By Yatzil Fasa, activist of Alternativa Anticapitalista, ISL section Nicaragua
On November 18, the “Miss Universe” event was held in San Salvador, El Salvador, with the representative of Nicaragua being crowned.
Miss Universe in Central America
A beauty pageant is as questionable due to its misogynistic load and objectification of women’s bodies, as it is due to its bourgeois and imperialist roots of wasting money to create smoke screens in certain political contexts. It is no coincidence that Bukele paid millions of dollars to hold the event in El Salvador now that he is launching his presidential reelection, and that a few days later the 15th Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Conference began. We, feminists and socialists, know all the politically correct aspects that can be pointed out to this event.
We also know how to point out the aspects that are not politically correct. Those who connect with emotions, not with reason. Those that are justified by the feeling of being fed up with living under a dictatorship that prevents them from freedom of expression and mobilization. In the emotions of a people who, with the victory of a global contest, immediately connect with the liberating power of taking to the streets, as it was in 2018. That November 18, Nicaraguans took to the streets in caravans shouting “Long live Nicaragua!” Some added “And only Nicaragua!” They sang the anthem and waved the national flag, both banned by the dictatorship. On social networks you could read texts such as “No rights, but with Miss Universe” “Finally we are top in something that is not decadence and poverty” “Everyone taking the flag out of hiding” “Man, let’s burn a bus or something.”
Fear changed sides
During these 5 years of absolute repression, the Ortega Murillo dictatorship established fear. It confiscates and imprisons those who carry national flags or speak out against them, it cyber-monitors every publication on social networks, it ensures that each neighborhood has an “ear.” Like a sand castle, all the fear built this time dissolved in one night. This makes it clear that, by joining forces, there are many and many more within Nicaragua who reject the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship.
On November 22, the dictatorship issued a statement in which it points out “…the crude and evil terrorist communication, which seeks to convert a beautiful and well-deserved moment of pride and celebration, into a destructive coup, or into a return, impossible of course, to disastrous, selfish and criminal practices…”[1] among many more crazy, incoherent and redundant adjectives. In addition, it barred the manager of the Miss Nicaragua company from entering the country and kidnapped her family members.
The dictatorship tries to delegitimize a popular expression of unity and mobilizing force in the streets, calling it “destructive coup”, as it called it in 2018, and “terrorist communication” to those of us from exile who express ourselves in favor of a people that outwitted dictatorial control under the excuse of celebrating Miss Universe.
Nicaragua won a sigh
This event makes two things clear to us. First, that the Nicaraguan people continue to resist, and are ready to take to the streets. For now, it experienced a restorative sigh, an exercise in deep oxygenation in a single night. A people alert and attentive in identifying belligerent leaderships, with determination, that represent the working force of this people and their dreams of social justice, to recognize themselves with all their potential.
Secondly, it shows the dictatorship’s fear of the consolidation of a vanguard that mobilizes an entire people. The winner, Sheynnis Palacios, without intending it, has characteristics of a public figure that are key in politics, and that none of the false Nicaraguan opposition, lobbyists for the enemies of humanity, the White House, possess.
Nicaragua’s victory in Miss Universe was a sigh for those of us, inside and outside the country, who still find it difficult to breathe. For now, the flags have been put away again in some corner of the house and the emotions that could unleash greater repression by the regime are calming down. Surviving is also resisting.
From exile, as the International Socialist League, we continue to build, with modest but firm steps, an organization that will be the spearhead to end tyranny, knowing that victory will be when the people decide.
[1]https://www.el19digital.com/articulos/ver/titulo:146794-nicaragua-tiene-paztiene-amor-y-dignidad-mas-claro-cantamos-y-celebramos