Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site bbncca.ARPA Path: utzoo!lsuc!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!bellcore!decvax!wanginst!bbncca!rrizzo From: rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: re: Who is Tomas Borge? Message-ID: <1697@bbncca.ARPA> Date: Tue, 11-Feb-86 13:46:10 EST Article-I.D.: bbncca.1697 Posted: Tue Feb 11 13:46:10 1986 Date-Received: Fri, 14-Feb-86 00:48:16 EST Organization: Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, Ma. Lines: 149 STYLE VERSUS SUBSTANCE Tony Wuersch performs miracles I can't believe. Like his earlier critique of Shirley Christian's NICARAGUA, in which he transformed a purported history of a revolution into an exercise in English Composition (he exposed Christian's rhetorical strategy & noted that some kinds of evidence -- such as interviews -- rather than others prevailed at certain points in the book, & thus disposed of its entire substance: a consideration of style replaced one of facts), he converts the grim words & alleged crimes of a secret police chief into evidence for an open political system. I can't accuse Tony of belaboring the obvious. So let me lay bare Tony's underlying rhetoric & examine the kind of evidence, explicit & otherwise, that he adduces. Tony uses the language & assumptions of pluralism to describe, both inside & outside the FSLN, Nicaragua's current politics & to persuade us of its hopeful direction: "competition", "attention" or publicity, implied interest groups, etc. Yet despite the oft-declared place of "pluralism" in the junta's (phoney) trinity of accomodation with pesky democrats, & despite the strenuous efforts of Nicaragua's genuine opposition to retain even a toehold in the governing of the country, "pluralism" is hardly an appropriate model to explain the contemporary political scene: The regime allows other political parties, but these are often heavily harassed; it permits independent newspapers, but heavily censors them, and controls the TV (radio, too?); it fixed the only national election in 1984; it has packed the junta and the now rubber- stamp National Assembly with its own creatures; and the army and the actual governing body of Nicaragua, the Sandinista National directorate, are appendages of the FSLN, and not public institutions. As for other sources of independent power -- labor, education, other voluntary associations, even part of the Church -- these are largely controlled and manipulated through Sandinista mass organizations, and perhaps also by the security police and paramilitary groups: but these latter means of control remain shadowy, that is to say, we have precious little information about them. My article tried to suggest what may be happening. Specific information on the actual means of physical repression is often among the last disclosures to be made in the exposure of a totalitarian regime; Cuba's a good example. If Tony's implicit account of political diversity was meant to apply only within the FSLN, nevertheless pluralistic diversity hardly describes a power struggle between factions of an authoritarian revolutionary elite; the FSLN is not the GOP. Tony draws a non sequitur when he assumes that such conflict parallels the diversity of an open political system by necessarily accruing to society's benefit. To get specific: > Borge is the last surviving founder of the Sandinist movement. > He's a big symbol, and he knows this and plays on it. So Borge is a kind of harsh-spoken "old bolshevik", is unlike the other commandantes, & is a "symbol", larger than life; thus he's relatively harmless if nevertheless quaint. But Borge is MUCH MORE than a symbol, & his very real power looms much larger than even his would-be legendary personage: he is chief of the police & fire departments, of the secret police, of press censorship & customs, of the prisons, and of state intelligence and the Sandinista residential block committees. > I doubt his followers will get anywhere after his death, since > the Ortegas lean toward collective leadership. Borge may be the oldest commandante, but he's not that old. And why expect hardliners to fade once Borge dies? In fact, of the 3 most powerful commandantes, 2 are hardliners (Borge & Bayardo Arce, head of the army; Humberto Ortega's the 3rd). Between them Borge & Arce monopolize the means of physical coercion, control most of the surveillance apparatus & some of the propaganda organs. > Borge is usually regarded as a hard-liner in that he likes to > contemplate repressive solutions out loud. The other commandantes do so silently? :=( Given Borge's awesome powers, why treat even his public statements only as indications of aspirations & not also of current actions? Would the Ortegas oppose such actions, or merely Borge's teasing public hints about them? At times Tony himself seems to imply that junta members differ only in personal style & not in general aims & programs. > But saying what you want to do or what you think the state should > do out loud is a positive democratic action, even when what you > want sounds hard line. It ain't necessarily so! The candor of a powerful comissar doesn't imply any freedom of speech or political openness. And Borge's wishes don't merely "sound" hard line; they are hard line, if the phrase has any meaning. > Borge's position is usually one of competing with the bourgeoisie > for public attention, and that's a positive democratic action. Who are the bourgeoisie? La Prensa, the now powerless nonleftist political parties and business organizations? They can no longer mount an opposition worth noticing. Why would chief cop Borge need to compete against enfeebled opponents publicly, verbally? If Borge competes against anyone, it's against the other commandantes. If he plays to an audience, it's to international public opinion, as do the other junta members (whom he perhaps tries to upstage with his sardonic gallows humor): the Sandinistas have astutely realized its importance in gaining for themselves the needed time and freedom to consolidate their power. Borge may simply be sharp enough to realize that since early in the century a kind of knowing & candid cynicism has been fashionable on the left (eg, Trotsky), perhaps an extension to weak-kneed colleagues of "epater le bourgeoisie", and that such intellectual sadism appeals to a definite segment of left opinion & feeling; as an obvious sadist himself, he'd easily understand the psychological dynamics involved. > Putting down opponents verbally is a sign that you recognize their > presence and you want to compete with them in public arenas. Or that you're targeting them ("recognize their presence") for destruc- tion ("compete....arenas")? The soviets (Lenin, Stalin, etc.) have long recognized the importance of preceding physical attack with a verbal, ideological one. Lenin was always verbally aggressive & abusive toward opponents (except when in coalition with them), even when he was supreme: such behavior was no index of his opponents' power. (See Solzhenitsyn's GULAG and LENIN IN ZURICH for Lenin's verbal violence.) > Those who worry...like the Ortegas. [Ie, devious bureaucrats like > the Ortegas are greater dangers to democracy than blatant hardliners.] Tony has it exactly backwards. Borge & Arce have direct access to the means of suppression; the Ortegas don't. Borge IS a successful politician, not because he's outspoken, but because he has real power: guns, cops, & prisons. In Tony's haste to "interpret" facts, that is, to deny them their obvious import, their weight, & see them only as expressions of institutional dynamics or the rhetorical situation of commandantes, Tony is blind to how the words & deeds of a powerful junta member actively shape, & not merely reflect (& then only obliquely), the character of the FSLN & thus the fate of Nicaragua. Loquaciously yours, Ron Rizzo