What Does April Mean to Nicaraguan Youth Who Were There?
April 2018 marked the starting point of an unprecedented self-organized social mobilization in Nicaragua.
By Carlos Andres Monterrey (Confidencial)
HAVANA TIMES – There’s no doubt whatsoever that for thousands of Nicaraguans, April is no longer just another month that goes by unnoticed. Today, April is not only on the calendar, but part of the personal story of those who experienced [the 2018] civic rebellion and chose to react collectively to the outrages of the Sandinista dictatorship.
To speak of April is to evoke the memory of events that impelled us to react in a joint but unforeseen manner to injustices that transpired in broad daylight over many years. These injustices eventually led us to retake the public arena, to manifest how fed up we were with the dictatorship.
This doesn’t mean that there weren’t previous desires or efforts to manifest discontent over the dictatorship’s abuses of power, but April marks the starting point of an unprecedented self-organized social mobilization.
But to speak of April is also to speak of all the pain unleashed since then by a dictatorship that – upon seeing its power shaken – let loose all its fury against a defenseless people, who then suffered the most ferocious assaults ever registered in Nicaragua’s recent history. And that translated into all the sorrow that we know today.
For many, April marked the dividing line of a completely different life. It marked the loss of a loved one in the context of the repression; the rupture with a family member due to political differences; being imprisoned or having a loved one in prison; the flight into exile; lost job prospects; and other grievous and equally valid losses.
Naturally each one perceived the conflict within different contexts, situations, and perspectives. Because of that, it gives rise to different emotions. Each individual story is important, because they all form part of our story as a society.
It’s worth asking ourselves, then: What does April signify? How can we open ourselves as a society to understand how the other perceives and experienced the conflict? Why is it important to name it and understand it?
In light of these questions, it’s relevant to ask how we can construct a narrative that gives equal weight to all of the different parts involved when we tell the story, and how we are – or are not – creating spaces of remembrance that define what April means to all of us.
At times we forget that the collective memory is yet immature. In addition, the scattered interests of the individuals or political groups in exile that could make use of public spaces to exert political influence apparently prefer not to take advantage of that resource, in favor of prioritizing other matters.
We stand before a dictatorship that has closed off all independent communication spaces, leaving only government voices, and that makes use of influential collaborators within society in an exhaustive attempt to eradicate all reminders of the peaceful civic rebellion of April 2018, and what it represents for the country.
It’s doing so through smear campaigns about the April cause, insisting that the expression of popular rejection was a “coup d’etat.” In addition, [the government] uses local influencers to promote banal activities that distract the attention of social media. Meanwhile, within the country, Nicaraguans remain utterly forbidden to make any reference to April.
Adding to this, the regime has integrated over 76,887 “volunteer police,” according to a Confidencial article, to collaborate with the work of repression. These hooded “volunteers” have significantly increased the capacity of the National Police for intimidation as the anniversary of the greatest recent mass mobilization in Nicaragua draws near.
Given all this, it’s urgent that Nicaraguan society in exile create spaces of memory, awareness, art and justice around what April represents for thousands of people of distinct positions, races, sexes, religions, ideals or sexual preferences, all of them equally protagonists of the country’s history.
The responsibility of giving new meaning to April and creating spaces of collective memory falls as much on those who remain in Nicaragua as on Nicaraguans in exile. The latter, from a position of liberty, can influence what this date represents to all Nicaraguans. They can also take advantage of the spotlight of the countries they’re living in, and the freedom of expression these places offer them, to speak of what this open wound in Nicaragua represents.
The construction of memory is the road to justice. We can’t let those responsible for so much pain and misery be left in impunity. We need to appeal for a process of transition towards social justice, where those responsible pay for their crimes and the thousands of victims in the country find reparations.
First published in Spanish by Confidencial and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.