• Censorship Daniel Ortega orders the dissolution of the Nicaraguan Academy of Language for being a "foreign agent"

  • Nicaragua Nicaragua hijacks the new novel by persecuted Sergio Ramírez

Pedro Xavier Solís Cuadra

(Managua, 1963) answers the questions of this newspaper with caution because he lives in a country where talking too much can get you into trouble.

Last week, Daniel Ortega's regime took a decisive step in its repressive escalation by closing down 179 civil society organizations, under the pretext that they failed to register as "foreign agents."

One of those affected was the

Nicaraguan Academy of Language

, a cultural benchmark in the country since its foundation in 1928. Solís, its last president, confesses his disbelief at what happened, although he is confident that things will change sooner or later.

What contributions has the Academy offered to Nicaraguan society?

Since its foundation, the Nicaraguan Academy of Language (ANL) has developed a sustained and tenacious work in promoting the study of Spanish in the country and our cultural traditions.

Our innumerable publications, of a linguistic and literary nature, have been donated to various public and private libraries, thus contributing to the nation's bibliographic heritage.

And our participation in the Pan-Hispanic commissions contribute to the dictionaries our topical brand. The ruling party accuses organizations, such as the ANL, of diverting part of its donations to finance opposition movements that seek to "give a coup d'état", do you understand why? have their legal personality been withdrawn? It is really incomprehensible,

We have been an apolitical organization by statutory mandate and institutional conviction.

We have simply been focused on our academic work.

Of course, we are not a hereditary entity, and each academic has their individual way of discerning the "intrahistory", to use a word from Unamuno. Already in September 2021, the Government stopped granting them the public funds that correspond to them, how did they continue working? It affected us dramatically.

We have a social responsibility with the people who work for us that we have not finished raffling. What consequences does the closure of the Academy have for Nicaraguan society? Each civil organization is a socio-cultural channel.

With each closure, there is a vision of the country that is lost.

Are you contemplating taking any legal action or pressure measure to reverse this situation? It doesn't seem like a realistic option to me. What do you think about the massive cancellation of this type of organization?

Before the neologism "democracy" was coined, the Greeks used the words "isonomia" (equality before the law) and "isegoria" (equality of opinion), to describe the bastions of the new system that was being invented.

My hope is that these directions will be strengthened.

Although of course, history often ends up being a parody of our hope... And on a personal level, what are you going to do from now on? I will continue studying and writing.

The Nicaraguan author Sergio Ramírez used to say that the work of a writer is like the work of a bricklayer, who lays one brick and another brick and another.

The words are like the tiles of a mosaic.

And in that ant's work, of incessant loading of one leaf and another leaf and another, the written pages are becoming attached to the poet like the leaves to their stem. Will the ANL ever reopen its doors? Hope is the last thing that is lost

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