From: harelb@math.cornell.edu (misc.activism.progressive co-moderator)
Subject: POLITICAL DISSENT: Was Nicaragua More Democratic than the U.S.?
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: misc.activism.progressive on UseNet ; ACTIV-L@UMCVMB
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 10:59:59 GMT

POLITICAL DISSENT: Was Nicaragua More Democratic than the U.S.?

[From:
       ========================================================
       I s   N i c a r a g u a   M o r e   D e m o c r a t i c
       ========================================================
            T h a n   t h e   U n i t e d   S t a t e s ?
       ========================================================
                        By Michael Parenti (*)

[From: Covert Action Information Bulletin, Number 26, Summer 1986]]


=================================
P o l i t i c a l   D i s s e n t 
=================================

There is the more general question of Freedom of communication for
dissenting ideas. _La Prensa_ is not the only opposition voice in
Nicaragua. About half of the radio and television stations in the
country are privately owned and most of these give the government a
daily ideological pounding that makes National Public Radio look like
the tepid establishment mouthpiece it is. The various political
parties also produced their own newspapers during the campaign. There
is a war going on in Nicaragua. The country is encircled by hostile
forces, has endured invasions on both of its borders and has suffered
much loss of life and destruction of property. Yet the censorship

   -->  [Use GET with WHO-WERE CONTRAS for a documented account of ]
        [the contras practices, as well as origins and makeup. --HB]

imposed is no worse and probably less restrictive than what the U.S.
government imposed during World War II, and Managua's treatment of

	[in fact compares very favorably to U.S. wartime censorship,
	as documented in several installments in this series --HB]

dissenters and collaborators has been far more tolerant and liberal
than the treatment accorded Tory sympathizers during and immediately
after the American revolution or dissenters who received long prison
terms during World War I.

In the United States, dissenting views that go beyond the mainstream.
or even much left of center, are rarely allowed time or space in the
major media, but are consigned to small-circulation magazines that
teeter on the edge of insolvency. In short, there is a greater
plurality of ideas, ideologies, and debate in Nicaragua than in the
United States. On this score Nicaragua is a more open, more
pluralistic society. It may not always remain so however. Subject to
enough threat and siege, assault and murder, the Nicaraguans will
start tightening up, choosing security over dissent, survival over
pluralism. Indeed, it is miraculous that they haven't already done so.
The signs are there; President Daniel Ortega has said: "In the hardest
moments we have to convert the defeats into more ideological unity,
more political unity ... [and] more organization." (_Miami Herald_,
August 4, 1985).

If the U.S. Government were really interested in encouraging
pluralistic dissent in Nicaragua it would pursue a policy quite the
opposite of the one now in the saddle, offering Managua friendship and
support and the hope for peaceful independence and security. Democracy
is a delicate flower that does not do well when repeatedly stomped
upon.

=================================
R e l i g i o u s   F r e e d o m 
=================================

The Reagan administration has charged that there is religious
persecution in Nicaragua. But the Catholic church is alive and well.
Elements of its clergy and laity can be found playing prominent roles
on both sides within Nicaragua, struggling hard to build -- or destroy

	[Parenti could have mentioned Father Ernesto Cardenal, who
	served in the Sandinista government --HB]

-- the revolution. Religious practice is not interfered with. The Rev.
Miguel Gray, a Nicaraguan Baptist minister, hailed the religious
freedom enjoyed in that country and pointed to the building of 19
additional churches since 1979 in a desperately poor country where not
too many buildings of any kind are going up.

   -->  [Use GET with FSLN NICAJEWS for a debunking of charges]

The level of religious tolerance in the United States today is as good
as might be found anywhere. But in recent years the disturbing
intolerance manifested by such groups as the Moral Majority, and the
President's open association with the religious Right, including his
announcement that "ours is a Christian nation," might cause us to give
more attention to the question of religious tolerance here at home.

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