chapter 23 Formative Art and Social Transformation: The Nicaraguan on Its Tenth Anniversary (1979–1989)

La cultura tiene que ser para superar la división del trabajo, entre trabajo intelectual y trabajo manual … la cultura tiene que ser democrática … para que nuestro pueblo no solamente sea consumidor de cultura, lo cual ya es muy importante, pero también productor de cultura.1 Father , Minister of Culture, ∵

The year 1989 not only marks the two hundredth anniversary of the , but also the tenth anniversary of the Nicaraguan Revolution. This fact has not gone unnoticed in Nicaragua, where the legacy of the events in 1789 along with the ideals of the Enlightenment have been duly noted by the Sandinistas themselves, as a significant historical precedent for Nicaragua’s own process on behalf of a more progressive society culturally and educationally, as well as one that is more characterised by economic equal- ity, majority particpation, and social justice than has ever before been true of . To acknowledge their connection with the French Revolu- tion and the European Enlightenment, the Nicaraguans have placed a replica of Houdon’s bust of Voltaire next to a portrait bust of Carlos Fonseca (the Sandinista leader and Marxist theoretician who was martyred by Somoza’s National Guard in 1976), both of which flank the main entrance to the exhibi- tion spaces at the National School of Plastic Arts in . Furthermore, just as the French Revolution witnessed a new emergence in world history of the Third Estate (tiers état), so the Nicaraguan Revolution has not only featured a new ascension to power of the popular classes – especially by urban workers and rural wage labourers – but also the advent of a non-Eurocentric worldview both ideologically and in the arts as a necessary

1 Cardenal 1982, p. 179.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/9789004235861_025 334 chapter 23 accompaniment to the newly post-colonial society being constructed there. Here it should be mentioned that the term ‘’ arose during the 1960s in the context of anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles, as a way of delineating the situation of the third estate throughout the world. This global third estate, which is largely though not entirely located in the Third World, consists of the majority of the people in the world, namely, non-Western workers of colour, whether in the agrarian or urban spheres, who must daily confront the continuing economic as well as cultural hegemony of the West within the present world order.2 In recognising their own concerns as a conjuncture of class-based consider- ations and non-Western cultural practices, the Sandinistas have rightly noted their own place in history as one that both relates to yet also substantially advances beyond that of the French Revolution. Thus, Ernesto Cardenal, the famous poet and Minister of Culture in Nicaragua could declare: ‘Like the French Revolution, which was not only of French but also of worldwide import, the Nicaraguan Revolution is not only of Nicaraguan but also of Latin American and worldwide importance’.3 One of the major achievements of the Nicaraguan Revolution to date has occurred in the arts. (This accomplishment is of course alongside its huge ; its crusade of 1980 that saw over half a million people in a country of only three million learn to read, thus elevating literacy from only 53 percent to 88 percent; and its medical campaign that has been singled out for awards by the World Health Organisation.) Few other in history have given culture such a formative role in social transformation – a fact that has caused the Nicaraguan process to be named a ‘revolution of poets’. The most noteworthy reason for this designation has been stated by Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano. According to Galeano, the Nicaraguan Revolution is of signal significance in the arts because of the degree to which it has attempted to socialise the means of artistic production in the country as a whole.4 This far-reaching effort at socialising the means of artistic production, which will be the primary focus of what follows, has entailed major institutional as well as ideological changes since 1979 and has been concomitant with radical changes in the realm of political economy, particularly those that relate to the implementation of autogestion in the workplace, and to the new centrality in

2 n.a. 1986, pp. 7–9. 3 Cardenal 1982, p. 181 (translation by David Craven). 4 Galeano 1986, p. 102. On the literacy crusade and health campaign, see Cardenal and Miller 1981, pp. 1–26; and Garfield and Taboada 1986, pp. 425–32.