for a friend

Over the course of my time in Nicaragua, I heard numerous stories from a wide range of people. With the Revolution (1979) and the Contra War (1982-1990) still fresh in everyone's mind, it wasn't hard to uncover the wounds, the deep violence inflicted by the dictator (Somoza). Before long, though, it also became clear that for other sectors of Nicaragua society, the rise of the Sandinistas had brought its own challenges. While the Sandinista program ostensibly did a lot of good for marginalized sectors of the population (through literacy campaigns, improved health care access, etc), in the process many hard-working people (not only the extremely wealthy, but also the middle class) also lost jobs and/or land. The later economic scarcity and recruitment of young men for battles in the mountains (from which many never came home) that ensued during the Contra period (obviously not the fault of the rojinegros, but rather the US intervention) led more than one Nicaraguan (including taxi drivers, gardeners, and people of all economic levels) to tell me frankly: "Things were better under Somoza!"

During this period, many people with the option to leave did so--whether to avoid sending their sons off to war or to pursue new economic opportunities elsewhere, as their country became increasingly torn apart by war. Beyond the politics of their departures, there were deeply personal and emotional reasons behind these decisions--a desire to protect their children and their families, a desire to work, to use the skills provided by their education, to survive what must have surely seemed like the complete destruction of their beloved country.

I always listened to these stories with a lump in my throat. Hearing so many diverse voices drove home the point that for every official political event that goes into the history books, there are myriad personal consequences that can never been seen or understood just by reading the "facts." The same event can produce a variety of effects for different people in a society. At the end of the day, therefore, any attempt by analysts or scholars to coldly ("objectively") interpret political events and policies can never capture the fullness or intensity of the reality that is lived by those in that context in the moment.

In the course of a few hours this week, I forgot this last truth, long ago learned and filed away in the recesses of my mind. In my exuberant desire to offer an academic opinion of a political situation far from my own, I forgot that the political is first of all personal. I forgot that more than a scholar, I am a human being. I was quick to offer analysis when all that was called for was the listening and sympathetic ear of a friend.

I feel humbled and contrite. What good is all the knowledge of the world without love?

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal." -1 Corinthians 13:1