The Hate Rhetoric that Encourages Violence Must Be Exposed

The exercise of self-defense of values. Nicaragua is made up of people with a sense of dignity, humanity, solidarity, and with the right to vote.

By Manuel Orozco (Confidencial)

HAVANA TIMES – The escalation of violence in Nicaragua is a more than worrying, a truly alarming phenomenon that transcends the typical low intensity situation of dictatorships.

The ways in which the Government exercises violence, spreads hatred against others, accompanied by a disproportionate and unforgivable anger, official silence and partisan harassment, are signs of a destructive outcome that is dehumanizing its people.

It’s important to expose the violence and protect the efforts for reconciliation and an agreement based on justice and democracy, instead of letting chaos destroy Nicaragua.

The writing on the wall

Experts in studies on structural violence, which often leads to genocide, emphasize that there are at least three factors in the generalization of violence: instability, ideology, and discrimination.

In Nicaragua that is visible in black and white, in the chatrooms or in the official media, in the threats and shouts of hatred from those who take refuge in the circle of power. The worse thing is that now faced with misrule, the prelude to anarchy is violence, the denial of reality and the blame on third parties.

A targeted aggression

For less than a year, acts of aggression have been directed at icons, symbols, from placing graffiti on houses, accusing politicians of being traitors, coup mongers, to the most recent attacks against the icons of the Catholic Church. The signs of this aggression are a clear attack not on a person, but to a collective that wants political reform, who supports something better, not dictatorship.

Uncompromising violence

There is an irregular, disorderly manner within the context of physical aggression that seeks to intimidate middle-level leaders, scare and intimidate peasants, the person working in the street, the woman with children at school, the public sector employee. The violence is verbal and physical. The number of deaths that appear as victims of violence show a heartless intransigence.

The language of hate and contempt

Within the pro-government groups, there are young people with harsh, angry expressions against the opposition, against those who believe there is a dictatorship. They do not tolerate criticism and repress it to death.

It’s true, the annoyance is also mutual, the shouts calling them “sapos” (toads) is not welcome even by the “toad” himself. But on the radio, the aggressive language used by journalists and pro-government activists is not defensible, justifiable or comparable, from “coup-monger,” to “plomo and blood” (bullets and blood).” The problem lies in the explicit contempt for the other.

The denial of reality

Another of the great signs of the arbitrariness of anarchic power is the denial of reality with the manufacturing of false information that seeks to distract and deny. To talk about other things amid chaos.

The official silence

In the face of violence there is the government silence or the official version that denies the truth. There is silence on the abuses and imprisonment as well as the harassment of the mobs that intimidate.

On the one hand, there is the absence of a president who hides before his anxieties and emotional illnesses. Meanwhile, the official version of the police denies the attacks, with a Vice President who attempts to hide reality, speaks of “careful and responsible” care for Covid-19 patients, that the migrants returned fleeing xenophobia, that the commander’s love is greater than the goodness of God. Everything is silence and denial.

Blaming third parties

There is also putting the blame on third parties, on Yankee imperialism and big capital, on the “puchitos” (small number of opposition) and on the unknown. There is no accountability for violence, abuse of power and authority, and the use of force. Attacks against feminist movements to distract from where the violence comes from are another manifestation of a serious social unrest hungry for cruelty.

All this is accompanied of their ideology, a doctrinal body of messages and beliefs that speaks of the other and oneself. The other is that being who is capitalist, bourgeois, imperialist and opportunist. The Ortega ideology uses the Sandinista emblem to shield the political patronage involved and demand loyalty.

Ideology has no philosophy, but a differentiating foundation that gives life and justifies its modus vivendi. Engin Isin says that the genealogy of citizenship lies in the explicit political act of denying others their right to exist as a political animal.

Ortega, through Rosario Murillo’s message, gives their followers grass and fodder when it introduces the Manichean language of their ideology. Good Nicaraguans are those faithful Christians, followers of the commander, those who believe in Sandino and reject the evilness of opponents, coup-mongers and minuscules. Others are not citizens. To politically denaturalize the other is useful and necessary to prohibit protest, the right to vote or to live.

What to do? Expose the violence, confront patience

Nicaraguans have a leathery skin of what Galtung refers to as structural violence. We are a people who breathe harassment, abuse, transgression of the body and politics. Our spaces of expression in clean air, in freedom, are limited by the culture of violence. Nicaraguans need to rehumanize, to prevent violence from eating their children and families, their culture and their humor. And it’s not too late.

In the face of continuous violence and physical aggression, it is important to return to political self-esteem, to exercise self-defense of values and the integrity of the body. Nicaragua as a whole is made up of people with a sense of dignity, with humanity in their solidarity, and their vision of the world.

Those who resort to violence are those who live under narcissism and inferiority complexes, and therefore the first step against aggression is to expose its source. Violence has to be exposed by removing the use of force, imposing the integrity and dignity of being someone who believes in his/her vote, in his/her politics and his/her destiny. Nicaraguans must take control of their narrative, show that their language has a human life and not a passive face. The Nicaraguan is patient but not passive.

It is important to close the gap with debate. If you accuse me of being a coup-monger, explain why. If wanting democracy belongs to imperialists, what is Orteguism? If Orteguism is socialism and reconciliation, why deny the deaths and the pandemic? The narrative is controlled face-to-face, with the one-on-one approach between the accusing finger and the accused. The real risk is not to expose life and die, but to defend dignity and integrity.

It is said that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, in this case, the dissidents.

Consolidate the strength of the political bloc in a single front.

Confront the problem, not the aggressor.