The Return of the Nicaraguan Revolution [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

The Return of the Nicaraguan Revolution
Tuesday, 22 October 2013 00:00 By David L. Wilson, Truthout | Op-Ed

Nicaragua’s 1979 revolution is back in the news, at least in New York City.

On September 23 The New York Times ran a front-page article on the decades-old Nicaragua solidarity activism of Bill de Blasio, now the frontrunner in New York’s November 5 mayoral election. Some two dozen other articles quickly appeared in the local and national press, most of them recycling old perspectives on the thousands of us who, like de Blasio, traveled to Nicaragua in the 1980s to demonstrate our opposition to the Reagan and Bush administrations’ efforts to overthrow that country’s government.

Journalists on the right naturally tended to repeat Cold War charges against the solidarity activists: We ignored atrocities allegedly committed by the leftist comandantes of the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN); deluded by ideology and our government minders, we failed to hear the "whispered anguish" of Nicaraguans in the streets and the market places. Other writers were more balanced in their articles, but no less patronizing. We were "young," they insisted; "fresh-faced," "idealistic" and "more than a touch naïve."

The media consensus was clear: We were credulous communist dupes or else, at best, credulous but idealistic hippies. "Sandalista" was a favorite media putdown back in the 1980s.

More:
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/19543-the-return-of-the-nicaraguan-revolution