Abstract.
Salman Rushdie’s non fictional work The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey expresses the gongs on in Nicaragua after the revolution. In this paper, this will be focused on more so the feelings of the people, its culture and political environment and analysis of it. Rushdie seemed to question a lot of things and even back others from a political point of view. This portrays him as a honest visitor of the state who so wishes to explore the land and get to know what really happened behind the scenes of leadership and governance.
The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey
In the book The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey, Salman Rushdie brings to focus different aspects of life that seem to be haunting the people and state of Nicaragua. At the point of writing this book, Nicaragua was recovering from a revolution and therefore Rushdie brings forth a land of difficulty despite it being dotted with politicians as well as warriors who he thought were more of poets (Lisle 2006). The book explores how the people clashed with the government of the day just like history was also clashing with morality. The Nicaraguans may have seen the dawn of a new leadership but they may never have tasted its fruits.
The theme of the government clashing with the citizens’ interests is clearly seen as the nation was ruled with an iron fist by dictators like the Somoza Dynasty. The author paints the picture of the former excesses of a nation that held in total disregard the feelings of the common people (Lisle 2006). Through the revolution, it is a clear fact that there was a clash of interest between the ruler and the ruled that led to the turmoil and the many deaths that even Rushdie acknowledges, that before one gets to understand the living, it is of necessity that one begins by understanding the death.
Oppression of the opposition is vividly painted as the opposition is not allowed freedom of expression as is seen through the censorship of the news outlets. Other questionable policies are evident in Nicaragua at the time. The censorship and further closure of the of the opposition newspaper, La Prensa clearly indicates that anyone who stood in the way of the revolutionists was viewed as the enemy. Controlling of the media totals up to lack of freedom of speech or expression and this country was exhibiting this.
Political satire is immensely covered in the book The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey. The ruling class hides under policies that demean the people without the people really knowing the truth just as in Nicaragua. The Sandinista try so much to poison the people’s mentality about the outside world much to them achieving the people’s confidence. The people are told of how bad the west and other countries were (Martin 1994). They go on to believe that to the benefit of the ruling group Sandinista.
The country under Somoza was totally under totalitarian rule but after the Sandinistas took power things seemed to have changed as painted by Rushdie. The revolution therefore can be said to be a savior in the making as through it, Nicaraguans finally had a sigh of relief. Revolutions are normally seen as the only solutions to persistent political crises in many governments (Lisle 2006). The moment the revolutionists get into power, hope is seen and the citizens tend to think that all their suffering is all over. Just like Nicaraguans, life was never easy and the rise of the revolution under the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN).
The nation of Nicaragua had endured so much of a tyrannical kind of leadership during the reign of the Somoza family. The revolution came in order to liberate the people from that kind of leadership. The good thing is that the revolution with help from other surrounding nations managed to liberate the nation from the tyrannical leadership. The problem now came in when the government under Ortega, did not make leadership democratic in any way. It was within their means to do so because the government could have borrowed a leaf from the democratic world but to some extent it never did. It seemed to suppress the opposition though not in an extreme way as the Somoza dynasty. Its totalitarian rule received a massive negative attitude from the groups that considered themselves marginalized and with the help of the Reagan government, the villages along the Atlantic together with the Contras sought to fight the Sandinistas.
The military rule could never have ensured democracy because it’s kind of rule was considered extreme. The result was therefore ignorance of the fundamental principles that led to the revolution and a search for democratic rule. The Reagan leadership made things even worse after it dictated a commercial embargo on this struggling nation. Many are the times that the United States threatened to intervene with its military to at least bring sanity to the nation. This then clearly puts forward the selfish interests of the United States because this was in no way good for a nation that was going through such turbulent political times.
The leftists took power promising the Nicaraguans a better life and a better Nicaragua. The political air was not tense any more as the Sandinistas were seen to be the only political solution to the problems that were tormenting the Nicaraguan people. Despite all these, the government of the day by the time Rushdie visited can best be described as totalitarian. This is so because the government had sidelined the minority groups and was not serving the people to the best of their interests. This was the main reason why there arose a revolt led by the contras (Martin 1994).
The government on the other hand just like any totalitarian kind of leadership was seeking to protect its citizens from the outside world. This is seen through the governments self approval of doing what is best for its citizens. The political behavior there can therefore be best described as one that denied citizens their fundamental rights. The state in its bid to deliver what it thought was best for its citizens sought to use a form of leadership that can be best described as that which subjected its citizens to thinking that all was well when nothing is right really (Lisle 2006). At this point in time, the Nicaraguans think that all is well when in reality this is the opposite.
One single party kind of governance has got no watchdog to check its excesses and also monitor how it runs the government. The Sandinistas had painted the kind of picture that portrayed it as a kind of leadership that provided its citizens all that was necessary. The government forgot that there was more to leadership than having obedient citizens. The opposition was nothing but a group of individuals who were seen as the enemies of the government and the people, thus was the picture that the Sandinista had brought forth. It is therefore a sad story because lack of a strong opposition gave the government of the day room to do things as it pleased.
The people of Nicaragua were thus affected negatively with this kind of leadership. The people lived in the dark as they never knew what was happening in the world outside Nicaragua. They are portrayed as being ignorant of the world around them. At one point, Rushdie says clearly that he was surprised by the fact that one of his interpreters did not believe that there still existed labor camps in the USSR (Lisle 2006). Despite this fact, the opposition paper La Prensa did a good job in as far as dissemination of news and information was concerned. This notwithstanding, the people of Nicaragua were not all informed as they were not fully equipped with all that was going on in the world at large.
There is a group of people who are totally ignored in this setting. These are the people from the Nicaraguan Atlantic coast. At Zelaya, the people did not support the revolution as much as people from other regions did. So when the Sandinista took over power, automatically these people were sidelined. The people who had been affected so much were the Miskitos Indians who had been evacuated and driven in to the hands of the Contras (Martin 1994). But the Sandinistas wanted to rectify this mistake and introduce the federal kind leadership in the whole region. Maybe this could have helped but the opposite is true because the central government still held absolute power over all the regions. This notwithstanding, at least it tried to cater for the needs of all Nicaraguans.
Events in Nicaragua happened as they did because the nation was trying to pick itself up from the harsh revolution and from the very many years of suffering under the Somoza leadership. The new leaders of the nation under Ortega sought to correct the wrongs that been made to the minority groups and the nation at large. The people had their expectations of the new government and the government was doing what it thought was good for the people. But it can be seen that it was not doing enough. Even when the people had gotten their independence from Somoza, they were not yet independent as seen through the opposition and what it stood for.
Rushdie met various people, who expressed their own views and perspectives on the political environment of Nicaragua at the time. They ranged from government officials, the opposition and even locals such as the old midwife in one of the remote villages along the Atlantic. From the villages to the high end government officials, al had seen so much, since Somoza’s dynasty to the revolution and even after the revolution (Lisle 2006). There are different perspectives from which all these people see life. Yet all of them had to learn to live with one another and help each other. But it is evident that all their interests clashed to a great extent.
The actions and behaviors of the Sandinista affected not only the Nicaraguans but the whole world at large so to speak, at least politically. This is the major reason why the United States through its leadership rose in arms even to use the contras in challenging the leadership of the country (Martin 1994). This is so because the United States and its supporters thought that the Sandinista leadership was not as democratic as it was supposed to be. The Reagan administration was therefore supposed to play a role that was seen to help Nicaraguans find true democracy and save the nation from communist ideologies and leadership.
The entire region was watching what was happening in Nicaragua and so was the world. The revolution had led to the emergence of an optimistic state that was no longer under a tyrant ruler. But because of its communist ideologies, some governments opposed its form of leadership. But at least Rushdie never opposed the government. Could be that the nation was led by fellow authors and poets but at least he puts it clearly that he was a son born out of a revolution and that the revolution could in one way or another help in the rebuilding of the nation as this was the sole reason of the revolution being there anyway (Martin 1994). The United States and is allies were on one hand and so was the Soviet Union and its allies on the other. Both were watching closely to see what could become of Nicaragua. This nation attracted attention from both ends and politically it was watched with a hawk’s eye.
Nicaragua may have gotten its democracy the moment the Sandinista took up power, so they thought. But the truth is that there was a very long way to their independence and freedoms. Rushdie tries to paint a government and a nation that was struggling to get to its feet to the benefit of its citizens. That may be the main reason why he was in support of the government of the day. The truth of the matter is that the people never realized how wrong they were as life did not change overnight. But all in all, at least tyranny was a thing of the past and the nation was on its way to ultimate freedom. Nicaragua had slowly and surely swallowed and consumed by war but the peace negotiations there after led to what can entirely be called a rebirth that came with it a new vision and dreams.
Lisle, D. (2006). The Global Politics of Contemporary Travel Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. Print.
Martin, R. (1994). Socialist Ensembles: Theatre and State in Cuba and Nicaragua. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota. Print.
Rushdie, S. (1987). The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey. New York: Penguin.
