there are lots of grey areas. What does it mean to “Love your country”, which politicians are always banging on about, when they hate the people who don’t vote for them. Western democracies love to talk about “freedom” ( something you partially give up anywhere, the day you sign a mortgage, unless you are extremely rich) and “democracy”. But for hundreds of years the political establishment in Europe have been imposing their Eurocentric values on countries with different cultures, who rejected them and should be allowed to evolve in their own culture. Surely it was wrong to ethically cleanse the US and Australia of its indigenous people. In Afghanistan imperialism failed, despite the efforts of the British who wanted to make it part of their Empire almost 200 years ago. The Communist Soviet Union tried in the 1980s and Western Capitalists in 2001. All failed because Imperialism halts progress of those people and concentrates the minds of the people on the occupier and their efforts to exert control. It was the way, in my country Ireland for almost one thousand years. Europeans and Americans see themselves as bringing “civilisation” to a country, while to most of the indigenous population there it is oppression. Of course the occupier will present as examples of those that benefit from the occupation but they are always in the minority. Which is why there can never be peace in the middle east as long as Israel occupies and oppresses five million Palestinians on their own land. While the US gives tacit approval of this Apartheid system, most of the worlds small countries, many who were former colonies of the imperial powers object to the occupation.
America claims to be a Democracy, but one needs to raise a billion dollars from corporations to get elected and they call the tune for the policies that will be implemented, not the voters, who are only useful at election times. This is why you end up with presidents acting for donors rather than the people who voted for the marketing campaign. Just look at two salesmen in expensive suits the American people were recently offered as president, one of them was so cognitively impaired the political establishment thought they could get away with having him in office without anyone realising.
Politicians use the term “ democracy” as if it’s some homogenous method of finding a fair method of government. The US democracy is different from the British, which is different from the French which is different from the Iranian, which is different from the Scandinavian system, which is different from the Cuban system. “Cuban system”, that is not democratic I can hear them say, happy to argue it is more democratic than either the British or American systems, something I have done in Westminster over coffee, with conservative MP Ian Taylor the last UK government minister to visit Cuba in 1991. My favourite Democracy is probably the Scandinavian system of proportional representation, where you get more pragmatic government, which is more in touch the people represented. Having lived in Denmark for twelve years through the 80s, I don’t believe there is a better place on earth to live in.
Which brings me to Nicaragua. For almost fifty years the Somoza family ruled Nicaragua, without any elections and was overthrown by a Socialist revolution in July 1979. The Somoza family fled to Miami in US with much of their vast wealth. The Sandinista Revolution and it’s new President Daniel Ortega brought democracy to Nicaragua for the first time, but as the government was socialist, The American president Ronald Regan (where the dictator Somoza was now living) was not having another Cuba in Central America and sponsored a counter Revolution ( Contra terrorists operating out of Honduras). After Ten years of this war the Nicaraguan people had enough and in 1990. The very Democracy the Sandinistas had created voted them out and voted in a coalition of a capitalist government friendly to the US. As in any democracy opposing political beliefs are fostered and the focus is on the economic success of the few, ignoring the lack of public services for the many. So again you end up with a polarised system trying to demonise the those trying to represent the many.
So it came as a surprise to the “ few” in 2006 when Daniel Ortega, was elected President for a second time, and then on two subsequent occasions. The opposition parties and Western Governments try to portray him like another Somoza. The elections must be rigged, it makes no sense of thinking that people would vote for him, forgetting the poor are the many and to a mother with a sick child the only thing that matters is access to health care.
The opposition say the Ortega family are accumulating great wealth and trying to portray them as a new Somoza dictatorship as the did with Fidel Castro, yet the Cuban system has continued long after his passing. If Castro and Ortega accumulated great wealth where is all this money and what is it used for. We don’t see Ortega flying into Davos in private Jets like most western politicians. We don’t see the Ortega holidaying on yachts in Monaco or his wife Rosario who was elected vice on the presidential ticket wearing expensive jewels and high fashion designer clothes. But if they do have great wealth (and I doubt it),they are spending it in the right places, trying to help those that have little. This is illustrated by many of they projects this government have set up ( which I have blogged about here) in an effort to develop better public services which were eroded in much the same way as public services in UK were left on their knees in 2024 after 14 years of Conservative government.
This was why my sister Eleanor and I were shown around the country in 2019 to meet Nicaraguan People see the projects for ourselves and get involved if we so wished. We were very impressed and wished to get involved with NSCAG who support Nicaragua in UK through the Trade Union movement after we returned to the UK in 2019, I met the Nicaraguan Ambassador to the UK a number of times and spoke at a couple of Latin American conferences about my experience. But there you are talking to the converted and am curious if I can broaden the appeal of Nicaragua to those who are not aware or get their information from sources with a vested interest. While my first visit to Nicaragua was funded by the Sandinista Government. I am in the fortunate position to be able to fund my own trips and would not want money being diverted from any projects because I have a big mouth and could be useful to any political group. My mind is not for sale, nor would I do advertising. I have made a good living practicing chiropractic and if I like a product, I don’t need to be paid to tell people about it, its part of the service I provide.
Unfortunately Eleanor is unwell at the moment and could not travel this time but my daughter Molly (bottom right) who is studying biology at Exeter University wanted to see and engage with Nicaraguan youth and environmental projects and she is here with me and hopefully many of my family; Frederik, Noah, Pernille, me, Isabelle, Hugo, Eloise and Molly will also become involved over time and continue the work Eleanor and I began in 2019.
On this trip Molly and I will be living and interacting with ordinary working people in Nicaragua to avoid the accusation of government bias, but to be fair we would be unable to have this experience and get involved in the projects if the government was not funding them.
