"Viva Nicaragua Libre!" The Longevity of Political Slogans in Transnational Solidarity Movements
The claim “Nicaragua Libre” has influenced actions and expressions of solidarity with Nicaragua in Germany over the past four decades. Based on the continued identification with the political struggle and revolutionary potential of the Nicaraguan people, this contribution dwells on the temporal and political transferability of slogans surrounding transnational solidarity activism.
Solidarity has been a direct call for political action in Berlin for decades. In former West Berlin during the Cold War, solidarities with “long-distance issues” (Rucht 2000) linked its left-leaning youth with political struggles all over the globe, particularly in post-colonial regions in the Global South. Quests for liberation – whether against the apartheid regime in South Africa, national sovereignty movements, or Marxist revolutions – were omnipresent.
A liberation campaign that found particular resonance in West Berlin was the Nicaraguan Sandinista National Liberation Front (Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, FSLN), a left-wing insurgent movement that successfully staged a revolution in 1979. The Sandinistas’ revolutionary proposal was to turn Nicaragua into a unique socialist state with solid public institutions and market and land reforms. Their rejection of merely being another Soviet satellite state found great resonance in West Germany, where its left-wing youth longed for a more utopian concept of society beyond the East-West divide. The Sandinista revolution thereby became a vessel for West Germany’s revolutionary longings and projections. When the Sandinista leadership issued a call for revolutionary direct aid under the umbrella of international solidarity, tens of thousands of volunteers from West Germany’s left-wing youth, including trade union and church members, flocked to Nicaragua until the Sandinistas’ electoral loss in 1989.
After more than a decade in political opposition, the FSLN under President Ortega came back into power in 2007. When the Nicaraguan state run by the Sandinistas violently cracked down on student protesters in April 2018, the transnational solidarity that emerged in Berlin was a direct and timely response to these atrocities.1 The acts and expressions of transnational solidarity with Nicaraguan protesters were not restricted to diasporic Nicaraguans or netizens sharing some hashtags: surprisingly, one of the first and most active groups that emerged was composed of elderly German leftists that united with Nicaraguans, some of them recently arrived exiles, in Berlin. A vast majority of former German brigades rejected the Sandinista regime at the outbreak of protests in 2018. Their volte-face was the culmination of a decades-long dissatisfaction with the Sandinista project that turned, in their opinion, from a revolutionary project to an authoritarian regime. When images of Nicaraguans protesting the Sandinistas reached these former brigades in 2018, they felt summoned back to their old activist frontlines. After all, Berlin’s rebellious legacy, particularly in the Western part of the former wall, has contributed to an ongoing dedication to liberation struggles. However, this time, instead of supporting the Sandinistas, the German activists joined the protesters fighting the entrenched Sandinista regime.
Under the slogan Nicaragua Libre (Free Nicaragua), activists in Berlin formed a hub for Nicaraguan dissidents with frequent protests, cultural events, panel debates, and conferences. However, Nicaragua Libre demonstrates how, for some activists, the slogan has become a vessel not solely to mobilize politically but also to reclaim the past. Although the nostalgia for the revolutionary decade in Nicaragua did not obstruct the German brigades from believing in the legitimacy of protesting students, it certainly tinted how they saw their past involvement with the Sandinistas.
The following political posters from Germany illustrate how Nicaragua Libre has shaped (West) German political mobilization and representation over time (see Bujard and Wirper, 2007). Nicaragua Libre was also a prominent slogan in the 1980s. At the time, it stood for self-determination in the US sphere of influence and liberation from Nicaragua’s authoritarian and kleptocratic past regimes (Helm 2018). The German left’s lack of critical engagement in the 1980s with the meanings and forms of solidarity and Marxist internationalism they pursued is reflected in their often-generic content. These posters and banners show how Nicaragua Libre has remained a versatile slogan. Since it does not specify what Nicaragua should be freed from, its open discursive framing managed to unite different (left) factions in West Germany who could inscribe and project their own priorities and convictions.
The slogan Nicaragua Libre emerged from of a well-connected, anti-imperialist Latin American context. The Cuban revolution left an imprint beyond the political sphere and strongly influenced Nicaragua’s cultural production. Reminiscent of “Cuba Libre,” the rallying cry for Cuban independence from the United States, the Nicaragua Libre slogan shaped the decade of revolutionary governance in Nicaragua in the 1980s. The first poster (illustration 1) illustrates this historical and ideological alignment pertinently, with the phrase appearing in white letters at the lower right edge. It depicts a guerrilla fighter reminiscent of Che Guevara, wearing a beret, ear-long hair, and rolled-up sleeves, who holds their rifle into the sky. The depiction of the sea and warm colours of the sinking sun replicate the trope of a revolution in the tropics, an exotic faraway land. The sun's reflection in the sea promises both an ending and a new beginning.
Illustration1: They shall not pass! Free Nicaragua!
The heading of this poster, No pasarán! (“they shall not pass”), a widely used rallying cry originating from the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, points to the temporal transferability of political slogans. Similar to seemingly timeless political figures on the left like Che Guevara, No pasarán! acts as a protean vessel to transmit any message of left-wing resistance, no matter how different their contours – be it armed conflict or street protests, whether in the 1980s or the very different conditions today. This continuation of left slogans in Latin America across contexts points to their seeming universality.2 Nicaragua Libre evokes a political imaginary of revolutionary new beginnings, autonomy, and self-determination.
The political posters of the West German Nicaragua solidarity committees of the 1980s aimed at mobilizing grassroots support for the Sandinista revolution and its endeavours. What stands out is their admiration of the Nicaraguan people’s autonomy, expressed in direct slogans and visuals. Alongside the Nicaraguan national colours, white and blue, the FSLN’s official party colours, red and black, feature prominently. Besides the FSLN, for many West German brigades, red and black also signalled an affinity with the anarchist movement (see illustrations 2 –3).
Illustration 2 replicates this red-black colour scheme, arranged diagonally here. It replicates a quote by Ernesto Cardenal, a Jesuit priest and former FSLN Minister of Culture: “For the Self-Determination of the People. Your Solidarity Is Indispensable to Us.” The centrepiece of the poster, a globe with black figurines holding hands, frames a pair of hands holding soil and a small sprouting plant with the slogan Nicaragua Libre. This centrepiece has since been replicated as a political sticker, still in use in 2018.
Illustration 3 depicts an invitation for a poster exhibition at an autonomous art space in former West Berlin “on the occasion of the 1st anniversary of the Sandinista victory” in July 1980.3 It proclaims: “One year of Free Nicaragua.” A seeming mass of hands reach into the sky, each of them divided in either white-blue or red-black colours. Their gestures vary from peace, fists held up high, or waving. In their simplified style, both posters (illustration 2–3) rely on drawings to reflect people as a unified, homogenous and supportive mass.
Illustration 2: “For the self-determination of the people. Your solidarity is indispensable for us (Ernesto Cardenal)”
Illustration 3: “Posters of the Revolution: One Year of Free Nicaragua”
Beyond the political symbolism that the West German Solidarity Committees employed in their posters, they also related to the activities of German (and other international) brigades in Nicaragua at the time. In the 1980s, German brigades provided direct assistance by travelling to Nicaragua to take on practical tasks such as building schools or picking coffee. The development of public infrastructure, particularly schools, was a core mission. The solidarity infrastructures that emerged through these became, despite their grassroots origins, often institutionalized. Direct aid initiatives were tied to town twinning movements, which foregrounded a commitment on behalf of West German municipalities.
In Fürth, a small town in Northern Bavaria, Sandinista supporters of the German Social Democratic Party founded the so-called Nicaragua Association in the early 1980s with the goal of improving living conditions in Nicaragua, which was ravaged by civil war at the time. Beyond the revolutionary imaginaries that West Germans projected onto Sandinistas, solidarity with Nicaragua also implied a strong critique of the US. The ruling German Christian Democratic Union unreservedly supported the US’ strict trade embargoes and condemnation of the Sandinista rule. Many German activists considered direct aid in Nicaragua the only way of amending the damage their government and its allies had caused.
Illustration 4: “Long live free Nicaragua. Fürth–Juigalpa
In that vein, illustration 4’s “Viva Nicaragua Libre” alludes to a Sandinista Nicaragua, liberated from previous authoritarian Nicaraguan regimes and free from foreign (US and other Western) interests and aggression. The central figure, a wide-smiling child running toward the viewer with arms spread out wide, can be interpreted as the joy that West German activists found in aligning with the revolution. The child, holding a stack of papers and a pen, embodies a new beginning. Anchoring education in a wider orientation towards a revolutionary future touched upon both the widespread free and public education programs in Nicaragua and acknowledged the Germans who supported this endeavour financially, materially, and on-site (see illustration 5).
Illustration 5: “A school for Nicaragua. Solidarity activity for constructing a public school in San Juan Bosco, Masaya / Nicaragua Libre”
These practical solidarity efforts in the 1980s were not isolated development aid initiatives but congruent with Sandinista policies. It was the FSLN leadership that largely determined where, how, and when these solidarity initiatives were taking place. When the FSLN lost their national election and stepped down from power in 1990, many German Sandinista supporters transformed their solidarity initiatives into collaborations with non-governmental associations that emerged from Sandinista grassroots efforts. While many were critical of what the FSLN became since its return to power in 2007, with its market-friendly policies and a steady transformation into an authoritarian state, the brigades’ solidarity with the Sandinistas was disrupted by the violence unleashed on protesters in April 2018. Some solidarity committees in Germany outrightly dissolved their groups or individual ties with Nicaragua,4 while others tried to mediate their prior ideological convictions with the needs of local Nicaraguan partners.
Paradoxically, despite ideologically strongly opposing the Sandinista regime in 2018, many former brigades took to the streets with Nicaragua Libre as a main slogan (see illustration 6). Now, Nicaragua Libre was no longer a hopeful call for more autonomy and revolutionary new beginnings. It was used to demand a regime change, i.e., a Nicaragua linked with a profound democratic reform. A Nicaragua freed from its (Sandinista) President Ortega and his wife, Vice-President Murillo, was also a liberation from a former revolutionary who, in their opinion, had betrayed their past. The fine line between continuing their protests in the vein of the 1980s – also reflected in the poster aesthetic with blue letters on a white background, with a few highlights in red – stood in stark contrast to their demands.
Illustration 6: “For a Free Nicaragua without Ortega and without Murillo”
In one sense, the persistence of Nicaragua Libre in acts and expressions of solidarity with Nicaragua in the German left is based on a continued identification with the political struggles and revolutionary potential of the Nicaraguan people. At first sight, the language of this solidarity has remained unchanged. However, the political alliances behind them have entirely shifted, with former brigades now demanding the stepping down of the political (Sandinista) leadership in Nicaragua (see illustration 6). Declaring solidarity with ordinary Nicaraguans, however, is and remains a central theme.
German solidarity activists believe they have responded to injustices and atrocities over time against the aggressions of the US, expressed in economic sanctions and the arming of Contra fighters back in the 1980s, and against the Nicaraguan state’s violent crackdown on protesters since 2018. This continuous denunciation of injustice is why their volte-face is not a paradox for the German solidarity activists but a timeless claim. However, their simplistic understanding of solidarity, based on the principle of uniting with the oppressed, has also overlooked the complex web of relations, histories, and socio-cultural nuances of the Sandinista revolution and its remnants in Nicaragua, which the protests in 2018 have brought to the fore.
Albeit tailored to a specific struggle, the slogan Nicaragua Libre reflects the adaptability of political slogans in solidarity movements. As I have demonstrated, this includes the deeper tensions these transferable slogans can gloss over. Indeed, the persistence of Nicaragua Libre in German solidarity movements with Nicaragua demonstrates the paradox of a political volte-face running underneath the continuity of solidarity aesthetics and slogans. For the activists who have mobilized their identification with the Nicaraguan struggle of an internationalist conviction and, possibly, nostalgic revolutionary projections, they considered their activism as a continued mobilization for the same root cause, making solidarity their continuous mode of action. The political slogans that accompanied and underlined the solidarity activism have facilitated the 180-degree political turn, demonstrating how transferable generic slogans are.
Literature
Bujard, Otker, and Ulrich Wirper, eds. Die Revolution Ist Ein Buch Und Ein Freier Mensch. Die Politischen Plakate Des Befreiten Nicaragua 1979-1990 Und Der Internationalen Solidaritätsbewegung. Vol. 1990. Köln: PapyRossa, 2007.
Helm, Christian. Botschafter der Revolution: Das transnationale Kommunikationsnetzwerk zwischen der Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional und der bundesdeutschen Nicaragua-Solidarität 1977-1990. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2018.
Rucht, Dieter. ‘Distant Issue Movements in Germany: Empirical Description and Theoretical Reflections’. In Globalizations and Social Movements: Culture, Power and the Transnational Public Sphere, edited by John A. Guidry, Michael D. Kennedy, and Mayer N. Zald, 76–108. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000.
United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commission. ‘Informe Del Grupo de Expertos En Derechos Humanos Sobre Nicaragua*’. Geneva: OHCHR, 2 March 2023.
Illustrations
Illustration 1: They shall not pass! Free Nicaragua! Bujard, Otker, and Ulrich Wirper, eds. Die Revolution Ist Ein Buch Und Ein Freier Mensch. Die Politischen Plakate Des Befreiten Nicaragua 1979-1990 Und Der Internationalen Solidaritätsbewegung. Vol. 1990. Köln: PapyRossa, 2007, pp. 353
Illustration 2: “Your solidarity is indispensable for us.” Bujard, Otker, and Ulrich Wirper, eds. Die Revolution Ist Ein Buch Und Ein Freier Mensch. Die Politischen Plakate Des Befreiten Nicaragua 1979-1990 Und Der Internationalen Solidaritätsbewegung. Vol. 1990. Köln: PapyRossa, 2007, pp. 313
Illustration 3: "One Year of Free Nicaragua." neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst. ‘Plakate Der Revolution. 1 Jahr Freies Nicaragua’. Accessed 20 October 2023. https://archiv.ngbk.de/projekte/nicaragua/.
Illustration 4: “Long live free Nicaragua. Fürth–Juigalpa”. Accessed 20 October 2023. https://www.fuerth.de/Portaldata/1/Resources/lebeninfuerth/dokumente/2023/Begleitheft_WANDEL-Chronologie_Fair_in_Fuerth.pdf
Illustration 5: “A school for Nicaragua. Solidarity activity for the construction of a public school in San Juan Bosco, Masaya / Nicaragua Libre”. Bujard, Otker, and Ulrich Wirper, eds. Die Revolution Ist Ein Buch Und Ein Freier Mensch. Die Politischen Plakate Des Befreiten Nicaragua 1979-1990 Und Der Internationalen Solidaritätsbewegung. Vol. 1990. Köln: PapyRossa, 2007, pp. 325
Illustration 6: “For a Free Nicaragua without Ortega and without Murillo”. Picture by the author, Berlin, November 7, 2021
Endnotes
