| Next»
04/12: A Sandinista pig
I wrote this story some two-three months ago, originally in German, then translated to Danish and then to English. I was trying to find a place to get it published in paper form. But the information is likely a bit to obscure for anything mainstream, and no normal person reads the academic journals (and in addition I would need to throw a whole bunch of aca-gibberish on there before anyone would take it). I was busy with all kinds of other things and just about forgot about it. But I noticed this list of the Top 100 anthropology blogs (worldwide?) with this blog being listed (sorry, but I don't think that list is to be taken serious, really) and that this blog still receives a few hundred hits daily (despite almost no new content for a year). And so I just thought this might be as good a place as anywhere to put it. So please, enjoy. And if you need the German or Danish version for anything, please contact me!
A Sandinista pig
Blanca Nella is a poor woman. She lives on the island Ometepe in Lake Nicaragua in the Central-American country of the same name.
In this country, the socialist Nationalist Sandinista Liberation Front (FSLN) came to power through a revolution in 1979. Throughout the 1980s, the country had to fight counterrevolutionary insurgencies financed by the Unites States with the help of Cuba and Eastern Europe. At the national elections in 1990, the Sandinistas lost, and for sixteen years the country was ruled by three neo-liberal governments, until the FSLN won the presidential elections in the fall of 2006. Daniel Ortega, who was elected president once already during 1984–90, now rules the country.
This is the story of a person who witnesses these times.
Nella would like to receive a pig from the government, but unfortunately she doesn't have enough land to grow the food for it. Now that Ortega is president, there is such a program, called ‘zero hunger’.
The program is directed towards women and consists of a cow, a pig, a rooster, five hens, the building of the housing for cow and pig, seeds and food for the first few months as well as training in how to treat the animals. Altogether this is supposed to have a value of 1,500USD and the producer agrees on giving back 300USD of the income to other projects in the area, such as micro-credits.
Blanca Nella and her son are full of hope for Daniel Ortega's programs
A Sandinista pig
Blanca Nella is a poor woman. She lives on the island Ometepe in Lake Nicaragua in the Central-American country of the same name.
In this country, the socialist Nationalist Sandinista Liberation Front (FSLN) came to power through a revolution in 1979. Throughout the 1980s, the country had to fight counterrevolutionary insurgencies financed by the Unites States with the help of Cuba and Eastern Europe. At the national elections in 1990, the Sandinistas lost, and for sixteen years the country was ruled by three neo-liberal governments, until the FSLN won the presidential elections in the fall of 2006. Daniel Ortega, who was elected president once already during 1984–90, now rules the country.
This is the story of a person who witnesses these times.
Nella would like to receive a pig from the government, but unfortunately she doesn't have enough land to grow the food for it. Now that Ortega is president, there is such a program, called ‘zero hunger’.
The program is directed towards women and consists of a cow, a pig, a rooster, five hens, the building of the housing for cow and pig, seeds and food for the first few months as well as training in how to treat the animals. Altogether this is supposed to have a value of 1,500USD and the producer agrees on giving back 300USD of the income to other projects in the area, such as micro-credits.
Blanca Nella and her son are full of hope for Daniel Ortega's programs
This is a campaign I started a little over a month ago. And yes, I happened to take the initiative, but the fact that the name wasn't very well chosen was something many people had been thinking about before. Basically, it's this Danish company that's taking over a piece of property that had belonged to the army previously and builds a Danish school on it for 70 million Euros, and everybody gets all excited about how great they are. The problem is just that the company doing it is the shipping giant MAERSK and it's named after their founder Arnold Peter Mřller, who died in the 1960s. Now this guy and this company happen to have a history on earning their money on wars (selling arms to the Nazis and earning high profits on services to the Pentagon in connection with the Iraq war) and using union busting tactics against their workers.
The A.P.Mřller-school of today might be the Gilberto-Soto-school of tomorrow.
Just in terms of numbers If they were to pay the same tax percentages for their oil exploration in Denmark to the Danish government as private companies have to pay to the Norwegian government, that would amount to 6 Billion Euros more in tax income from today until 2045. But the queen, and the Danish minister of education thank them so much for giving 70 million!
When I first wrote this, I wasn't aware of several points that appear in the final version. That is because the first ten people signing it had a say in the contents of it, and several of them added things I didn't have a clue of.
Arnold Peter Mřller -- weapon producer for the Nazis -- is now being honored with a school named after him.
The reaction in the borderland has been like it would be anywhere in Soviet Eastern Europe before the fall of the Berlin Wall: the newspaper Flensborg Avis refused to print it with the argument that the fond paying for the school had been "giving a lot of money to Southern Schleswig in the last couple of years". Other people employed by the Danish institutions either were told that they could not sign such a thing or they were afraid of signing it due to past reaction from the system. The text was allegedly also spread in the intranet of the teachers down there. One guy went as far as calling me six times on my Nicaraguan cell phone and some 20-30 people sent me hate mails of various kinds. A reporter from Flensborg Avis went on and on in Facebook forums, trying to find some or other problem with the text. Unfortunately for him, he just revealed thereby that his investigative skills weren't all that developed.
Still, despite some (unfortunately very uninformed) criticism I and we received so far, I am sure that in a few decades the call will come to fruition in some form or another. Here you can read it in four languages:
The A.P.Mřller-school of today might be the Gilberto-Soto-school of tomorrow.
Just in terms of numbers If they were to pay the same tax percentages for their oil exploration in Denmark to the Danish government as private companies have to pay to the Norwegian government, that would amount to 6 Billion Euros more in tax income from today until 2045. But the queen, and the Danish minister of education thank them so much for giving 70 million!
When I first wrote this, I wasn't aware of several points that appear in the final version. That is because the first ten people signing it had a say in the contents of it, and several of them added things I didn't have a clue of.
Arnold Peter Mřller -- weapon producer for the Nazis -- is now being honored with a school named after him.
The reaction in the borderland has been like it would be anywhere in Soviet Eastern Europe before the fall of the Berlin Wall: the newspaper Flensborg Avis refused to print it with the argument that the fond paying for the school had been "giving a lot of money to Southern Schleswig in the last couple of years". Other people employed by the Danish institutions either were told that they could not sign such a thing or they were afraid of signing it due to past reaction from the system. The text was allegedly also spread in the intranet of the teachers down there. One guy went as far as calling me six times on my Nicaraguan cell phone and some 20-30 people sent me hate mails of various kinds. A reporter from Flensborg Avis went on and on in Facebook forums, trying to find some or other problem with the text. Unfortunately for him, he just revealed thereby that his investigative skills weren't all that developed.
Still, despite some (unfortunately very uninformed) criticism I and we received so far, I am sure that in a few decades the call will come to fruition in some form or another. Here you can read it in four languages:
Update: In the final count, the FSLN ended up with winning a grand total of 105 city governments. The liberals continue to claim it was fraudulent, but in the Supreme Election Commision (CSE) there were three Sandinistas and three representatives of the liberals. The liberals also ended up voting for accepting the results in Managua and León. One of them came out against Montealegre publicly, saying the former candidate for mayor had ulterior motives. The liberal party has expelled its three members of the CSE, claiming they had sold themsevles to the FSLN. Ortega mentioned in the victory speech, that the Carter Center and the OAS had told him after the elections in 1996, that they couldn't permit new elections in Nicaragua, although the elections were fraudulent. If that is true, it means that the Sandinistas were kept out of power for an additional ten years after winning the elections. That likely explains why Ortega decided not to let them monitor this time around.
Nicaragua once again is on the verge of chaos. Municipal elections were held on the 9th of October, and these were largely won by the Sandinistas (FSLN). In 91-94 out of 146 cases, the FSLN managed to win the majority. That is slightly more than last time, with a difference of around 4 counties. However, the elections were something somewhat extraordinary.
This video I took in León a week after the elections:
Nicaragua once again is on the verge of chaos. Municipal elections were held on the 9th of October, and these were largely won by the Sandinistas (FSLN). In 91-94 out of 146 cases, the FSLN managed to win the majority. That is slightly more than last time, with a difference of around 4 counties. However, the elections were something somewhat extraordinary.
This video I took in León a week after the elections:
When former minister of education of East Germany, Margot Honecker, received a medal for her help here in Nicaragua in the literacy campaign in the 1980s as part of the celebrations of the revolution on July 19th, I tried everything I could to get an interview with her. I also got through to all the officials and the spokespeople of president and ministry. Unfortunately though, in the end she declined.
Nevertheless, my search for possible questions cause enough stir around my friends in Germany that I was contacted in connection with this group trying to find their old class mates from a cadre school in East Germany. The Nicaraguans who had participated had for security reasons not used their real names and had never talked about where they where from.
Poster currently hanging around most of León
Nevertheless, my search for possible questions cause enough stir around my friends in Germany that I was contacted in connection with this group trying to find their old class mates from a cadre school in East Germany. The Nicaraguans who had participated had for security reasons not used their real names and had never talked about where they where from.
Poster currently hanging around most of León
12/07: El choque entre MRS y CUUN
This is really just to try it out, but a lot more should be coming henceforth. I'm running around Nicaragua with this really nifty camera/microphone combination, and although I have some 13h of footage, the editing situation has been pretty crummy and I have had to put the various bits and pieces of software together myself to get a working toolchain.
However, this ended up being used in Nicaraguan national TV by two stations. It's some footage I took the other day, when a political party, the Movimiento Renovador Sandinista and the students at the UNAN university clashed together here in Leon the other day. For the MRS, the militant Dora María Telléz had planned to speak at the university that day, and simultaneously the students decided to take over the university for the day in protest against the late payment of scholarships. The MRS recently lost its license to run in the upcoming local elections, and have therefore been calling the country a dictatorship. When students blocked the entrance on June 29th, they again expected for the president and his FSLN-party to be behind it all.
Confrontation between MRS and CUUN
However, this ended up being used in Nicaraguan national TV by two stations. It's some footage I took the other day, when a political party, the Movimiento Renovador Sandinista and the students at the UNAN university clashed together here in Leon the other day. For the MRS, the militant Dora María Telléz had planned to speak at the university that day, and simultaneously the students decided to take over the university for the day in protest against the late payment of scholarships. The MRS recently lost its license to run in the upcoming local elections, and have therefore been calling the country a dictatorship. When students blocked the entrance on June 29th, they again expected for the president and his FSLN-party to be behind it all.
Confrontation between MRS and CUUN
I recently went to Northern Ireland, to the city of Belfast. The Left has generally supported those pro-catholics, who are working for a united Ireland as a part of a national liberation struggle from London rule. I decided to interview representatives of progressive parties on either side on the issues that socialists should really care about -- social issues -- to see how different they really are in their day-to-day politics in these current times of peace. This is the last of three parts, in which I conclude after having interviewed Hugh Smyth from the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) and Paul Maskey from the socialist Irish-republican Sinn Feinn party.
Local demands against profit rather than alliance with one EU-country or another can be seen in Belfast as well.
So there we go. I interviewed a representative of a progressive party on either side of the divide, and their answers were remarkably similar.
Local demands against profit rather than alliance with one EU-country or another can be seen in Belfast as well.
Let us review their answers once more:
PM: Paul Maskey (Sinn Fein)
HS: Hugh Smyth (HS)
housing:
HS: not opposed to rich apartments, but percentage needs to be affordable
PM: not against private houses, but more social housing
I recently went to Northern Ireland, to the city of Belfast. The Left has generally supported those pro-catholics, who are working for a united Ireland as a part of a national liberation struggle from London rule. I decided to interview representatives of progressive parties on either side on the issues that socialists should really care about -- social issues -- to see how different they really are in their day-to-day politics in these current times of peace. This is the second of three parts, me interviewing Paul Maskey, member of the Northern Irish Assembly for Sinn Fein, in his office in Western Belfast. Part three with the conclusion will follow tomorrow.
Paul Maskey (Sinn Fein) claims to represent progressive republicanism.
Johannes Wilm
- Ehm, yeah, the first thing is I noticed when walking around
there was quite a bit of graffiti against gentrification.
Paul Maskey
- ok
Johannes Wilm
- ehm, there are apparently apartment buildings that eh... are
for the let's say those who have more money.
Paul Maskey
- mhm
Johannes Wilm
- Ehm... whereas others complain about lack of public
housing.
I recently went to Northern Ireland, to the city of Belfast. The Left has generally supported those pro-catholics, who are working for a united Ireland as a part of a national liberation struggle from London rule. I decided to interview representatives of progressive parties on either side on the issues that socialists should really care about -- social issues -- to see how different they really are in their day-to-day politics in these current times of peace. This is the first of three parts, me interviewing Hugh Smyth, founder and former leader of the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) and current member of the Belfast City Council, representing his small, but locally very present party, in his office in the Shankill Road in Western Belfast. Parts two and three will follow tomorrow and the day after
Hugh Smyth is standing outside his office in the Shankills Road.
Johannes Wilm
- Ok, here we go... ehm.. yeah...
Hugh Smyth (PUP)
- Who.. what are you enquiring?
...
Johannes Wilm
- I'm trying to look at...
Hugh Smyth (PUP)
- [door opens, interchange between office worker and HS]
Johannes Wilm
- And I'm trying to look at what kind of policies you have.
That.. what you.. what kind of policies you support..
Hugh Smyth (PUP)
- right
Update: Today, Saturday May 17th, the strike has ended after 12 days. Transport workers will get subsidies of 1.30 USD/gallon, but cargo transport will be excluded from that offer as they are "not regulated". Where the money for that suddenly comes from is unclear.
The Central American Republic of Nicaragua was in the 1980s portrayed as one of the greatest communist threats in the western hemisphere. Once the political right won presidential elections in 1990s, the ideological education so many had received for a decade suddenly didn't seem to have mattered. That is until now, in May 2008 little more than a year after the Sandinistas regained the presidency with a promise of national reconciliation, when transport workers take to the streets, shut down all public transport built barricades on major highways and demand for the government to go back to politics of price control and subsidization. Now running on its 9th consecutive day with all talks between drivers and government not anywhere close to a positive the solution, the immediate future of Nicaragua is uncertain.
Transport workers in León at the exit to Managua, trying to stopp trafic at least semi-permanently
The strike started on May 5th. The first day only busses between major cities stopped while city busses and taxis in Managua as well as busses between minor destinations continued to operate. Since then all transportation has been shut-down with the exception of occasional pirate taxis. In the city of León drivers have set up camp at the exit of the highway to Managua, and most afternoons they block each lane for ten minutes at a time to stop most traffic, although only past Tuesday did it end up with violent confrontations between police and demonstrators.
The demand brought forth by the transport cooperatives are frozen petrol prices at the equivalent of 2.88 USD/gallon or 0.49 Euro/L for public transport, as they claim is the case for those operating in Managua already. Currently prices run around 5.18 USD/gallon or 0.88 Euro/L. The money that is to be used on this is the money that the government allegedly has access to through an oil deal with Venezuela which lets the country buy oil at market price, but with only 50% having to be paid within 90 days and the remainder in 23 years with an extremely low 2% interest rate. The government on the other hand claims that there isn't sufficient funding available for such heavy subsidization and that part of the available funds are to be used for other projects, such as anti-hunger measures, micro-credits for small shop owners and road infrastructure measures.
Workers presenting wounds inflicted upon them by the police
The Central American Republic of Nicaragua was in the 1980s portrayed as one of the greatest communist threats in the western hemisphere. Once the political right won presidential elections in 1990s, the ideological education so many had received for a decade suddenly didn't seem to have mattered. That is until now, in May 2008 little more than a year after the Sandinistas regained the presidency with a promise of national reconciliation, when transport workers take to the streets, shut down all public transport built barricades on major highways and demand for the government to go back to politics of price control and subsidization. Now running on its 9th consecutive day with all talks between drivers and government not anywhere close to a positive the solution, the immediate future of Nicaragua is uncertain.
Transport workers in León at the exit to Managua, trying to stopp trafic at least semi-permanently
The strike started on May 5th. The first day only busses between major cities stopped while city busses and taxis in Managua as well as busses between minor destinations continued to operate. Since then all transportation has been shut-down with the exception of occasional pirate taxis. In the city of León drivers have set up camp at the exit of the highway to Managua, and most afternoons they block each lane for ten minutes at a time to stop most traffic, although only past Tuesday did it end up with violent confrontations between police and demonstrators.
The demand brought forth by the transport cooperatives are frozen petrol prices at the equivalent of 2.88 USD/gallon or 0.49 Euro/L for public transport, as they claim is the case for those operating in Managua already. Currently prices run around 5.18 USD/gallon or 0.88 Euro/L. The money that is to be used on this is the money that the government allegedly has access to through an oil deal with Venezuela which lets the country buy oil at market price, but with only 50% having to be paid within 90 days and the remainder in 23 years with an extremely low 2% interest rate. The government on the other hand claims that there isn't sufficient funding available for such heavy subsidization and that part of the available funds are to be used for other projects, such as anti-hunger measures, micro-credits for small shop owners and road infrastructure measures.
Workers presenting wounds inflicted upon them by the police
Hey everybody. It's not like I'm not experiencing anything. I've been studying in London, went to Belfast and interviewed representatives of opposing but leftist/socialist parties, I went all across the States from Portland, OR to Miami, FL, stopping by in Berkley/Oakland, CA, Douglas/Tucson, AZ and NOLA (all by land) while meeting tons of people. And I've started fieldwork here in Nicaragua where I meet and talk to everything from open source software students (explaining to them all about LAMP) to hardline Sandinistas involved in land occupations, backpackers of all types and intellectual elites.
Johannes -- thinking
I started writing a number of texts, but I just can't get myself to finish anything to be published. Maybe I'll do sometime in the future, but don't count on it. I don't really think I'm obligated to tell anyone why, but it's just how it happens to be. If nothing else, it was getting boring having a constant deadline waiting for me just around the corner.
If you really want to know what I'm doing, it's probably best to send me an email or contact me on Facebook (email: j.wilm (a) gold.ac.uk), and I'm sure I'll tell you something or other, depending on who you are.
PS: If you are from Denmark/Norway (or feel close to those countries), check out the national campaign websites for these countries to get their soldiers home from Afghanistan that I've created recently: Norway & Denmark.
Johannes -- thinking
I started writing a number of texts, but I just can't get myself to finish anything to be published. Maybe I'll do sometime in the future, but don't count on it. I don't really think I'm obligated to tell anyone why, but it's just how it happens to be. If nothing else, it was getting boring having a constant deadline waiting for me just around the corner.
If you really want to know what I'm doing, it's probably best to send me an email or contact me on Facebook (email: j.wilm (a) gold.ac.uk), and I'm sure I'll tell you something or other, depending on who you are.
PS: If you are from Denmark/Norway (or feel close to those countries), check out the national campaign websites for these countries to get their soldiers home from Afghanistan that I've created recently: Norway & Denmark.
| Next»
