Now We Know the Difference: The People of Nicaragua

J. Frank Harrison taught at St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia.

The author of this book is a theatre director, and this description of revolutionary Nicaragua reflects his experiences with a travelling group of actors there. It is also an intensely political statement, for theatre in that country is a vehicle for the promotion of goals of the Sandinista regime.

We are given a picture of a society of rural peasants who are largely in support of the new regime because of the land reform and other benefits provided. We are also left in no doubt that this is not the outpost of Soviet Communism that President Reagan of the United States has deceitfully presented to the American public. However, it is seen to be a country under attack. The evidence for this attack is the anti-regime propaganda within the country (supported by the Catholic Church hierarchy, though not by most priests and nuns) and the military offensive of the Contras based in Honduras and Costa Rica. American financing supports and initiates this, leading the author to acknowledge “President Ronald Reagan, without whose remarkably biased perception of Nicaragua I would probably never have felt the need to describe what I saw at all.”

We are left with the image of a system that demands our support rather than our condemnation, but one that is insecure because of foreign pressures. As a Vietnam veteran living in Costa Rica is reported here as saying: “…it’s like deja vu, man. I’m watchin’ the same fuckin’ thing startin’ here” (p.130).