Hello Murray,

Yes, I remember our encounter, but not much about what we talked about (Nicaragua, of course, the great love of my life having won out over Brasil and Canada!).

Where are you now? Are you a regular reader of John Riddell’s blog? Do you have plans to visit us again?

The Casa canadiense is stronger than ever. Soon our new, refreshingly young Nicaragua Casa Coordinator — Juan Carlos Jimenez will report for duty. He is the Canadian-born son of Salvadoran liberation theologist Catholic worker refugees to Canada who had to flee for their lives at the time of ARENA’s assassination of Archbishop Romero and his religious colleagues.

But much in Nicaragua has changed, almost all for the better, since your delegation’s visit. Now we are into what an Australian socialist writer, Michael Karadjis, calls the Mark II phase of the Sandinista popular revolution (I had to my embarrassment Google “Mark II” to understand why!).

And we live in more hospitable times for Nicaragua in an otherwise very cruel world. Why do I say that? Because we have ALBA, PetroCaribe, SICA, UNASUR, ALBA, the Banco del Sur, the Sucre, indigenous majority rule in Bolivia, the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela, a PT administration in Brasil, and a Peronist government in Argentina, bordering a Chile once again administered by a Socialist Party president. And the FMLN again won, by a narrow margin, the presidency in el Salvador.

Yes, a more hospitable world for us, partly because the world today is multi-polar and we, as a tiny country of a nation with a mighty history and culture of resistance to oppression and foreign domination, and a people who stand tall like the tayacáns Dario and Sandino, are not alone.

Now, if only someone could help us deal with el Niño and the severe drought that hangs over Central America like a Damocles sword, or a USA Republican Party Santa Fe thesis.

Keep in touch

Felipe Stuart
Managua

2) John spoke about the phenomenon of displacement in space and time of grave ecological and climate change problems, and of how they impact far more negatively on the poor than the rich, and on poor countries much more than on the rich imperialist countries.
3) But, the same point should have been made about the war question. Pax Americana has never known peace. In the semi-colonial world in Asia, the Mid-East, Africa, and Central America war has almost always been the reality in one form or another. In lieu of a world war, the arms industry and the oil-minerals-energy-fresh water moguls have arranged a world of permanent warfare, imperialist intervention, destruction of entire countries (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Palestine, Vietnam, North Korea…Central Africa…From the point of view of the millions of inhabitants of these countries this was/is their First World War. The millions of war displaced persons, refugees and “third world” emigrants (like today´s Central American children“illegals” crossing into the USA) are at once war-, economic-, and ecological-victims and -refugees. In the case of Central America the liberation wars of the 80s were “settled” in negotiations but have now been superseded by drug wars and the mafia-ization of Honduran, Guatemalan and Mexican society. The current US child refugee crisis portends ever more massive population displacement.
4) One idea developed by John merits much more discussion. John writes: “Like the Zimmerwald Movement, we do not rely on the imperialist rulers to take appropriate action; our response to capitalism’s climate change is that only the united determination of the people can overcome the crisis. In responding to climate change, we struggle for freedom, liberation of the oppressed, and socialism.”
In that regard, I believe we need to centre out two interrelated forces for change in our direction.
First, the western hemisphere’s Indigenous movements leading role, particularly their most powerful expressions to date – the Morales indigenous majority rule government and movement in Bolivia; and the Chiapas indigenous resistance in Mexico.
Second, the ALBA alliance and the advance of socialist and anti-imperialist/anti-capitalist processes in Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador. These people-driven processes also manifest some of the most profound and viable measures in defence of Mother Earth. The global Eco socialist movement has much to learn from what is happening in the ALBA world.

Well, I look forward to what others have to add about these themes.

Felipe Stuart
Managua