[Marxism] Celia Hart: In solidarity with Ernesto Cardenal

[Walter Lippmann]

KAOSENLARED 
www.kaosenlared.net/noticia/solidaridad-ernesto-cardenal
In solidarity with Ernesto Cardenal

How can a Sandinista government accuse a priest who has been 
the voice of the poor in Nicaragua and a cultural symbol of Latin America?
Celia Hart Santamaria | For Kaos en la Red | 28-8-2008 

http://www.walterlippmann.com/ch-08-28-2008.html 
A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.
Havana, August 27, 2008

Brother Ernesto Cardenal:

I’ve just heard that you’ve been ordered to pay a fine for alleged slander.
Once again my heart is filled with anger and confusion. How can a Sandinista
government accuse a priest who has been the voice of the poor in Nicaragua
and a cultural symbol of Latin America?

As you know, I don’t defend “democracy” per se, since I believe it’s a
worn-out word in the world today and one on which behalf the worst
atrocities are made and the verbs are awfully conjugated.

I can understand the banning of electoral parties –as it recently happened
with the MRS– given that electoral democracy is beyond my grasp. But your
name, Ernesto Cardenal, is not an electoral party. Your name and your
actions are linked with the best days of revolutionary Nicaragua, so your
status is worthy of a great deal more consideration and reverence.

You were awarded the José Martí medal and many other cultural decorations
granted by the Cuban Revolution, and you are therefore a small part of it.

For this reason I feel shame that any leader of the emblematic Sandinista
Front for National Liberation might want to accuse you of anything... and it
makes no difference to me whether it’s the President of a country: and God
knows, I don’t care too much for presidents! Ever since I was a child I got
used to thinking that power belongs only to the Revolution. Fidel was never
my "President", but the quintessential revolutionary leader who dressed
as a
guerrilla and challenged the world. Just look at him, his illness is not
over yet and he’s still in the world’s opposition. Suffice it to read his
latest reflections against capitalism. And it’s indeed regrettable that the
FSLN, regardless of the direction it has taken, has had the nerve to accuse
you. 

I was surprised when Nicaragua refused to give me a visa, but I didn’t get
too annoyed because there’s nothing important about me other than my family
names and bunch of scattered and sometimes disjointed words I’ve written

Now, however, they have once again struck a chord so delicate and dear to me
that I set aside any diplomacy.  

Nicaragua makes me fly into a passion all over again. 

I commend your decision to “go to prison”
 If I had been in Nicaragua I
would have been honored to come along on behalf of this Cuban Revolution
that loves you so much.

In the name of Haydée Santamaría, who knows what I’m doing, and of course in
my own, have our best wishes.

Till Victory Always.

Celia Hart



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     WALTER LIPPMANN
     Los Angeles, California
     Editor-in-Chief, CubaNews
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/
     "Cuba - Un Paraíso bajo el bloqueo"
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