Word: nicaragua
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...observer rather than critic, Rushdie performs brilliantly, transforming a spot on a map into a sweating, struggling panorama of life. He shows us a Nicaragua whose leaders use poetry as a shield against death, in which "liberation" theology challanges traditional Vatican primacy and Bruce Springsteen blares above the cries of sunbronzed street vendors...
When the Reagan administration began its war against Nicaragua, I recognized a deeper affinity with that small country in a continent upon which I had never set foor....[A]fter all, I was myself the child of a successful revolt against a great power [and had] at least some knowledge of what weakness is like, some awareness of the view from underneath, and of how it felt to be there, on the bottom, looking up at the descending heel...
Although in general The Jaguar Smile ignores the plight of the Nicaraguan middle class, Rushdie does make one anomalous attempt to critically evaluate the closing of La Prensa, Nicaragua's main opposition newspaper. While he does not support this move, Rushdie asserts that the government should not be condemned for it. If we look at the broader picture of the country's civil liberties, he argues, the Sandinistas come off looking not nearly so bad as it is portrayed by the Reagan Administration...
...Speaking with Violetta Chamorro, matriarch of the La Prensa "family," he stops believing her the moment he notices that she is wearing jewelry. She is rich and therefore cannot be trusted. His objectivity, as much as hers, is brought into question by such prejudgement. Rushdie claims he went to Nicaragua looking for answers. But he seems to have known all along what he wanted to find...
...CONTRAS are stepping up the killing in Nicaragua, and they are doing it with our tax money. Of course, this is nothing new. They have been doing exactly that for five years now, and they are no closer to beating the Sandinistas than they were in 1982. Our frustrated contra policy has thus far only created more corpses, not better policy options...