This brings me to another impression: this really is a popular, i.e. “of the people”, armed revolution.

A lot of people have government-issue guns and are protecting their land from the Contras. Many more know how to use them. “Power to the people” plus armed aggression from outside has meant “arms to the people” and this is an expression of whose revolution it is.

For us Canadians, legendary for our complacency, all the guns may be unsettling. We talk about and may practice non-violence, and we have trouble supporting armed movements anywhere.

But once you’re here and you see how the U.S. is working to sabotage some of the best grassroots development (education, health, economic, cultural) that the “third world” has ever seen with its economic, propaganda and military war, you learn with the Nicaraguans who the enemy is, and you feel profoundly angry.

I’m reminded of Bruce Cockburn’s song, “If I had a rocket launcher.” It speaks of his visit to Guatemalan refugee camps in Mexico. He’s not into violence, “I don’t believe in hate,” but when confronted with what the refugees have lived through, “things too sickening to relate,” he finds himself wanting to fight back.

This is not to say that all Nicaraguans think this way, especially in Managua. I had heard that Nicaraguans feel free to express their political views, and I too have found it so, which contradicts Reagan’s depiction of Nicaragua as a totalitarian state.

Especially after being in Guatemala, where people avoid even mentioning political issues in public — and usually in private too — it was surprising to hear so much criticism of the government.

Some people came across as hostile and hateful. For example, I was trying to buy a copy of the independent but pro-revolution El Nuevo Diario newspaper from a 12-year-old waiter in a café in Esteli, when the man at the next table, who was counting out a large pile of money, interrupted:

“La Prensa, La Prensa, La Prensa, buy La Prensa, it’s the best,” referring to a right-wing, anti-revolution newspaper.

“Give me a Diario, please,” I said quietly to the boy.

“La Prensa, La Prensa, La Prensa, La Prensa,” the man repeated more loudly, trying to drown me out. Then he saw that I had succeeded in not buying La Prensa and he said derisively, “Oh – you’re a Sandinista.”

“And you’re not?”

“In Nicaragua, no one is Sandinista.”

“I’ve met quite a few.”

“They’re hypocrites.”

Not everyone who opposes the revolution is so full of hate. Some are elitist, some are thoughtful, many blame the revolution rather than the war for the economic problems, many are defending their class interests. Because we Canadians don’t think very often about socioeconomic classes, I have needed repeated lessons to really get that Nicaragua is experiencing a struggle between classes, and the new regime belongs to the workers and campesinos.

“It’s our turn!” exulted a man who’s involved in a Christian community in Esteli. “As the Bible said, the first shall be last, and the last shall be first!”

It’s reasonable that there will be counter-revolution coming from those who have been displaced from power. The worrisome thing is the power behind the counter-revolution, the same power that made the former ruling class its proxy in the first place.