News SOS for Journalists Latin America Culture

Photos Photo of the Day Videos

Nicaragua: The Nameless, the Forgotten, and Exclusion

In political discourse

Nicaragua does not need a new group of chosen ones speaking on behalf of “the forgotten,” even if they are younger or have an appealing message.

By Brisa Bucardo (Confidencial)

HAVANA TIMES – Some time ago, I was invited to be part of a Nicaraguan political group in exile. I asked for three months to get to know it and decide whether I wanted to join. I also wanted to know whether, given my ethnic identity, I could put my trust in that initiative.

Less than a month had passed when, during an event, the person in charge publicly introduced me as part of his team. I corrected him on the spot. “I want to clarify that I’m not part of the team; we had agreed that I would take three months to decide.” Later, I was asked why I had corrected him publicly. I replied that if our agreement had not been respected in public, I had no reason to correct it in private.

It was one of my first “red flags.” You don’t have to wait until someone controls an institution or holds public office to see how they relate to power. Sometimes it is enough to see how they react when someone tells them no or sets boundaries.

Before this, I had asked what distinguished this group from others and what they had learned from previous attempts at organizing. Instead, I began repeatedly hearing that they were “the nameless,” “the forgotten,” while they disparaged other groups and their efforts. I remembered something I learned from Miskito elders: Those who speak badly of others to make themselves look good end up revealing more about themselves.

I have no problem questioning the privileges that exist among some political and social groups within the Nicaraguan opposition. It needs to be done. There are inequalities in access to resources and platforms. Young people have reasons to feel frustrated. A generation put their bodies on the line in 2018 and afterward faced persecution, imprisonment, exile, banishment, and hardship.

The problem begins when that very real exclusion feeds a narrative that divides people between those who have family names, resources, and power and those who supposedly never had anything. To politically construct “the forgotten,” you must identify those who forgot them. At that point, the........

© Havana Times