Latin American Internationalism - An Example for Europe?

Managua (Nicaragua) July 19th 1979. The guerrilla columns of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, the Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional, slowly pushed their way through the vast crowds filling the streets. People threw flowers and handed out small plastic bags filled with diluted fruit juice. The guerrillas gave out shining bullets and received kisses and embraces. People shouted slogans and sang revolutionary songs in a demonstration of collective joy such as is rarely witnessed.

Among those celebrating were many who had come to fight for the Sandinistas from far and wide, most from Latin America and others from the US and Europe too. Adventurers some, convinced revolutionaries others?all had risked their lives to help the Nicaraguan people win freedom from a 40-year tyranny. Eighty-three of them were Chileans, members of the parties of the overthrown Popular Unity coalition in Chile. These Chileans were, in the words of a Venezuelan internationalist, "the very image of the vanguard fighter"?clean cut, professional, disciplined, and orderly. Most of them were officers, trained in Cuba in preparation for a democratic future in Chile.

About six weeks before the triumph, the first of them had arrived on the frontlines along the Costa Rican border. Their task was to help reorganise the guerrilla columns into a more regular force and to use recently arrived artillery pieces to provide heavy support for the embattled guerrillas. The idea was to fix the feared National Guard in place, allowing the popular risings in the cities of Nicaragua to spread. The fighting was fierce. Both sides knew that this front was the most important of the war. If the Guard could force the Sandinistas back into Costa Rica, they would be able to turn on the cities one by one, as they had done a year earlier, drowning the streets in blood and suffocating the rebellion. Casualties were high and many of the fallen were internationalists, among them Gaspar Garcia Laviana, the Spanish priest-turned revolutionary.

The Chileans were not the first foreigners on the Southern Front. During the two previous years many other volunteers had arrived to fight on for the FSLN, including a brigade of Panamanians. The majority arrived through the cooperation of several governments and organisations, with a political and moral interest in overthrowing Somoza. The army-less Costa Rican government, threatened for decades by Somoza's overwhelming military power and his political machinations in the border provinces, provided a safe haven for the Sandinistas. Panama and Venezuela provided arms and money, with other countries providing diplomatic support. The Cubans were the last on board, knowing that their presence might provoke a US intervention, and in early 1979 they agreed to begin supplying the Sandinistas with weapons and munitions at the instigation of the Venezuelan President, Carlos Andres Perez.

Somoza's press spoke of "Sandino-Communist Invasion", but the scale of the popular uprising against the regime belied this. Together with the immense bravery and sacrifice of the Nicaraguan people, these high-level international efforts, the internationalist solidarity of combatants and supporters from abroad helped Nicaragua free itself from the tyranny of the Somoza regime. However, this was only the first step in what was to be a long struggle against what was fundamentally foreign aggression. Thousands of volunteers from across the world flocked to Nicaragua to assist the revolution attempting to build a new society, among them many exiled Chilean Allendistas.

The Sandinista Revolution managed to inspire such international support because it was only the latest in a long line of David vs Goliath processes in Latin America. The common thread between them was the hostile reaction of powerful external forces to their efforts to overcome the causes of their underdevelopment. Millions of Latin Americans felt the effects as these processes were crushed. The result has been to underline the importance of internal democracy and participation and international support and cooperation among Latin American nations, which is one of the driving motors of the current efforts at integration in the region. In Latin America therefore the drive to integration comes from a shared history and similar conditions of economic development, as well as linguistic and cultural harmony. Together they give the concept of "Our America" its strength and popularity.

The international ideal also resonates with many Europeans, and yet the political and economic efforts made to create our union are not necessarily matched by a popular vision, in a process that is almost the opposite of that in Latin America. In Europe the process of integration has had remarkably little input from society. The process of developing a European Constitution has been a classic example of this top-down approach. The opportunity was lost to engage the peoples of the Union in a meaningful political process over the laws that will govern us, and determine the European Union's place in the world. The Latin American lesson for the development of a strong European identity is that it must be led by its people, through giving them ownership of its ideals and its place in the world; after all, Europe too has a long history of shared heroes, shared struggles and shared development.

However, a shared history is not enough if people are not aware of its existence. Throughout Europe national interpretations of history predominate, which tend to ignore commonalities and present 'foreigners' negatively. But emphasising commonalities and the role of foreigners is not enough. Just as in Latin America, a European identity must be based on broad, positive and universal ideals. The elements for this are present in our histories, in the overcoming of European fascism and authoritarianism and the achievement of social and economic rights. The development of Latin America and its internationalist idealism - which the Sandinista Revolution strongly contributed to - provide some interesting ideas for the development of a European identity if we have the courage to undertake the revision of our national historic narratives.