The world after coronavirus
2020 Abril Internacional
Humankind is now facing a global crisis. Perhaps the biggest crisis of our generation. The decisions people and governments make in the next few weeks...
Letter to Ernesto Cardenal from a young poet
2020 Abril Nicaragua
My first contact with your work was at the age of 15, when I found an edition of “Oración por Marilyn Monroe” (Prayer for Marilyn Monroe) on...
“The public health system is incapable of responding to our mental health crisis”
2020 Febrero Nicaragua
The crisis in Nicaragua these past two years has affected the life and mental health of many people. It began brewing as the public institutions, including...
We are staring down a major crossroads
2020 Febrero Internacional
My book is titled La gran encrucijada (The great crossroads). The crossroads I write about is the product of the world’s current multidimensional—ecological,...
Utopias in Central America (part 3): From disillusion to April in Nicaragua
2019 Noviembre Centroamérica
Throughout his life and work German philosopher Immanuel Kant attempted to answer three major questions: What can I learn? What must I do? And what...
CERVANTES PRIZE 2017 A journey outward and back
2018 Mayo Nicaragua
Your Majesties: I come from a small country with its volcanic mountain range rising up in the center of the searing Central American landscape that Neruda,...
CERVANTES PRIZE 2017 Signatures
2018 Mayo Nicaragua
One of the ceremonies prior to the presentation of the Cervantes Prize, which I will receive in a few days’ time from the King of Spain in the auditorium...
“My writing has always been spurred by obsession”
2018 Febrero Nicaragua
To the ladies and gentlemen of Salamanca who this year are celebrating—and I with them—the 800th anniversary of their wonderful university’s founding,...
Reflections on the referendum in Catalonia
2017 Octubre Internacional
The Catalonian referendum on Sunday, October 1, will become part of Europe’s history, possibly for the worst of reasons. I don’t discuss here the substantive...
Are we solid, liquid… or maybe viscous?
2017 Agosto América Latina
Following the death of Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman on January 9 of this year, his references to “liquid modernity” echoed throughout Latin America....
A priest, a coop and a peasantry that regulates the elites
2017 Febrero Panamá
Which peasant cooperative in Central America is the strongest in trade? Which one is in charge of all stages of coffee processing—removing the pulp,...
The canal and its subprojects will provoke a cultural tragedy
2015 Julio Nicaragua
The huge number of potential environmental impacts that may occur from construction of the Nicaraguan canal and its secondary development projects has...
An expert speaks on political ethics
2014 Julio Nicaragua
Jorge Luis Borges used to say: “I think that in time we will deserve not to have governments.” This phrase
engraved itself on my memory the first...
An interoceanic canal is an anachronistic view of development
2014 Abril Nicaragua
Nicaragua is recognized as a country of creative people. Intellectuals of the stature of poets Rubén Darío and Ernesto Cardenal and writers Sergio Ramírez...
Ernesto Cardenal: Revolutionary, rebel, poet
2013 Octubre Nicaragua
Beloved Father Ernesto Cardenal: I would like to express the reasons France, my country, wants to show its esteem and admiration for you. And I personally...
How self-help has become part of our common sense
2013 Septiembre Internacional
Self-help ideas are a phenomenon peculiar to our times but have an extensive genealogy. Their present form incorporates the modulations of their history,...
Just how communal are rural communities?
2013 Agosto Nicaragua
We in the Center for Political Studies and Analysis (CEAP) have commonly done research from the municipal perspective, but one day we ques-tioned the...
34 years of blameful forgetfulness, 23 of interested memory (part 2)
2013 Agosto Nicaragua
In an insightful paper delivered to circumspect lawyers, German historian Reinhart Koselleck took a look at various historiographical tendencies, distinguishing...
In migration’s “science kitchens”
2013 Mayo Centroamérica
Knowledge isn’t produced in the aseptic test tubes hawked by the torchbearers of scientific neutrality. The process is both burdened and enriched by...
Is it a bird? A plane? A cultural revolution…?
2013 Marzo Nicaragua
What’s the government’s new ambitious and wide-reaching step all about? Is it a cultural revolution, inserted into what is officially called “the second...
The ecological crisis in its temporal dimension
2012 Diciembre Internacional
In Time’s arrows: Scientific attitudes towards time, US author and poet Richard Morris said that although the genus Homo has only existed for...
The Third Horseman of Neoliberalism: The Neo-Pentecostals (part 5)
2012 Noviembre Centroamérica
The worship of managerialism and positive thinking and the consecration of the neoliberal postulates as a canon of common sense have not been the fruit...
The third horseman of neoliberalism: The Neo-Pentecostals (part 4)
2012 Octubre Centroamérica
Half a century ago, Antonio Gramsci wrote that “religion must be approached not in the confessional sense but in the secular sense of a unity of faith...
Rhetoric, slogans and metaphors of the revolutionary years
2012 Julio Nicaragua
No memoirs of the Sandinista revolution record any sudden attack led by Tomás Borge in the guerrilla campaign that brought down Somoza. And although...
The Family Code bill, as it stands, is interventionist, conservative and neoliberal
2012 Junio Nicaragua
I’m going to speak to you as a feminist, although I run the risk that some will think that means I hate men. We’re often told that feminism is the other...
The third horseman of neoliberalism: The Neo-Pentecostals (part 2)
2012 Junio Centroamérica
The Neo-Pentecostals, the most inexperienced of the four neoliberal horsemen galloping over Central America, have the greatest worldly success, contrary...
Memories of a feminist generation
2012 Marzo Nicaragua
My mother is a lawyer who’s over 50 years old. The years have marked her, but she still faces life with a firm attitude and retains her unalterably...
Memories of a lost generation
2011 Julio Nicaragua
July marks the 32nd anniversary of the initiation of the Popular Sandinista Revolution, which inspired so many of our parents, committing them to a common...
Some thoughts for 21st-century socialists
2011 Julio América Latina
Revolutionaries almost always think that victory over their opponents means a total rupture with all past
history. In the best of cases they admit...
Will the World Really End in 2012?
2011 Enero Internacional
It is being said that the world will end in 2012. Even some scholars have backed it up. Novels have been written and movies filmed on the subject....
A Pre-electoral Reflection from the Liberal Window and the Emancipator Window
2010 Diciembre Nicaragua
Digging into all the political analyses of the Central American region, two paradigms can be identified that crystallize into two visions—the Liberal...
The New Religious Identities
2010 Julio Internacional
Religion, in its free and creative flight, has evolved and taken on new forms that present authentic challenges to some, especially politicians and religious...
Portrait of Pentecostal Evangelicals
2010 Mayo Centroamérica
Evangelical Christianity is spreading all over Central America with surprising speed. In the past 40 years the number of Evangelicals increased exponentially...
“At The Heart of Uruguayan Democracy, Surrounded by Thinking Heads”
2010 Marzo América Latina
Dear friends, life has been extraordinarily generous to me. It has given me endless satisfactions beyond my wildest dreams. Almost all of them are...
Socialism in the 21st Century: A Model with Changeable Pieces
2009 Diciembre Internacional
According to the logbook bequeathed to 21st-century socialism, last century’s predecessor had four main qualities: efficiency, heroism, barbarity and...
The Codes of Latin American Culture
2009 Noviembre América Latina
Like any other dimension of reality, the values that make up a society’s collective self-image need to be categorized to be analyzed. It is thus possible...
Are We Surfing the Internet Or Have We Run Aground?
2009 Junio Nicaragua
According to a World Economic Forum report recently released in Guatemala, Nicaragua came in last in Central America with respect to information and...
The Constant Potter
2009 Mayo Nicaragua
The auditorium of Managua’s Central American University (UCA) was beyond standing room that September 6th Saturday. The smell of wet earth, drenched...
The Crisis of Religion In Christianity
2009 Marzo Internacional
Within Christianity the crisis of religion is reaching a climax in Europe, and has already reached a very high level in the Americas. And it’s a crisis...
Darwin’s 200th Anniversary: There’s So Much More to Learn
2009 Enero Internacional
The theory of evolution as conceived by Charles Darwin 150 years ago explains “natural selection” as the mechanism that brings about the transformation...
The Lessons of Mitch: Learned, Not Learned and Unlearned
2009 Enero Nicaragua
To mark the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Mitch, the lucid and biting Nicaraguan caricaturist Pedro Molina drew two parallel sketches of the same family...
The Splendor and Squalor of National Ecotourism
2008 Septiembre Nicaragua
The twin-volcano island of Ometepe, emerging out of the legendary Lake Cocibolca, also known as Lake Nicaragua, was nominated as Nicaragua’s candidate...
Insecurity in Reality, the Media and Our Self-Image
2008 Agosto Costa Rica
In Costa Rica, as in so many other countries unfortunately, the security issue has become the raw material for prejudices and hasty conclusions. Phenomena...
The Left and Human Rights: A Contribution to the Debate
2008 Agosto América Latina
Fidel Castro wrote in Granma’s July 3 edition: “Out of a basic sense of humanity, we were pleased by the news that Ingrid Betancourt, three North...
To Read or Not to Read: That is the Question
2008 Agosto Nicaragua
According to Moroccan-French writer Daniel Pennac, readers are subject to 10 rights, the first of which is the right not to read. It appears that, consciously...
Youth Gangs and Religion: Links and Differences
2008 Mayo Nicaragua
Is there a relationship between youth gangs and religion? Between violence and religious experience? Between youth transgression of the established...
Marxism, Post-Marxism, Liberation Theology (Part 1) Reflections for a Re-encounter
2008 Enero América Latina
Liberation Theology’s reinterpretation of Jesus’ message is a landmark in Latin American historical development. It destabilized the providentialist...
Ticaraguans: Bi-national Identities on the Liquid Border
2007 Noviembre Nicaragua
Feet run across the line. There’s no reason to feart heir murmur. What are they taking, what are they bringing? I don’t know. What’s important...
Five Little Problems with Venezuela’s Brand of 21st Century Socialism
2007 Octubre América Latina
Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez was reelected in December 2006 with over 60% of thevote. During the campaign and ever since, he has insisted that...
Red Alert for Climate Change And a Possible Way Out
2007 Septiembre América Latina
Nobody on the planet any longer questions that climate change is real. It is a direct consequence of the culture currently dominating 100% of the Earth’s...
How Can We Give The Earth a Future?
2007 Agosto América Latina
It’s an honor for me to give this lecture to open this university’s general studies courses. I know many universities in both the East and the West...
The Ignored Contradiction between Modern State and Providential God
2007 Julio América Latina
Aprovidential vision of God predominates in Latin America. While it is largely rooted in the Catholicism inherited from Spanish colonial times, it is...
Knowledge in These Times Of a la Carte Research
2007 Mayo Centroamérica
In Senectud, Italo Svevo wrote, “That conceited sponsor had been on his back constantly, demanding he deliver a determined amount of work every day....
No Salvation Apart from the Poor
2007 Abril América Latina
Paul exclaimed: “Poor me! Who will save me from this mortal body?” Current times don’t lend them selves to this kind of question. We’re part of a civilization...
Reform or Revolution? And the Left’s Ethical Challenge
2007 Marzo América Latina
In February I had the chance to share ideas on the present and future of the Latin American Left with a group of friends and colleagues from the region...
A Train Ride Through Memory and History
2006 Octubre Nicaragua
In August 2005, Jan Kees de Rooy—a Dutch-born Nicaraguan national who always thinks big—called to tell me about a dream he was working on in the Institute...
How Can Consensus Be Reached When the Conflict Is Denied?
2006 Septiembre Nicaragua
In her book On the Political (2005), Chantal Mouffe offers a lucid analysis of what she calls the “post-conflict” vision of politics, but which...
Why No Maras in Nicaragua?
2006 Agosto Centroamérica
The United States Army, that self-styled police force of humanity, has already started to turn its ominous periscope toward youth gangs. In March 2005,...
Has a Neoliberal Democracy Been Institutionalized in Nicaragua?
2006 Julio Nicaragua
One of the crucial questions we should ask ourselves in Nicaragua’s current political context is whether a neoliberal democracy has been institutionalized...
What Must We Change To Provide Quality Education?
2006 Junio América Latina
It isn’t enough to guarantee the broadest possible infant education coverage. We also need to guarantee its quality. For many theoretical reasons and...
What Culture Are We Legitimizing In Our Classrooms?
2006 Mayo América Latina
Of all the quality criteria for an educational curriculum for children at the initial or infant education level, or any other level for that matter,...
A Challenge to Leftist Parties: Return to Marxism but Look Beyond It
2006 Mayo Nicaragua
What role can Marxist theory play in the reconstruction of the Latin American Left, particularly our Left here in Nicaragua? Is the Left’s future irreparably...
Our Youth Has Inherited A National Failure
2006 Abril Nicaragua
Like the generations that preceded it, I belong to a generation that failed to build a just and dignified Nicaragua for everyone. Asked to talk about...
What Kind of People Are We Forming In Our Kindergartens?
2006 Marzo América Latina
The most recent contributions to neurology have shown that three quarters of the neuronal connections that human beings use during their lifetime for...
Why Do So Many Civilians Have Firearms?
2005 Diciembre Centroamérica
An argument over custody of their children may have driven a man so crazy that he shot his wife to death in Ciudad Delgado. H.E., a 26-year-old woman,...
While the Left Is Modernizing, The Right Is Stagnating
2005 Diciembre Nicaragua
While it is true that “Left” as a political concept has lost programmatic clarity, this should not push us into tossing out its ethical-political meaning,...
El Güegüense: Heritage of Humanity
2005 Diciembre Nicaragua
In the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, UNESCO defines intangible cultural heritage as “the practices,...
Are Mothers of Sexually Abused Girls Really to Blame?
2005 Octubre Centroamérica
In June 2001, the Nicaraguan media latched on to the case of Gema, a little girl who became pregnant after being raped by a stranger, and probably also...
The Left Nicaragua Needs
2005 Octubre Nicaragua
Nicaragua’s political parties have always been short on philosophical and doctrinal underpinnings. The pragmatic-resigned political thinking of Nicaraguan...
Father Knows Best: A Key to Understanding Us
2005 Septiembre América Latina
Attempting to discover why, even though the ideals of societal modernization are relatively well known in Latin America, the state so passionately resists...
Building Citizenship: A Challenge for Radio
2005 Julio América Latina
It was in London during a meeting of AMARC’s inter-national administrative council that I openly used the term “citizens’ radio” for the first time....
The Traido: A Key to Youth Gang Continuity
2005 Julio Nicaragua
The main character in Anthony Burgess’ novel A Clockwork Orange, 15-year-old Alex, is the leader of a small group of kids who terrorize the streets...
Our Constructed Image Of Central American Migrants
2005 Junio Centroamérica
Central America is exporting increasing numbers of emigrants. The intellectual production related to these migration flows and the vicissitudes of both...
The Code of Children and Adolescents: Comments on a Misunderstood Law
2005 Mayo Nicaragua
The Office of Special Attorney for Children and Adolescents, which forms part of the Human Rights Defense Attorney’s Office, was created in 2000. In...
Survivors’ Words: A New Tool for Nicaragua
2005 Abril Nicaragua
Sexual abuse is epidemic—or, perhaps more precisely, endemic—in Nicaragua. In just a short time, evidence of this has been making its way into people’s...
Intellectuals and Job Insecurity: I Don’t Think... Therefore I Am
2005 Marzo Nicaragua
Social scientists and other intellectuals have covered a lot of ground in studying the poor. We invade their homes without so much as a search warrant...
Today's Political Crisis Is Good for Pushing Social Demands
2005 Febrero Nicaragua
The culture of cutting political deals, making pacts and then re-tooling them is now so much a part of Nicaraguan political life that we could be forgiven...
Bureaucrats for Hire: The Profitable Consultancy Industry
2005 Enero Nicaragua
The consultancy industry in Nicaragua is worth millions a year. The money spent on salaries and other remunerations for the studies and technical advice...
Down and Dirty in Latin America
2004 Octubre América Latina
There is a set of modern beliefs, images, symbols and metaphors that relate to life, identity, otherness and the place of cleanliness and whiteness in...
Poor or Impoverished? And How Do They Get That Way?
2004 Septiembre Internacional
The cultures we live in tend to make us believe that people are poor and impoverished for one of two reasons. Either it’s their own fault (they’re lazy...
Transforming the Idea of God Is an Urgent Task in Nicaragua
2004 Agosto Nicaragua
A Canadian sociologist has said that when he’s faced with a question that’s weighing him down and for which he can find no satisfactory answers, he...
The Left in the 21st Century: Reflections, Tasks and Challenges
2004 Julio América Latina
The Left’s renewed presence in Latin American political life can be observed in the emergence of a series of governments that, admittedly vaguely, identify...
“Pardon me, I haven’t come to make trouble”
2004 Mayo Costa Rica
On nearly 400 occasions over the past two and a half years, César Meléndez has lived and relived the role of ”El Nica” in a two-hour monologue performed...
Migrants: Prejudice, Myopic Vision and Apathetic Policies
2004 Mayo Nicaragua
A large number of sources feed and reproduce the collective view of migration, and particularly of migrants. Researchers, politicians, international...
From Conqueror State to Nation State Is from Resignation to Citizenship
2004 Mayo América Latina
In Nicaragua, our historic present could be characterized as a long, almost retarded present relative to our era’srhythm, since it covers at least...
Latin American Leaders: Life Inside the Glass Prison
2003 Diciembre Internacional
The leader is locked in, isolated, prisoner of the indulgent court that controls access to such an important person. But the leader’s prison is made...
Youth Gang Members and Tattoos: Stigma, Identity and Art
2003 Septiembre Nicaragua
Now more than ever, our appearance, our “look,” signals what kind of person we are. Young Nicaraguans labeled as “hippies” use their wardrobe as a form...
The Challenges of Bioethics: What the Different Religions Have to Say
2003 Agosto Nicaragua
We are increasingly accustomed to ethical questions related to issues such as in-vitro fertilization, clon ing or euthanasia, which can trigger passionate...
Nicaragua’s Future: Hooking Children on Books
2003 Julio Nicaragua
Libros para Niños is a nongovernmental organization that promotes reading with a very specific objective: we want children and the adults in...
Living and Surviving In a Multiply Wounded Country
2002 Diciembre Nicaragua
When we began working from the Valdivieso Center in 1997, one year before Hurricane Mitch, virtually no one was looking at the issues we wanted to deal...
A Global Ethic
2002 Octubre Internacional
The question of the soul or the spiritual dimension of Europe cannot be ignored in the process of European political and economic integration. In 1992,...
The "Sun-Child": Everyone’s Responsibility
2002 Julio Internacional
An oft-heard lament in western societies is that today’s young people are individualistic and violent, that they lack any deep convictions or motivations...
Digital Time in the National Culture: Underdevelopment.com.ni
2002 Junio Nicaragua
The first computers—enormous machines programmed by a series of perforated cards—arrived in Nicaragua at the end of the 1960s. Internet followed at the...
Between Paralysis And Passive Revolution
2002 Abril Nicaragua
Why have social lethargy, political apathy and conformism possessed the Nicaraguan population? This apparently simple question in fact implies at least...
Fundamentalism, Exclusion, Identity and Annihilation
2001 Octubre Nicaragua
Fundamentalism has existed in all parts of the world throughout humanity’s long and stormy history. It is not the exclusive patrimony of any religious,...
Nicaragua’s Sexual Culture: A Loveless Legacy
2001 Julio Nicaragua
What should men be like, and what should women be like? The socially constructed notion of what men and women should be like includes permissible...
Roots and Patterns of our Political Culture
2001 Julio Nicaragua
Countries don’t have one single culture. We in Nicaragua live with several cultures. We have the Mayangna culture, the Miskito culture, the Creole culture,...
Vital Democracy: A Feminist Proposal
2001 Junio Internacional
The coexistence and cohabitation of women and men is universal in time and place, but it has not been nor is it now the most civic or peaceful. Although...
An Ethics for the New Millennium: The Just Measure and Essential Caring
2000 Marzo Internacional
Once a tree has fulfilled its intrinsic potential, it is said to have reached its peak. It then dies and falls. When people have consumed their personal...
Research and Social Action: Keys for an Alliance
1998 Noviembre América Latina
Academics look down on grassroots researchers. Social activists complain that researchers are slow and removed from reality. Some analysts are bureaucrats...
Fighting Poverty With Democracy
1998 Septiembre México
The new stage of capitalism has increased poverty by geometric proportions. They tell us it is the result of a natural process. We know it is the consequence...
Tools for Understanding "One-Line Thinking"
1998 Julio Internacional
How can one describe from the ideological perspective the historical moment in which we find ourselves? What are the planet's characteristics today from...
Morals and Power
1998 Abril Nicaragua
Morals, in the sense of norms or duties that govern individual conduct in accord with socially shared principles, are seemingly opposed to power, understood...
Archeology of the Idea of Development
1997 Septiembre Internacional
Fallen buildings hide their secrets under mountains of earth and rubble. and mental structures are often erected on foundations covered by sand for years...
One Ethic Is Vanishing and Another Being Announced
1997 Mayo Internacional
Violence, criminality, isolation, drugs and unrestrained sexuality are not the true problems. They are the symptoms of a more radical and widespread...
The Dead in the West's Basement
1997 Abril Internacional
Speaking today of alternatives to the existing neoliberal system cannot be limited to technical discussions about political alternatives. In their essence,...
Narcissism: The Epidemic of Our Time
1996 Septiembre Internacional
Each social context creates its own lifestyle, a specific hierarchy of values, diverse behavior guidelines and its own pathologies. Narcissistic personality...
Badly Fed and Malnourished
1996 Agosto Nicaragua
The united nations food and agriculture organization (fao) defines food se?curity as guaranteeing that a country's population has stable access to its...
Authoritarian Roots and Democratic Shoots
1996 Junio Centroamérica
In 1929, after his first visit to Costa Rica, Victor Raúl Haya de la Torre tried to describe and explain what he termed "an acute and restless curiosity"...
The Features of Our Political Culture
1996 Febrero Nicaragua
There is general consensus that nicaragua, like the majority of countries, requires significant social, economic and political reform. State reform...
Ethnic Communities of the Pacific and North-Central Nicaragua
1992 Noviembre Nicaragua
Denied Existence; Obstinate Persistence?
In this essay by Marcos Membreño, sociology professor at the Central American University, Managua,...
Blown Away—Hurricane Joan Puts Nicaragua at Risk
1988 Diciembre Nicaragua
Hurricane Joan's passage westward across Nicaragua is a story of extremes. Joan built up strength as it moved across the Caribbean Sea until it came...
Women, Poetry, New Nicaraguan Culture
1988 Mayo Nicaragua
At least two phenomena distinguish the Nicaraguan revolution: massive Christian participation and the importance attributed to the cultural dimension.
With...
Jalapa: A Symbol for All Nicaragua
1984 Febrero Nicaragua
Since March 1982, Jalapa has been the hottest war zone in Nicaragua. It has become a frequent point of reference in military reports and for solidarity...
A Look At A Popular Nicaraguan Barrio
1981 Septiembre Nicaragua
Historical NotesCiudad Sandino is a popular barrio near the city of Managua. Although it is considered part of the capital, it is located on...