(NB. I wrote this earlier this month, before leaving. Posting it now to readers, and concerned citizens of the world).
I live in a dictatorship. There, I said it. It is out there.
It’s really simple to know you live in a dictatorship but so many refuse to LOOK. Fortunately, I’ve lived in a few other places that were clearly totalitarian to the core, so I know what to look for.
The tourists still come. The gringos down here say, “What? It’s normal. What you going on about?” But I’m leaving and I do wish the people of Nicaragua the best. But they’ll have to fight again, I’m afraid to say.
One of the ways to know you are living in a dictatorship is to ask the questions “Who controls the media?” “Who has that on-off switch? Valery in his most beautiful essay about the qualities of a dictatorship made this his numero uno tell-tale sign. I do too. It’s also essentially what Huxley went on about with his Newspeak and the idea that dictators first and foremost want to control the messages which then they use to control YOU.
I cycled about 100 miles, Matagalpa to Leon, in the blazing heat, a few weeks ago. I got into my hotel room and fired up the fan and put bottles of water beside the bed. I was kaput but happily so. Day 1 of my cycling adventure done. Yippee!
I turned on the TV and started watching the semi-finals of the US Open. OMG. Delightful tennis, even though the TV was 17 inches and miles away from my bed. A perfect way to let the body heal.
Then, all of a sudden, ESPN wasn’t showing the match. It was Daniel Ortega giving a speech to all his military cult members, all lined up in front of him, good ducks in a row.
Fine, I thought to myself, I’ll find the match on another channel. So, I started browsing through all the channels, CNN, Fox, ABC, HBO etc … every one of 100 channels had “el commo dante” on it. Every one! He’d just pulled a switch and that was it - you had no choice but to listen to him and his witch of a wife or turn it off. That’s a dictatorship.
It’s been going on for some time. First, the newspaper that I’d buy in La Colonial stopped appearing - La Prensa. Seems they stopped allowing them to buy newsprint or import it. Next, other news outlets were closed. Finally, Ortega just took over the estimated 21 million dollar company of La Prensa, the building and everything.
It goes without saying, all his kids run the only media allowed in Nicaragua.
But it gets worse. Journalists, in the 100s (along with members of the opposition and parliament and many priests), are imprisoned and beaten regularly, starved to death (Commodante #1 - Hugo Torres, hero of the revolution died recently one year into his prison term, beaten daily, starved). It’s ugly. It’s even publicly acknowledged that they just throw any journalist they want into prison without cause or reason though officially a new law gives the government cover to lock up anyone who undermines national integrity and spreads false news. A broad legal stroke indeed.
So I ask everyone, gringos with their villas here. Foreigners outside. Call this spade a spade. A dictatorship. And ask the same question about your own country - who controls the media?
The pandemic showed us how little of the media is truly independent. In my own country, Canada, 88% of mainstream media funding comes from (you guessed it), the government. What did I say about dictatorships and how to look for them? Some are quiet, some are loud.
Support free and independent media. Value and scream blue murder about journalists being killed, harassed, exiled or in any way blocked, in doing their very important jobs.
The world is becoming more and more autocratic. Not my opinion but a finding of many thinkers, and researchers, more astute and informed than myself. The world is becoming a much harder, riskier world for honest, true journalists. See the CPJ. Follow them and learn more.
Let’s hope our 4th estate becomes more valued in this world of bobbing heads, money and lies. We can hope and also, speak out.
The Little Dictator That Can't Even Roar