Save Us, Dear Lord, from the Politicians

The use of lies on the part of politicians has been indiscriminate, immeasurable and crushing, even knowing their uselessness.

By Edgar Tijerino (Confidencial)

HAVANA TIMES – The guerrilla fighters who led the revolution [against Somoza] turned into politicians and were never again to be believed in. Not only that, they came to be repudiated, with all the recognition they had earned shattered to pieces, and the respect that we had for them buried under the ashes of Pompeii.

That catchphrase: “Politics is the art of deceit” now only functions slightly. It’s effective for fools. Here on our home turf in Nicaragua, all the masks have fallen away. Between the repression that the majority suffer and the humiliating submission of those who don’t appreciate what liberty means – perhaps because they feel they’re incapable of opening a path to the future – we know who’s who.

There’s no way to hide when your shadow and your shame pursue you implacably. You can ask Evo Morales, wandering lost among the ruins of a well-earned legacy, eaten away by his political ambitions when he betrayed his own principles, as happened here.

Accustomed to galloping on the colt of opportunism, the politicians make their appearance on the scene in search of a way to insert themselves into a movement that’s been the product of youthful impulse and the support of the Catholic Church, with the addition of diverse sectors of an apparently indifferent society that sprang awake in 2018.

At that moment, there were no politicians to be seen there. One of the few business leaders who was on the scene belligerently, taking risks, was Piero Coen, the son.  Obviously, there are other exceptions, who have dedicated themselves to a cause without personal pretensions, but they’re very few.

Since the nineteenth century when they brought in the Filibusterers to try and make William Walker president of Nicaragua, through the years of the canal treaty that would have given the United States legal jurisdiction for 99 years, renewable, and on through so many other disastrous negotiations, including the pact that Aguero made with Somoza and the one Ortega forged with Aleman, the collective resume of our politicians is dismal.

The use of lies on the part of the politicians has been indiscriminate, immeasurable and crushing, even knowing their uselessness.  Promises made by guerrilla leaders: “Dawn will no longer be just a temptation”; “Police, guardians of our joy”; “We’re forging the new man”; “No more dictatorships, no more torture;” “Zero usury, zero poverty”; and especially, “Free country or die” were archived in the mountain range of the forgotten when those leaders became politicians, while the country returned to a thicker darkness than it was in before, with its feet and hands more tightly bound.

What the politicians have always sought is an easy life and the accumulation of privileges, something that a system like this, expert in distortions, guarantees, with the clarion call of the bugles. Don’t look for any resignations among those who are to be found ensconced in the benches of effrontery, without a care for the cries emanating from this little Nicaragua.

The firm and heroic resistance offered for the past year and a half isn’t the result of the politicians, although some may have added themselves on to it. It’s the product of the effort, daring and sacrifice of this patriotic, enthusiastic, and unbreakable youth, whose efforts are graphically displayed in every step that we make in the Museum of Sacrifice that’s been set up in the UCA (Central American University). A youth who, as Machiavelli would say, knows that nothing grandiose is obtained without danger.

That’s the immense force of the blue and white sector, that gave shape to those marches, whose memory inspires panic in the trembling spheres of power, who of course don’t ever want to see them again [on the streets], because they allow them to measure the gigantic rejection of a society that has reached an unstoppable boiling point.

That the politicians contaminate everything has no need of proof, and it’s what must be avoided. They’re all known quantities, and as a result not at all trustworthy.  Lord save us from them.