Our dream is the future world of humanity, the future of great luminaries of human struggles, whose journey of possibilities is about the very same idea, the universe rekindled by aspirations of freedom and dignity. Human societies grow when great men and women, plant trees whose shade they shall not sit, but the ubiquitous ascendancy of the beautiful daughters of Sandino, continues to shape the coarse of the history of the world.
Our generation have come to witness epochal events, whose contribution to the coarse of the struggles for the freedom of humanity, distinguished the most versatile architects, of great empires through ages. The fascinating historical account of the beautiful daughters of Sandino, resonate with the enduring legacies of countless episodes, of the triumph of human struggles.
In her pioneering work, ‘The Women and Guerrilla Movements‘, Karen Kampwirth, the erudite Professor of political science and Latin American studies programme at Knox College, says the following:
“If the twentieth century was the age of revolution, then surely Latin America was the region of revolution. Over the coarse of that century, new revolutionary movements emerged every few years across the region, movements that promoted goals such as overthrowing dictatorships, confronting economic inequalities, and creating what Cuban revolutionary hero, Che Guevara, called the ‘new man’. But in fact, many of those new men were not men, thousands of them, especially in the second half of the century, were women.”
The daughters of Sandino, renowned women battalion of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, designated after the revolutionary leader, Augusto Cesar Sandino, the founding father of Nicaragua, were the caricatures of the new men, determined to create a new universe for humanity. History applauds them to have ousted Somoza family, one of the most brutal dynastic military dictatorships, spanning decades of rule of Nicaragua with iron fist, with the support of the yankee imperial power, the United States of America.
For centuries the colonial Spain and US imperialism colonised Nicaragua, exploiting its natural resources and denying her native people the right to freedom, territorial integrity and independence. This was part of the Monroe doctrine, which gave the US powers to unilaterally interfere in the affairs of the newly independent states of Latin America.
The strategic geo-political position of Nicaragua, the wonderland of deep lakes, rivers and volcanoes, between the pacific and the atlantic oceans, attracted the government of the newly-independent state, to build a canal, the idea the US government rejected vehemently, as it was seen to be in competition with the plans to build the Panama canal. The initiative by the government to build a canal, prompted the empire to enforce military occupation on the native state.
The military occupation heralded a new stage of an era of protracted struggles, by her people for sovereignty free of oppression and exploitation. The geo-political location of the region, was of strategic importance, in the wake of the world growing shipping industry, consolidating the interests of the world colonial powers.
Unilateral military occupation by the US empire, violating international law and the rights of the new independent state of Nicaragua, led to widespread discontent amongst the various social, economic and political formations, leading to the intensification of the struggles against foreign occupation and domination. The flames of revolutionary struggles became a defining feature of the long odious journey of the glorious people of Nicaragua.
The brutality of the US militarism instigated Augusto Sandino and his army of thirty men and women to storm the harbour, grabbing thirty rifles and six thousands ammunition from a US storage ship, launching a fierce liberation war against colonial occupation. Launching his manifesto in the mountains ranges of Nicaragua he said: “Come, morphine addicts, come and kill us in our land. But keep in mind that when this happens, the capitol building in Washington will shake with the destruction of your greatness, and our blood will redden the white doom of your famous White House, the cavern where you concoct your crimes.”
Writing a letter of solidarity to the delegates of the Pan American conference held in 1928 in Havana Cuba, seeking sympathy from the Latin American countries to be in solidarity with the struggles of the Nicaraguan people, with profundity, he said the following:
“When Yankees speak of Monroe doctrine, they say ‘America for the Americans’. All of us born in the Americas are Americans. But the imperialists have interpreted the Monroe doctrine as ‘America for the Yankees’, well, to save their bond souls from continuing in error, I propose the reformulation ‘The United States of the North for the Yankee’s’, ‘Latin America for the Indo-Latino’.”
The United States of America tried to force Sandino to disarm his people, accusing him of committing audacious and vicious acts of banditry, and the Commander of the US troops in Nicaragua vowing: “You will be prescribed and placed outside the law, hunted wherever you go, and repudiated everywhere, awaiting an infamous death, not that of a soldier, who fell in battle, but that of a criminal, who deserve to be shot in the back by his own followers.”
Mounting pressure from the revolutionary forces defeated the American occupation troops, forcing them to withdraw their presence from Nicaragua, and therefore declaring Sandino, amongst the rare heroes of the world, to have defeated the empire in a battlefield. He was later assassinated by the notorious Samoza family with the support of the mercenaries of the American intelligence services, ushering in a new dictatorship by the family, spanning more than six decades.
In 1961 young revolutionaries, Carlos Fonseca Armador, Silvio Mayorga and Tomas Borge Martínez formed the Sandinista National Liberation Front, waging underground struggles against the Somoza dictatorship. The revolutionary movement waged relentless struggles and guerrilla warfare until they defeated Somoza family in 1979.
The Sandinista National Liberation Front was the fertile garden that germinated the beautiful flowers of Sandino, the mothers who gathered the socio-economic and political foundations of the Nicaraguan nation. Imbued in the discipline of the lofty historical role, the beautiful daughters of Sandino, who constituted more than thirty percent of the guerrilla army, believed that the significance of a revolution, is not just in the victories of the military endeavours, but in the capacity to grow into columns of steeled combatants, for the victory of the struggles of the people, for total liberation.
During one of his famous political speeches, defining the role of women in the new Nicaragua, the leader of the revolution, Tomas Borge, said the following:
“We are aware of the compañeros, that are revolutionaries in the streets and workplace, in all parts, but are feudal lords of the gallows and the knife at home. We must wage a difficult and prolonged ideological struggles, a struggle equally undertaken by men and women in Nicaragua, therefore it is normal, and absolutely logical, that we now speak about a new revolution, a women revolution.”
When the husband of one of the daughters of Sandino discovered that his wife was part of the underground machinery of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, involved in the underground activities to defeat the Samoza military regime, he instructed his wife to choose between him and the struggles for liberation, she said to him, of course the choice has already being made, between you and the revolution, I choose the revolution. Thus when the women of Sandinista, the beautiful daughters of the revolutionary struggles, created fertile conditions for a revolution within a revolution.
The women of the Sandinista did not only want to oust the Somoza regime, but to also fight patriarchal relations in society, which seek to plant equal relations between men and women, therefore building an egalitarian society. Women of Sandinista fought for socio-economic and political equality, creating a new Nicaragua, of human freedom and equality, vowing that there is no revolution without women emancipation and there is no emancipation of women without a revolution.
Before the revolution, women of Nicaragua were not allowed to own property, not allowed to collect their salaries directly from their employers (but through their husbands), not allowed to attend formal education, no protection of children, no punitive punishment for rape, and many other diminishing social behaviours, dumping the moral standing of women in society. After the triumph of the revolution in 1979, Nicaragua became one of the leading countries of the world to promote women rights and gender parity.
The challenge confronting the revolutionary movement throughout the world, is that even if it is true, that generations of man which ignore history, has no past and no future, the fact is that our people cannot eat history. The growing phenomenon within our ranks, of personal aggrandisement, reminding people of how the leadership of the movement, volunteered its own life for the freedom of the people, forgetting that it was not a matter of choice, but consciousness, contributing towards the freedom of the people, is what is eradicating the world liberation movement, into its own cage.
The people we lead, or the people who give us the opportunity to lead, and therefore giving us the opportunity to learn how to lead and serve in their best interest, do so hopeful that we shall use the mandate they give from time to time, to change their material conditions for the better. Our people cannot eat the fatigue of our ideological fabric, but they need a better education, housing, security, health, jobs and a better life.
There is a growing onslaught to diminish revolutionary liberation movements across the world, not because of the work of the enemy from without, but because of our ownself, destroying the revolution from within. The tendencies of the leadership of liberation movements staying in power for half centuries, transforming the power of the people for democracy into tales of family affairs, is not the aspiration for the creation of a new men and society of the modern century.
Rampant self serving atrocities of corruption, violation of human rights with the purpose of holding on for power, incapacity of leaders to serve in the best interest of the people, have resulted in liberation movements across the world losing the trust of the people. But what is mind boggling, is that the same leaders who have total disregard of the values and traditions of our liberation struggles, have grown to attribute these malfeasance, to the conspiracies of counter revolution by imperialist powers.
The Ancient Greek Aristotelian philosophy says a good leader must have ethos, pathos and logos. Ethos is the moral character embedded in the ability to persuade for the good of humanity, the pathos is about the difference you bring to others, how your revolutionary leadership brings qualitative change to others and the logos is about accountability, giving concrete reason for every decision and action you take on behalf of the people.
We do so in memory of colossus of the human race such as the beautiful daughters of Sandino, guerrilla women who firmly believed that falling down is not a failure, but failure comes when you stay where you have fallen. This is the true spirit of the garden of the great souls of the angels of our revolution.
They have not faltered in their determination to serve humanity, building glorious milestones on the pathways of our revolutionary struggles, and harnessing the future of the coming generations of mankind. The calling of the beautiful flowers of Sandino is the creation of a new of the universe, and a better future for all humanity.
Taking from the wisdom of his great teachings, the question we must ask all of the revolutionaries across the world, is whether we still have the calibre of Sandino and his beautiful daughters amongst our ranks, whether we are still committed for the noble cause of our struggles for the better future of humanity. We shall remember the echoes of his revolutionary words when he said the man who doesn’t ask his country for even a handful of earth for his grave deserves to be heard, and not only to be heard, but to be believed.
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Ambassador Phatse Justice Piitso is a member of the African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa writing this article in his personal capacity.