Neither Left nor Right: Sandinismo in the Anti-Feminist Era
Kampwirth, Karen
NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS report: the right
Neither Left nor Right: Sandinismoin the Anti-Feminist Era nicaraguan president Daniel ortega and his wife, rosario Murillo, in june Karen...
...there has to be a coordination of governments and state agencies to avoid prostitution and free love...
...The gendered components of Ortega’s 2006 electoral strategy certainly had the effect of weakening feminists, who had formed part of the FSLN’s base, and strengthening anti-feminists...
...Certainly seen from the grassroots, sandinismo still is a left-wing project...
...They let my daughter die,” Zamora’s mother told a newspaper, recounting how the doctors had said the laws had changed and that they were required to wait until Francis expelled the fetus before they could perform a lifesaving D and C procedure...
...He dismissed that example, telling me that since she died months after the baby was delivered by cesarean, her death could not be attributed to the pregnancy...
...For example, former education minister Humberto Belli and Max Padilla, former minister of the family, belong to Opus Dei, and Elida de Solórzano, an adviser to Padilla and founder of Asociación Nicaragüense de la Mujer (Nicaraguan Women’s Association, or Animu), told me she is a founding member of Ciudad de Dios, or City of God, JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2008 report: the right an fSln presidential campaign poster, Isla de ometepe, nicaragua, october 2006...
...In fact, up until Ortega’s taking power in early 2007, the anti-feminist movement was more powerful than the feminist In contrast with the movement if power was measured in terms of the movement’s access feminist movement, to the Nicaraguan state and to the the anti-feminist hierarchy of the Catholic Church...
...john mitchell NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS report: the right Cabrera and like-minded Nicaraguans had opposed therapeutic abortion for many years prior to 2006...
...In both cases, the movements are centrally concerned with the politics of intimacy and daily life...
...navidad culminated in a massive two-day cultural event in the What is surprising is Dennis Martínez National Sta that this agenda has dium...
...I n 2006, the fsln seemed to reimagine the legacy of the revolution...
...A little more than year later, at least 80 women have died because of the new law.1 Most died as a result of a miscarriage, like 22-year-old Francis Zamora, who died in a hospital in January 2007, leaving behind three children...
...This is something that arguably has happened to the left across the region.14 But whether flexible or cynical, the return to the left in Nicaragua does not look very left-wing, at least not from a feminist perspective...
...It was part and parcel of the FSLN’s long-term evolution from a revolutionary party to one that is often a personal vehicle for Ortega and his family...
...Yes,” she said, “[the abortion] would be just...
...NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS report: the right Neither Left nor Right: Sandinismoin the Anti-Feminist Era nicaraguan president Daniel ortega and his wife, rosario Murillo, in june Karen Kampwirth is Professor of political science at Knox College...
...Although the Sandinista representatives had always upheld therapeutic abortion in previous years, they voted against it in 2006 out of fear that the party would otherwise lose the upcoming election...
...evangelicals behind this event shared values with traditional Catholic opponents of feminism, Padilla invited Rojas to a meeting at his government office...
...Anti-feminist organizations do not compose a “movement” in the same sense that feminist organizations do...
...Elizabeth de Rojas, a minister with Alianza Evangélica (Evangelical Alliance), explained that her work first came to the attention of traditional Catholic leaders in December 1998, when she helped organize It is not surprising what she called a “crusade” and that anti-feminist “campaign” called Festinavidad...
...The unanimous votes of representatives from the traditional party of the revolution, the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (Sandinista Front for National Liberation, or FSLN), were critical...
...As analysts from the journal Envio noted, the FSLN “won without growing,” that is, it won with the votes of its traditionally loyal voters, and few others, and it would have lost had the right not been divided between the traditional Liberal Party and the ALN.2 But whether or not they win votes, electoral strategies have consequences...
...4 With therapeutic these words, Murillo cemented abortion...
...This included the abolition of what Nicaraguans call “therapeutic abortion,” that is, legal abortion under very limited circumstances, especially to save the life of the pregnant woman...
...What it does show is that, afteradecadeandahalfoutofpower,andclosetoadecade of political pacts with the right—with Arnoldo Alemán’s Liberal Constitutionalist party and with Obando y Bravo’s faction within the Catholic Church—the FSLN was quite willing to oppose its former base in the women’s move NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS report: the right ment, to say nothing of the vast majority of Nicaragua’s medical establishment, if that is what it took to return to power...
...12 Perhaps it is not surprising that a congressman from the right-wing Liberal Party should take this sort of position, although the Liberal Party itself has changed significantly from the days of the Somoza dictatorship, when it was considerably more secular and liberal regarding women than its main rival, the Conservative Party...
...F or many antifeminist activists or their supporters, abolishing therapeutic abortion is not the final goal...
...0 by Karen Kampwirth I n october 2006, nicaragua became one of a handful of countries, including Chile and El Salvador, where abortion is illegal without exception...
...In contrast with the feminist movement, the anti-feminist movement had never been so united and sophisticated as it was in 2006...
...One position, promoted by activists in the feminist organization Puntos de Encuentro, among others, was that therapeutic abortion should be defended using “positive messages...
...The rhetoric of peace and reconciliation supplanted that of anti-imperialism and class struggle...
...And that new vision of what it meant to be a revolutionary was traditional rather than liberation-theology Catholic, anti-feminist rather than feminist...
...Ortega was conspicuously silent when his wife, who also headed his electoral campaign, advocated the abolition of therapeutic abortion, firmly allying herself with the Catholic Church...
...They participated in various vigils dressed in white and carrying candles...
...Though we tend to speak of movements as left-or right-wing, liberal or conservative, they may in fact be all of these things at once—simultaneously resisting imperialism, rejecting dictatorship, and promoting gender inequality...
...13 But that may go too far...
...Asked about the poor care pregnant women generally receive in the public health care system (which makes the abolition of therapeutic abortion more dangerous than it would be in a country with good pre-natal care), Noel Pereira Majano, congressman from the Liberal Party and president of the National Assembly’s Justice Commission, responded: “One has to keep one’s cool in making statements about the effects of abortion...
...One of many signs that Ortega had changed was his marriage to Rosario Murillo, his partner of 27 years, in a Catholic ceremony presided over by former archbishop Miguel Obando y Bravo, a little more than a year before the 2006 election...
...But there is little reason to believe that FSLN votes in favor of the abortion ban affected the electoral outcome...
...however, counting organizations is not the only way to gauge the strength of a movement...
...But if the pregnant woman would die along with her unborn baby...
...There was no disagreement over the need to defend therapeutic abortion, but the movement was damaged by personality clashes and disagreements regarding language and symbolism...
...Precisely because we have faith, because ortega was we have religion, because we are believers, because we love God conspicuously above all things . . . for those silent when his reasons we also defend, and we wife, who also agree completely with the church and the churches, that abortion headed his is something that affects women electoral fundamentally, because we never get over the pain and trauma that campaign, anabortionleavesus...
...The Sandanistas’ campaign stressed love and reconciliation over confrontation...
...In some countries in the region, the pink tide has brought with it a limited expansion of reproductive freedom.3 But not in Nicaragua...
...Evangelina de Guirola, also of Animu and the founder of Sí a la Vida (Yes to Life...
...Nationwide, none of the FSLN’s strategies—expensive advertising,therhetoricofloveandreconciliation,theelectoral alliances with Contras and Somocistas, the alliance with the Catholic Church and various evangelical leaders, the vote against therapeutic abortion—seem to have made any difference...
...In that time before the invention of antibiotics, before tuberculosis had been brought under control, before cardiac problems could be treated, Nicaragua was characterized by what he called “a hostile environment...
...The subsequent victory of Daniel Ortega, the FSLN’s longtime leader and candidate, after 16 years out of power, seemed to confirm this...
...More than 300,000 gifts were activists and their distributed to Nicaraguan chil supporters seek to dren at this event, gifts that had been provided by supporters of restore or impose the U.S.-based evangelical min a particular model ister Franklin Graham...
...What is surprising is that this agenda has been furthered with the active support of the FSLN...
...Perhaps more critically, while there were both Catholic and evangelical abortion opponents, they had rarely worked together...
...But that started changing in the late 1990s...
...faith more generally...
...The most extensive list I have seen comprises nine organizations that identified themselves as pro-life and pro-family...
...That they succeeded in abolishing that 19th-century medical reform in 2006 cannot be understood outside the electoral context, which abortion opponents had not taken advantage of previously...
...So the feminist movement is far more significant than the anti-feminist movement if measured in terms of organizations...
...The vote in the Nicaraguan National Assembly that resulted in the new law took place 10 days before the presidential election...
...In the Nicaraguan case, these two trends are related...
...In November 2006, Rafael Cabrera, a gynecologist and president of Anprovida, told me that abolishing article 165 was a good thing because it was a 19th-century anachronism...
...Seen from the perspective of Ortega and Murillo, sandinismo may be a left-wing project drained of principle or, to put it more kindly, a flexible left-wing project...
...Instead, it could be seen as part of a broader project of restoring or imposing a particular model of gender relations...
...Believing that the the fSln...
...Later the MAM began to have a public presence with a message that was quite full of negativity: ‘murderers,’ ‘killers of women,’ ‘you don’t know your own laws,’ ‘don’t vote for a rapist.’ ” Ana María Pizarro, director of the women’s clinic Sí Mujer and member of the MAM, was on the other side of this disagreement over tactics, but she also saw the divide as being over whether radical or moderate strategies were the most effective...
...In my case I would prefer to have my child with the risk...
...It was a group of organizations with strong ties to the state, especially to the ministries that dealmostdirectlywithpersonalpolitics:health,education, andthefamily.IntheyearsfollowingtheSandinistarevolution, one of the anti-feminists’ major goals was to abolish article 165 of the penal code, the article that gave doctors the right to perform therapeutic abortion...
...There must be an imploring against the situation of the liberated woman, who thinks she can control all the parts of her body...
...I brought up a case of a Nicaraguan woman I knew personally who died at the age of 27 after her first pregnancy caused irreparable heart damage...
...And a 54-year-old women explained that she was at the march “as the Catholic that I am, to support the ideas of our priests...
...Similarly, none of the anti-abortion activists I interviewed gave me reason to believe they had voted oscar navarrete / latinphoto.org JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2008 report: the right for the FSLN...
...Many Nicaraguan feminists trace their histories as activists to the liberation theology movement and continue to identify in some way with a Catholicism informed by liberation theology...
...Padilla has participated in the activities of the Rockford, Illinois–based World Congress of Families.7 Finally, the U.S.-based Heritage Foundation has provided support for the work of Padilla and Solórzano.8 Government delegations from Nicaragua (headed by Belli and Solórzano) have been some of the most prominent opponents of feminism at the United Nations, especially in the events surrounding the Cairo population conference and the Beijing women’s conference.9 Nicaraguan governmental delegations have been at the forefront of global anti-feminist organizing in alliance with governmental delegations from Argentina and several Muslim countries, right-wing Christian NGOs based mainly in the United States, and the Vatican.10 This movement, which is an indirect legacy of the revolution—reacting against the autonomous feminist movement that traces its roots to the revolution—first became identifiable in the 1990s...
...Her latest book is Feminism and the Legacy of Revolution: Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chiapas (Ohio University Press, 2004...
...But many anti-therapeuticabortion marchers seemed uncomfortable with the reality of banning the procedure and its logical consequence: letting some pregnant women die...
...On the contrary, the 2006 election illustrated a second regional trend: the rise of politically sophisticated anti-feminist movements in response to the second wave of feminism...
...Some have even suggested that it may be time to talk of a “sandinismo of the right...
...The Nicara guan Catholic Church is divided between a conservative branch that adheres strictly to Vatican teachings regarding questions of sexuality and reproduction, and a liberation-theology branch that is more concerned with social justice than with individual sexual behavior...
...Not only did Ortega marry Murillo, the motherofsixofhiseightchildren,butheoftenallowedher to speak for him...
...But despite long-standing tensions between the leadership of the FSLN and autonomous feminists, it is highly unlikely that the FSLN would have voted to abolish the exception for the mother’s life if not for the fact that the election was days away...
...But over the course of the 20th century, that medical environment became less hostile, until the point when, according to Cabrera, all pregnancies could be safely carried to term...
...Like a personal decision...
...thepactwiththeCatholicChurch, and in particular with Obando y Bravo (whom she praised elsewhere in the interview), representing a real shift in the position of the Sandinista party, which had not legalized abortion when it was in power but had never before opposed therapeutic abortion...
...From the perspective of Puntos,” Evelyn Flores, the organization’s director of institutional relations, told me in November 2006, “it was very worrisome that other women [from the Movimiento Autonomo de Mujeres, or MAM] were calling for a carnaval-style march [i.e., dressing up in costumes...
...In contrast, all of the anti-feminists whomIhaveinterviewedorwhoseworksIhavereadidentify strongly with the hierarchy of the Catholic Church or with conservative evangelical organizations...
...That strategy also had the consequence of making life more precarious for pregnant women who depend on public health services...
...We have to study the causes...
...Without them,theexceptiontosavethelifeofthewoman, a reform dating to the late-19th-century Liberal revolution of José Santos Zelaya, would not have been overturned...
...Most of the Sandinistas I interviewed disagreed with the abolition of therapeutic abortion, but they voted for the FSLN anyway...
...Hundreds of Nicaraguan organizations identify with the feminist movement, but a relatively small number of them actively oppose organized feminists...
...By 2006, the feminist movement, one of Nicaragua’s largest and most effective social movements, was divided...
...The U.S.-based evangelical organization Focus on the Family has provided materials to the Ministry of Education and to the Asociación Nicaragüense Provida (Nicaraguan Pro-Life Association, or Anprovida), a leading anti-abortion group.6 Vida Humana Internacional (based in Miami) and the Catholic Church also have provided money and materials to support Anprovida’s work, as members of that organization told me, and the Catholic Church in the United States has provided the model for Animu’s Proyecto Raquel, aimed at counseling women who have had abortions...
...This alliance between anti-feminism and the nationalist party of the revolution complicates our view of politics...
...Instead, FSLN propaganda used an array of brilliant colors, especially hot pink, and Ortega the Marxist-Leninist in military uniform was replaced by Ortega the practicing Catholic in white shirt and jeans...
...movement had Probably the most important source of support for the Nicara never been so guan anti-feminist movement is united and the Catholic Church as an inter national organization, and conser sophisticated as vative interpretations of Catholic it was in 2006...
...Sheadded, advocated the “The[Sandinista]Front,theGreat abolition of NicaraguaUnifiedTriumphs,says no to abortion, yes to life...
...In her opinion, the cause had been hurt by the moderation of many members of the women’s movement, who over the years took the position that “therapeutic abortion is the maximum demand, and don’t even talk about legalizing abortion...
...They set the stage for the government that is to follow, and they may serve to reset the balance of power among different groups in society...
...It was there that she met Solórzano of Animu...
...One teenage girl proposed the pro-choice position (though she did not call it that...
...Instead, they call themselves pro-family or pro-life...
...Second, activists in this movement are not simply social conservatives any more than feminist activists are simply social liberals...
...Cabrera’s position—that therapeutic abortion was never medically necessary, so article 165 was just a loophole to permit abortion for social reasons—was the most common position among the anti-therapeutic-abortion activists I interviewed, although it was not the only position...
...On the billboards that sprung up everywhere in Nicaraguan cities during the months leading up to the November election, little of the FSLN’s traditional red and black was to be seen...
...and Cabrera of Anprovida.11 This alliance between Catholic and evangelical abortion opponents culminated in a mass march against therapeutic abortion in early October 2006, and the vote in the National Assembly, three weeks later, to abolish the life-of-the-mother exception to the civil code...
...In fact, many historic enemies of the FSLN joined the Sandinistas’ electoral coalition, most prominently vice presidential candidate, and former Contra commander, Jaime Morales Carazo...
...The event attracted press coverage and the attention of been furthered with Padilla, then minister of the fam the active support of ily, Rojas said...
...The activists I identify as “anti-feminist” rarely use that term to describe their own work...
...In other words, the FSLN’s newfound opposition to therapeutic abortion does not indicate an ideological shift to the right...
...Rather than a shift to the right, it was a shift to cynicism...
...a Catholic lay organization.5 Moreover, Nicaraguan opponents of feminism have been supported by a variety of international organizations...
...In the 19th century, pregnancy could threaten a woman’s life, and so therapeutic abortion was permitted to allow doctors to try to save patients faced with life-threatening pregnancies...
...Finally, the term antifeminist identifies it as a backlash movement...
...One could question in what sense this legacy of the revolution was truly revolutionary...
...The problem from her perspective was not that the tactics were too forceful, but that they werenotforcefulenoughandthatorganizedwomenwould never successfully lobby if they continued to forgive, and vote for, the Sandinista party no matter what it did...
...WithOrtega’selection,Nicaraguajoinedaregionaltrend to the left, what has sometimes been called Latin America’s “pink tide...
...In fact, many suggested that the FSLN’s vote against therapeutic abortion was only a response to the election, so they voted for one of the two right-wing parties (the Partido Liberal Constitucionalista or PLC, and the Alianza Liberal Nicaraguense or ALN), which better represented their values...
...In an interview on Radio Ya, Murillo was asked about the position of the Gran Unidad Nicaragua Triunfa (Great Nicaragua Unified Triumphs, the electoral coalition to which the FSLN belonged) on therapeutic abortion...
...If it is put in God’s hands, He will decide if the two of them will live or not...
...During the march, a team from the feminist organization Puntos de Encuentro interviewed some of the approximately 200,000 participants...
...But I contend that the term anti-feminist is appropriate for at least three reasons: First, feminist activists also favor families (albeit egalitarian ones), and their work against maternal mortal ity and domestic violence is clearly pro-life...
...Festi of gender relations...
...Many agreed with a young woman who explained that, in case of threat to a pregnant women’s life, “That would have to be left to God: the mother or the child...
...Some of the most prominent leaders of the movement are active in international conservative Catholic organizations...
...If it is a situation like that,” she said, “it would depend on the person...
...While the vote to abolish therapeutic abortion tells us much about the evolution of the FSLN, it perhaps tells us even more about the evolution of Nicaraguan civil society, both feminist and anti-feminist, in the years following the Sandinista revolution...
Vol. 41 • January 2008 • No. 1
