S. Brian Willson in Nicaragua - "… the world needs your revolution"

Remarks by Compañero and Peace Hero, S. Brian Willson at the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua

Managua, September 1st 2020

… the world needs your revolution, you need your revolution, I need your revolution…

What we really need to understand is, without empathy, we cannot survive as a species. It is that social feeling that unites all humans. So, my future is linked to your future, and maybe vice versa.

- S. Brian Willson, UNAN-Managua, September 1, 2020

 

I first came to Nicaragua in 1986. And I was desperately looking for the beginnings of a revolution in the United States after returning from Vietnam. Because I realized that in the United States we didn't really have race or class consciousness. There was an unconscious feeling of exceptionalism. I should say it was a very conscious feeling, even though it lacked consciousness. And from the Vietnamese struggle I realized how important revolution was to deal with the invading forces that you don't want in your country. After a month there, I knew I was on the wrong side. In other words, I was the enemy. And that was a very radical understanding that went deep into my being, into my consciousness. And then, as I studied the history of my country in detail, I realized that, from the beginning, America was a society based on white male supremacy. As far as the Indians, and the blacks and the browns, and the poor whites and the women, it was a police state. And having been a Eurocentric white man, I had not recognized that feature of our history. So I began to study revolutionary processes because I thought that we had never had a real revolution in the United States before, but a revolution of property owners replacing the king of England. But it wasn't a question of consciousness.

So, I started to study different revolutions in the world besides the one in Vietnam, including the one in El Salvador, Nicaragua and even Guatemala with the indigenous people. And it was in Vietnam that I discovered something very basic, but which was radical for me, because I had an explosion of empathy. I didn't know I had it [inside me], but it's a basic, fundamental human attribute that cannot be eliminated. However, it can be conditioned, [or suppressed], outside of you, by virtue of what you learn about what you have to do to make money.

As I discovered my own false identity as a Eurocentric white male, I began to discover my true nature. And this is something I discovered in the communities with the Vietnamese. They were in their villages, and I was a stranger in their village. And I realized how "authentic" they were compared to me. I was like an ideological robot sent to support the American empire, or rather, the empire of the United States.

When I arrived in Nicaragua in 1986, I actually came to study Spanish (believe it or not) in Esteli. And I still can't speak Spanish, which is very embarrassing because I went to three different schools. But I never forgot the spirit of the Nicaraguan revolution. I kept coming back again to learn more and more about the war. And I kept returning to the States repeating constantly that what we need in the United States is a revolution like the one in Nicaragua. Of course, we haven't had one in the United States yet.

And I've been to 25 countries studying U.S. foreign policy. It's the same pattern everywhere. It's about lies and exploitation, which causes a lot of suffering. And because the collective consciousness of the United States has never faced any serious adversity since the Civil War, 150 years ago, there's a kind of a comforting feeling among the [American] population that they are superior to everyone else. Which, of course, is a lie. It may be to cover for a feeling of inferiority, but it makes it very difficult to organize a genuine leftist movement in the United States. Because there are actually 20 generations through whom this notion of us being a kind of 'special people' has been passed down. [This is true], even among people who call themselves "liberals. So, this is another reason why your revolution is so important. Because the world needs your revolution, you need your revolution, I need your revolution.

It's all about consciousness. It is about having a super awareness of justice, fairness, honesty, dignity. We don't have any of that in the United States. And the torture-murder of George Floyd, on May 25 of this year, ...that 8 minute and 46 second video taken by a 17-year-old teenager, of a police officer named Derek Chauvin, with his knee on George Floyd's neck as he handcuffed him behind his back... while he was lying on his back [pinned to the ground]. That video went viral all over the world. It was a very good picture of 400 years of white supremacy, of 400 years of persecution, degradation of blacks and Indians, and has provoked, especially among many young people in the United States, an awareness of how unjust our society is. It comes at an interesting time when we have the pandemic, which has effectively destroyed the U.S. economy. There are 50 million unemployed people in the United States right now and 40 million people about to be evicted from their homes. Half of the small businesses are not expected to recover. And at the same time, we have this president named Trump, who has actually exposed this very ugly nature of American culture. So, in a way, his presence serves an important historical function, because now more and more people are realizing how ugly their culture is.

This doesn't mean that there aren't many wonderful people in the United States, but the collective culture is vulgar. Trump currently has 85 million supporters on Instagram. And he has somehow validated the racism that was already present in our country. So, we have a lot of young, and even old, well-armed white supremacists, most with AR 15 assault riflesⁱ, and already in the last two weeks we've had the first shootings. And so, we desperately need a revolution of consciousness in the United States. It's not clear what's going to happen, even in the next two or three months. The whole political system in the United States is totally corrupted, and rigged and fixed. It is not broken. It's doing exactly what it's supposed to do. That's why we need a nonviolent, consciousness-raising revolution in the United States so that people, for the first time, understand that they are not superior to others.

As some of you already know, the latest U.S. plan is to launch a cyber war against Nicaragua called RAIN - Responsive Assistance in Nicaragua. So, it's going to be very important for all Nicaraguans to be very vigilant and probably have their own super-engineers-software specialists as an antidote. But, in any case, this is nothing new for Nicaragua. The United States has been constantly on your neck. But this is the latest plan, and it talks about "destroying public order" and "creating violence" in Nicaragua. Therefore, it is going to be very important for those of us from North America who live here, and for all Nicaraguans, to be in super solidarity with one another, because the United States will never give up. It's a psychopathic culture. Its entire history is based on theft and exploitation. I feel that I had a change of consciousness in Vietnam, and many people have changes of consciousness in various ways, but what we really need to understand is, without empathy, we cannot survive as a species. It is that social feeling that unites all humans. So, my future is linked to your future, and maybe vice versa.

I want to thank you for this special recognition that you have bestowed on me and for being persistent in your revolution, which is a model for other countries, including the United States. So, I hope we can all work together to stop the monster of the North. It will take all of us.

• Muchas gracias.