Event to commemorate the 41st Anniversary of the National Literacy Crusade
August 23rd 2021
Daniel's address
This day, this date, August 23rd has a very deep significance for Humanity, because the National Literacy Crusade, a work of the Nicaraguan People, fruit of the Revolution, is a contribution of infinite value in the struggle of the world's Peoples against slavery, because to be illiterate is to be a slave. It is one more form of slavery in Modern Times imposed by the Model that accumulates wealth for a few and Poverty for the vast majority of the Peoples.
On a day like today, August 23rd 1791, the first emancipation of slaves took place, slavery where chains were holding down Human Beings, exploited by the European and North American powers.
It was a feat of the Haitian people, of the Haitian slaves, to break the chains of slavery. And that battle inspired the fight against slavery and the fight for Freedom, and against other forms of slavery that existed in Latin America and the Caribbean. And when Bolivar arrived in Haiti, he received in Haiti the Solidarity of the Haitian People to go and fight the great battle in the South of Our America, the great Battle for the Freedom of the Peoples of Our America.
This date was chosen by a Resolution of UNESCO to commemorate the emancipation in the fight against slavery ¡1791! That is to say, today this date is commemorated all around the World. 230 Years in the struggle for the Freedom of those who were Human Beings enslaved by the leaders of the Nations, of the Countries that boasted of being the most democratic, that boasted of being the most respectful of Human Rights, those that boasted of being the most dedicated to God, to the extent that they occupied and used here in Our America the Cross, they manipulated the Cross, the Cross of Christ, to cut off with their swords the heads, the lives of millions of Human Beings.
And the Peoples who were subjected to slavery, including the Peoples of the Caribbean Region, with all Justice and with every Right demand and insist that this crime does not go unpunished, because these are crimes against humanity, committed by those who have committed and put into practice the greatest genocides on the Planet.
And our Caribbean brothers and sisters have demands, demands that we support. As all the Peoples who were subjected to slavery have demands, demands against those who enslaved them and transported them as merchandise, transporting them from Africa to America, to Europe.
The slave trade was big business, the Companies, the big Companies, French, English, European, fully involved in business of the slave trade, in the name of Freedom, in the name of Democracy, in the Name of God and the most terrible thing of all, enslaving the Peoples in the Name of God.
Therefore, this is a date that we, the Peoples of the World, cannot forget. And so there it is, this date was recognized, a date to remember and to demand that the new forms of slavery that have been imposed on the Planet also disappear. And we are fighting this Battle in our America, in the Latin American and Caribbean Region against the new forms of slavery, and in Africa, in Asia, the North American People itself, the European Peoples are also fighting, all together we are fighting this great battle. For the World to have Peace, Justice, Freedom, slavery must disappear, in all its forms.
Today we honor ourselves by awarding the Order of Sandino to a Teacher, to a natural born Educator. And here's a detail that is not a coincidence, namely that we are presenting this Order to a comrade who is also celebrating his birthday today, so congratulations, Happy Birthday Teacher ! On behalf of the People we say to the Teacher, Happy Birthday!
Then too there were recognitions from International Organizations, United Nations Organizations that recognized the success of this Campaign, a Literacy Campaign truly full of Heroism, full of dedication, and where Sister and Brothers from European Nations, like this Brother who accompanies us here, from the United States and Canada too , joined in and participated.
Of course, the Solidarity came not from those who hold the Power, who promote, apply and practice new forms of slavery against their own Peoples, not to mention against the Peoplesin Developing Countries, against African Peoples, the Peoples of Asia, the Latin American and Caribbean Peoples.
Thousands of Sisters and Brothers joined directly, many of them participating in the Crusade, others contributed with materials from their countries, lamps for example, thousands of lamps were sent by Brothers and Sisters motivated by Solidarity from European countries, even from the United States.
And a very widely recognized medal, the Nadezhda Krúpskaya Medal, when in 1987 the Territory of Río San Juan was declared 97% literate, almost 100% literate, look what a feat that was, it was declared the first territory free of illiteracy in Nicaragua. And who was at the head of that column of literacy educators? Professor Orlando Pineda, he was at the head of that column. It was a real feat. Of course, there were other areas, other Regions with very high illiteracy rates, but not as high as the one in that Region.
On this Anniversary we have to remember and recognize all the Literacy Sisters and Brothers, the Literacy Students, and too the humble families, the peasants, who provided shelter and food for the Literacy Students. It was a meeting between the Literacy Educators who came from the City, with the Children, the Youth, the Adults who were in the Countryside, and the Countryside was where there were the most Illiterates.
And the Western Front "Rigoberto Lopez Perez" covered Chinandega and León, especially in the neighborhoods, the marginal areas, in the urban areas of Chinandega and Leon where there was more illiteracy, And as we reached the Municipalities of those Departments and in each District of those Municipalities, there was an abundance, as we have said, of Nicaraguan Sisters and Brothers who had received, as a kind of cursed inheritance, extreme poverty, illiteracy, as a result of the imperialist domination.
Because who governed Nicaragua in those years, if it was not the Yankees, who put Governments in place, removed Governments, and invaded, as they invaded Nicaragua so many times, and then they had the Somozas for more than 40 years, arming them, so that a ruling class was strengthened, a ruling layer that enriched itself, with a blindfold, heartless, as to be able to have as little compassion as possible for the people who were living in Misery and Poverty; the people who made their capital for them.
Well, that was the Democracy imposed by the Yankees, blessed by the Yankees, armed by the Yankees, and also endorsed by the European Powers, who made a common front with the Yankees, when it was a question of confronting Peoples who were fighting then and are fighting now , and who continue fighting and will continue fighting against the new forms of slavery in Our America and in the World.
The Central Front "Camilo Ortega" incorporated the Departments of Masaya, Carazo, Managua, Granada; the Southern Front "Benjamin Zeledon" covered Rivas and Rio San Juan; the Eastern Front "Carlos Roberto Huembes" cvered Chontales, Boaco and El Rama; the Northeastern Front "Pablo Úbeda"covered Matagalpa, Jinotega, Zelaya Sur, Siuna, Bonanza and Rosita; the Northern Front "Carlos Fonseca": Jinotega, Estelí, Matagalpa, Nueva Segovia and Madriz.
And with what weapon was this battle fought? It was fought with the weapon of Solidarity, with the truly Christian practice of Loving your Neighbor as yourself, and if my Neighbor cannot read and write and I can already read and write, then, and I call myself a Christian and I put that into practice.
While the lord Bishops, I knew when I was a boy those lord Bishops, because even a great-uncle, Marco Antonio Ortega, was the Principal Bishop of Nicaragua, and what was the great feat of Marco Antonio, the Bishop? To become an accomplice of the System, of the Regime.
In other words, initiatives like these were not promoted and could not be promoted, simply because there were no conditions, no Values, no Principles that could come from those who held Power in the State, in the Government, either the Power of Arms or the Religious Power. No, they simply did not!
Remembering well the grandfather-uncle, when the Yankee troops were here in Nicaragua, and the extreme he and Monsignor Antonio Lezcano y Ortega, Marco Antonio's brother, well, there are the photos, there are the photos of their shame; the Bishop blessing the Yankee troops with all the rifles lying there. There was no Love of Neighbor, there was no Christ in their practice.
But with the Triumph of the Revolution, Values were established, Values that enabled Nicaragua despite being a Country with great economic limitations, with a great deal of Poverty, Extreme Poverty, it still managed to reduce Illiteracy.
Illiteracy here was already up around 60% when the Revolution triumphed, that is to say, out of every 100 Nicaraguans only 40 could read and write. And how many managed to reach primary school and how many managed to pass the sixth grade, if everything had to be paid for? And how many managed to graduate from high school, for which they were much less able to pay? And how many managed to become professionals?
That could only be done by a Revolution full of Love for our Neighbor, full, therefore, of Love for Christ and Christian Practices, and that is why we have said, and we affirm it, that our Practice here is Christian and Socialist, based on Solidarity.
But then we left the Government in the 90's and the Government was taken over by those who were subjected to the power, to the interests of those who had dominated Nicaragua, those who had supported the Somozas for over 40 years; they took back the Government, and the Yankees were happy, the Government, not the North American People, the Yankee Government was happy, because they felt that they were taking over Nicaragua again.
And what did they do? Well, they simply established in Nicaragua their newest form of exploitation, of enslaving Humanity, which was in vogue at that time; that is the most barbaric Capitalism, which was reestablished, which was established from Europe and went all over the capitalist world and was imposed in our Countries.
What did it mean? It was based on the Principle of "The Law of the Jungle"; that is to say, here we are all and we are all free to make money, and we are all free to become rich and to study, and to be Engineers and to be Doctors, but this is to preach a great lie. The practice was different, it was to privatize. And precisely the Principle of privatization has to do with feeding selfishness in the Human Being; the merciless war of all against all, so that the strongest may survive, and who are the strongest? Those who have the capital, those who impose Laws.
Because then Laws were established here with the arrival of Neoliberalism, and they said, "Democracy has arrived". Well, Laws were established where Health and Education were privatized, the Rights of the People were privatized.
What was not privatized was the right of the large landowners who had been expropriated and whose lands were in the hands of peasants, and they set about trying to steal back the land from the peasants, the land the peasants had won with Justice under the Revolution,the landowners set about evicting them from their houses, from their homes thousands of families who had received houses with the Revolution, to evict from the business enterprises the workers who were the owners of those businesses.
That is to say, it was put into practice during three Governments, fed, maintained and encouraged by the Yankee Empire; encouraged, maintained and blessed by the Religious Leadership and other people who wear religious gowns, and as it has been very well said, "the gown does not make the Monk".
All of them happily celebrated the growth of wealth for the richest, the growth of Poverty for the poor, working people, and the growth of Illiteracy. Yes, they did not even care about that, they simply let it go, let it happen, which is the fundamental Law of Savage Capitalism.
This meant that from 1990, when they began to dismantle the Social Programs that benefited the Poor, until 2007, January 2007, when the People took back the Government, illiteracy here increased to 23%, and it was going up even more. Imagine, 23% in just three periodsof government; three more periods and we would have reached the 50% we had in Somoza's time.
But, thank God for the People, because it is the People who took back the Government, it is the People, the Workers, the Peasants, the Youth, the Poor Families with the desire to better themselves, those are the ones who really took the Power in 2007, and that is why we see the results. And it irritates the elites, because they think that Families from the poorest and most impoverished Areas, or even right here in the poor areas of the Cities, that those Families do not have the right to improve their conditions, to have a Dignified Housing, to have sources of Dignified Work, even to the point where the elites question and condemn elementary Programs that have to do with the Health of the Family.
If a Family that is in Poverty and that can barely cover their roof with pieces of zinc, already totally damaged, with holes and pieces of plastic, such houses abounded here in Nicaragua and even here in Managua, to deny these Families, to attack the Roofing Plan, because we are all witnesses here of how they have attacked the Roofing Plan.
Ah, they have no problems with their own roofs, because if it rains they do not get wet, they are well protected; ah, but since the Roofing Plan is to help the poor, then they despise the Roofing Plan because they care little about the Lives of Human Beings who are in Poverty.
And the Zero Hunger Program? How they have attacked, how they have made fun of the Zero Hunger Program, and how many of them get irritated and upset, and shout when they see a Peasant Family that with the Zero Hunger Program is managing to solve its most importantproblem and guarantee food for their Family. Yes, with the piglets! Yes, with the cows! And we will continue distributing cows and piglets, of course we will!
And we will continue to deliver the Roofing Plan, of course we will! And we will continue to deliver quality education, together with the free School Lunch: For whom, who are those who demand and need the free School Lunch? The very poorest, are we going to deny it to them? No, we are going to guarantee it and we are going to extend it!
They privatized the Hospitals, yes, they privatized Public Health, as well as the Schools, and how it bothers them to see how in recent years Health Centers have multiplied, Hospitals have multiplied.
This has given us extraordinary conditions for a country like Nicaragua, and our neighbors are astonished when they find that in these years we have managed to create a Health System that has allowed Nicaragua to address this pandemic, without abandoning poor people, but attending to all Nicaraguans, without leaving out anyone, regardless of their economic and social condition.
Because defending the Right to Life is a Sacred Principle and we have to continue defending it, not only to face pandemics like this one, but to address all diseases and accidents, by means of all the conditions have been created to install Health Posts, Hospitals, right down to the last Municipality of our Country.
How annoying it is for the elites to see the sisters and brothers of our Health System, accompanied by the population, inaugurating a Health Post, inaugurating a Center to care for pregnant women, inaugurating a Hospital, incorporating into the Health System technology that did not exist in Nicaragua; this technology was never broughteven though they had the opportunity to bring it, when this technology already existed in Costa Rica, in El Salvador, to fight cancer, which is that laser system that is linear and does not cause damage, beyond attacking the point of the cancer. It is very expensive.
And who could go to El Salvador and Costa Rica to receive a linear laser treatment? Only those who had money, the poor could not go, the poor had to be treated here with the traditional system that causes damage, a lot of damage to other organs. Now here we have two machines and I can say that they are the most modern machines in the Central American Region, which are there to serve the poor and the rich, without any difference.
And how much we have also achieved in these years, thanks to the teachers, to the Ministry of Education, to the workers who repair and build schools, who repair and build desks... This is multiplying!
In 2007 we started with the delivery of one million 200,000 daily food rations, for 100% of the students of Pre-school, Special Education, Regular and Multigrade Primary, Primary and Secondary Distance Education in the Countryside and Normal Schools. When the elites see this, they say, we are throwing money away.
The School Packages began to be distributed in 2008, with one million School Packages to Pre-school, Primary and Special Education Students of Public Education Centers; Briefcases with Educational Material were and are delivered to the Teachers, to more than 60,000 Teachers. And how do the elites see this? They regard investing in the poor as a waste of money. Well, they should know that we are going to continue making these investments, we are going to maintain these Programs, these Programs cannot disappear, which is a commitment that the People has with the People, it is a commitment that cannot be broken.
In the same way, we will continue to provide more training, more preparation to our teachers, to develop, to overcome empiricism. Undoubtedly, there are very good empirical teachers, but they become better as they become more qualified and are given the opportunity to get qualifications, an opportunity they neverhad with those governments that call themselves "Democrats".
Then, the Technology that has been incorporated in the Secondary Schools, so that they can even have Mobile Digital Classrooms and Educational Programs, access to Virtual Libraries to complement learning. We have been making progress in this area, logically we have to increase coverage, but we are making progress, we are definitely making progress.
The Secondary Distance Schooling in the countryside is an activity that began in 2014 and has incorporated many young people from the countryside, more than 15,000 young people from rural families have been incorporated into these education programs. We are talking about the most remote communities in the country, and unquestionably secondary education has been provided there to children who, with great effort from their families, may have reached only third grade, perhaps because their parents could no longer afford it, or they might have reached the fifth grade but no further because their parents had no choice but to set them to workso as to find a way to survive. Boys and girls had to walked miles and miles to get to school, andof course it was not easy for their parents.
And with these Programs we have achieved, this year 2021, we have reached a school enrollment in rural areas of 2,507 Primary School Students, and also this year 2021 we have reached an enrollment of 55,420 Students for Secondary School from Farming Families.
And the elites see these programs when they are being inaugurated, when they are on the news, and what do they say? That we are wasting the money, throwing it away. For them to guarantee Education, to guarantee Health Care, to give knowledge to the People is a waste of money, they prefer keeping that accumulated wealth for themselves and with the People in misery, for them that is Democracy, that is Justice, that is Freedom.
And at the end of the year 2020, 22,409 high school students graduated, when in other times they would not have been able to graduate, there was no chance for a boy of humble origin to pass Primary School, it was not easy, then to get to High School, it was not easy, and to finish it, even more difficult. Well, now we are making it a reality in order to comply with a Right, with an act of Justice, of the People for the People, of our Youth for our Youth.
Likewise, the University in the Countryside Programs that have now begun; that is to say, young people, which was another great difficulty, who get to high school but then have no choice but to stay there in their community, in their small town, working, because there were no Programs, or else they would have to travel to distant places and look for lodging, which is very costly for them. So what are we doing? It is the People, who just as they brought Literacy to those who did not know how to read or write 41 years ago, now they are bringing Education, Knowledge, Primary, Secondary, University level, to the boys and girls, the young people who are in the countryside. And we are going to continue in this battle!
Already this year we have reached an enrollment of 5,600 students in 32 university careers in health care, because they have the right to become doctors, of course they do, or they have the right to study nursing, or other specialties of the many that the health field has. They have the right to do so!
In other words, farmers' children also have the right to be doctors, to be engineers, to be lawyers, to be scientists in the agricultural field, because we are applying agricultural science programs for the young people of the countryside, they are university level programs, and also economic sciences. All this is already being developed in 14 Departments of our country and also in the Caribbean Coast, both in the North Caribbean Coast and in the South Caribbean Coast.
Of course, what is being done should fill the people with pride, because what is being done is what the Fundamental Principles of what are known as Human Rights demand.
Here when we develop these programs in these fields that benefit humble families, working families, we are making progress fulfilling the human rights of our Nicaraguan brothers and sisters. Not only the rich have the Right to Education, the poor also have the Right to Education.
But that is not enough either, there is also Art, Culture, the School Choirs that have been organized, of boys, of young people, something that only used to happen for the rich, choirs of the quality that are now being organized, only used to happen in Theaters or maybe in some Private Schools, and some very modest Choirs in a few Public Schools, not in all of them, but in some Public Schools. Not now, here now this is multiplying.... Dance, Plastic Arts, Student Symphony Orchestras.
How if must iritate the egoists, to see the son of a farmer playing violin, playing trumpet, playing piano, painting, now in the Schools, no longer are they being left to chance, but now they have that choice in their Schools. Why? Because all Human Beings also have the right to have access to the field of Culture.
Likewise, in the case of small business skills for all the Youth. No longer do young people have to leave High School or graduate from the University to develop Enterprises. And that too is multiplying. This means what is being learned generates work, being creative and empowered, and of course this brings more benefits to our people.
On this 41st Anniversary of the Crusade we want to remember and say: Honor and Glory to the Sisters and Brothers who were murdered during the Crusade, because there were Brothers nd Sisters murdered by those who hate Rights for the People, Rights for the Poor.
Honor and Glory to them all, because they are Heroes of Education, they are Heroes, Worthy Daughters and Sons of Darío and Sandino, of Diriangén and Zeledón, yes, they are Worthy Daughters and Sons, and of all those who have been fighting for and recovering values, as Carlos Fonseca did.
We have already said it and we do not get tired of repeating it... There in Pancasán, in this month of August, one more anniversary of Pancasán, there was Francisco Moreno, a boy who was a high school student, still in the fourth year of high school, Francisco Moreno, his father was a doctor, and he decided to join the Guerrilla, and he went and joined the Guerrilla.
But since there were peasants in the Guerrilla, most of them did not know how to read and write, then it occurred to Compañero Francisco Moreno, we called him "Chele Moreno", because his last name was Moreno but he was very white, chele, as we say here; then it occurred to "Chele Moreno" to start teaching the peasants the first letters and everything; in one of those days Carlos passed by, and said: "Yes, also teach them to read".
And here we are Carlos, here we are Sandino, here we are Zeledón, here we are Andrés Castro, here we are Diriangén, here we are your People defending the Rights of the People in all fields, which is Justice and Love for the Neighbor.
Long Live the 41st Anniversary of the National Literacy Crusade!
Honor and Glory to the Heroes and Martyrs of Literacy!
A Free Nation, A Blessed Nation, or Death, yes, or Death!
Thank you, Beloved Nicaraguan Brothers and Sisters.