One question Exterminating Angel Press is particularly interested in is why revolutions fail. Fail, I mean, to deliver personal liberation and personal freedoms to the people who fought so hard for them in the first place. It does seem to happen, over and over, that what was originally an almost supernaturally brave impulse against an unendurably repressive situation (in France, in Russia, in Cuba, in Nicaragua), then finds new ways to repress on its own. It does seem, over and over, that whoever fought to get in charge likes to stay in charge, and that means they need someone to control…or what would they be in charge of in the first place?
Now, you could say this kind of failure is built into the system. I saw the same thing on a smaller but unmistakably the same scale in a project I worked on in Liverpool. We started out filled with ideals of letting a blasted neighborhood retrieve its own self determination, of working together — no leaders — in a transparent way, of, in short, doing it better and more correctly than the ‘corrupt’ people that had gone before us.
Of course the inevitable happened. The minute the money came, the default setting kicked in. It was dominate or be dominated, that’s what it was at bottom. Transparency between partners was at an end as everyone scrambled for control of resources. The behind the back in fighting for status and power stepped up. The belief that we had succeeded because we were better than everyone else, and so we deserved to be sneaky in achieving our ends, and in holding the reins till the bitter end settled on us like a fog. Because…after all…we were right. And we knew best. Wasn’t that proved by our very success? But since that success was not very stable, surely it was best to start eliminating as many people as possible who might claim a piece of it?
This wasn’t at all the moral fault of individuals. That was clear to me after, when I had painfully (the pain came from the realization of my own foolishness) analyzed the situation. It wasn’t the first time it had happened to a project, and it sure wasn’t going to be the last. The problem wasn’t a moral one. It was structural. Every one of the people involved was born and raised in a dominance/subordination hierarchy. Every one, whether they knew it or not, lived and breathed it. Every one either was buying into that structure, or, more likely, rebelling against it. And what I hadn’t realized before this point was that to rebel against something is to support it, too. To rebel against something is to give it a lot of power, and to accept that it not only has the right to exist, but that it gives you your right to exist as well. For one thing, if your meaning depends on your rebellion, and then the thing you rebel against disappears, who are you? Do you disappear, too?
This month, two of our writers look, each in their own intensely personal way, at what has happened in Nicaragua, after the Sandinista revolution of a couple of decades ago. Linda Sandoval, who was in the country right after the revolution with the film WALKER, writes about an actor watching it and remembering what happened then.
And Helen Dixon, a British born poet who has made her home in Nicaragua since running off for love to join the revolution speaks with understandable bitterness about how that same revolution has betrayed its promise.
If you know anything about recent Nicaraguan history you know about that sad betrayal. After the revolution, in the first flush of idealism and success, gay and feminist groups waited for official Sandinista support of the rights they’d earned in real action. But these groups were told, over and over, that it was “too soon,” that they needed to show discipline and patience. What came next was increased repression of gay and lesbian groups, increased consolidation of power among a small, predominantly male clique, and increased influence of the reactionary arm of the Catholic Church. A recently elected ‘Sandinista’ government has made all abortions — all of them, therapeutic, for rape or incest, all of them — a crime. The first weekend after this law was passed, a young girl died of complications from her pregnancy. The doctors were too afraid to give her the operation that would have saved her life.
This is a failure of revolution.
So, I guess that when we look at this, and we wonder what we can do, we can start with ourselves (where else?), each one of us a solid unit of activity, whether for a revolution or just for things to get better for all. So, I don’t know, I don’t know, but I have to try to know, maybe a good place to start is to ask: do I personally encourage partnership and transparency in all my dealings? do I insist vigorously on my own personal freedom and the personal freedom of the people around me? do I truly believe, all the way through, that we’re all ‘Us’ and that there is no ‘Us and Them’? am I happy? am I free? do I stand up for others’ rights to be happy and free? and am I strong enough to stand up to those who try to take those rights away?
I don’t know. I think that’s the right place to start. But it’s not the only place. You have to watch yourself, I think, for the very evils you most bitterly condemn in other people…at least, that’s what I’ve found about myself. And then after that, you have to stand up for yours and everyone else’s rights. All the time. In small ways and large.
Anyway you can.
And speaking of ways, there’s a good anti-war demo happening in Washington D.C., on Saturday, January 27. That’s a good place to start. There’s more info about it at www.unitedforpeace.org, there are bus tickets available from New York City, and if you want to volunteer, you can sign up at volunteers@unitedforpeace.org, or phone 212 868-5545.
Dan Osterman, who did the great illustration of the Unknown Protest Singer, will be there, so if you run into him say hi…
Stay warm.
(to read Linda Sandoval’s LETTER FROM LOS ANGELES, click here)
(to read Helen Dixon’s PROLOGUE to FOR OLYMPIA, click here)
(to read Helen Dixon’s poem, FOR OLYMPIA, click here)