Jorge Eduardo Arellano*, October 11th 2021
Many outstanding intellectuals have put their pen at the service of political and military warlords. A distant example is that of Jerónimo Pérez (1828-1884), author of the biography – a convincing eulogy – of General Tomás Martínez (1820-1873); others such as Manuel Coronel Matus (1864-1910), organic intellectual of Zelaya liberalism; and that of his son José Coronel Urtecho (1906-1994), ideologue of foundational somocismo. But the most transcendent has been that of Sergio Ramírez Mercado (1942), the most powerful vice president we have ever had in Nicaragua.
An exemplary and peerless collaborator in President Daniel Ortega's first administration (1984-1990), Sergio wrote a very prominent article, published in the newspaper Barricada on Saturday, February 24, 1990, a day before the elections that led to the Presidency of Señora Violeta, the candidate of the UNO. Quod scripsi, scripsi, says the Latin adage. And since most Nicaraguans have a very poor memory, soon forgetting facts and documents like that article - a model of electoral propaganda and ingrained subalternity – I have decided to rescue it and reproduce some of it.
In the article, Ramírez refers to the closing rally of the FSLN campaign on February 21, 1990 in the Plaza of the Revolution, "in front of a horizonless crowd that celebrated in advance the definitive victory, ten steps in front of me, with microphone in hand, walking along that stage that entered the immense sea of people, the statesman in faded jeans and a youthful shirt who had come out of the lions' den to lead so many struggles and so many victories, after so many years of imprisonment and clandestine fighting, the guerrilla leader of the Northern Front in Macuelizo and Dipilto who now embodied, in front of his awakened people, lucid and consistent with his new victory, the undefeated Nicaragua that we would never deliver to any empire."
Running for a seond time as vice-presidential candidate, he recalls his first meeting with Daniel, in San José, Costa Rica, April 1977. "Since then," he pointed out, "that unbeatable brotherhood that has united us was born, a serene and solid friendship, an accompaniment of over ten years, day by day, night by night, dawn after night, facing challenges, difficulties, victories, watching him mature without respite, refine his sagacity, developing his political thought in the face of each test, a whole system of thought between flame and fire that is already living history, watching him advance at a steady pace until he emerges at the head of this victorious revolution."
And Sergio continued in his laudatory ode to Daniel: "The running mate of the candidate for President of Nicaragua wants to talk today about his brother of confinements, his brother of so many thousands of kilometers traveled together along all the roads of Nicaragua, in two electoral campaigns, in hundreds of Face to Face with the People events, in thousands of hours of meetings. Just a sketch, because there will be a book someday. What we share: the phobia against servility, the disdain for protocol formality, the mocking wink of complicity in the face of immodesty and presumption, the coup de grace to banality, hours of silence in the long journeys, whether listening to Mozart, or to Los Tigres del Norte, we do not care, listing preferences for music, movies or books, threading an endless conversation about freedom in art, East-West relations and Perestroika, religion or popular language, shuffling economic figures, talking about times gone by, but above all, about the times to come. Eating at odd hours, talking at odd hours, working at odd hours."
"His face transfigured by harshness – hardness of pure tears repressed when embracing a mother who has lost her son in the war and this also remains in the photographs, along with his modesty, humanity and identification – body, heart and soul – with the humbleness of Nicaragua and the humbleness of the world. The only candidate for president of Nicaragua for whom I would have join as a running mate, and, to put it in a few words, the best president in Nicaragua's history. That is why I write these lines that will surprise you, when you read them now, that we are going to vote for peace in Nicaragua and we are going to elect you President."
These anthological gems, I reiterate – were published on Barricada's "Opinions" page on Saturday, February 24, 1990 with the approval of the newspaper's director, Carlos Fernando Chamorro.
* Jorge Eduardo Arellano es un muy distinguido escritor nicaragüense, poeta, narrador, ensayista, filólogo, crítico de arte y literario, bibliógrafo, editor e historiador.