On Christianity, socialism and solidarity: an interview with Johnny Hodgson

On 6 November elections take place in Nicaragua for the presidency, the National Assembly and Nicaraguan members of the Central American Parliament. The Sandinista (FSLN) slogan highlights the values on which the party is based: Christianity, socialism and solidarity.

Johnny Hodgson is a Creole historian, a community development specialist, an indigenous and Afro-descendant rights advocate, a former Mayor of Bluefields and currently the FSLN election Campaign Secretary for the South Atlantic Autonomous Region (RAAS). He explains to David McKnight from Wales NSC what these values mean. This is an edited extract from a longer interview available on www.walesnicaragua.wordpress.com
The photo of Johnny Hodgson is also by David McKnight.

"… we are trying to build a model that we define as Christian, Socialist and Solidarity.  When we talk about ‘Christian’, what we are talking about is that value of ‘loving your neighbour as yourself… if you love your neighbour as yourself, … you are going to be a part of that whole [FSLN] development strategy.

..we are convinced that we are not going to have a socialism like what maybe Marx or one of these guys them preach or write about, that’s NOT what we are talking about.

When we talk about socialism we talk about socialist ideals …we are convinced that we are not going to have a socialism like what maybe Marx or one of these guys them preach or write about, that’s not what we are talking about. We here on the Caribbean Coast, we historically have been more socialist than anybody else, maybe in the world! But I am sure in this country. You see, we historically had, for example, the land in communal ownership and that’s a socialist principle. We are not fighting for individual ownership of the land – we the indigenous and afro-descendant.

People got afraid of the word socialist or the word communist because, well they tell them that if you say that you are socialist, socialist don’t believe in God, and things like that. But we by nature, our tradition, the people on the Caribbean Coast, we have been socialists, we love our neighbours as ourself, we have always practised solidarity…

So when we talk about socialist, I could give like an example. If we was to have a big flood like they had in Noah days and it begin to rain and rain and rain and the water is coming up, if we are living in that model of every man for theirself, probably the people that have a big boat, can get in their boat and put in their things and their family and they can be nice in the boat even if it be raining … If the water go up, then the boat go up and they can be in there and they can eat and drink and bathe and cook and do everything in their boat.

If they don’t have a big boat and they have a small, little boat, a dory maybe they can even get saved but they are not going to be comfortable, they are not going to be able to save their things, and they might get wet but they might still be able to get saved, but the thousands of people that don’t have any boat would just have to die because well, every man for themselves. What we are talking about is that if a big flood come it not going to be every man for himself – all of us are going to be working together, to try to save us all, to try to save everyone. If we have a hundred sheeps we are going to save a hundred sheeps, we are not going to be happy if we save 99 and one got lost.

So that is the socialism that we talking about – socialist ideals."