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paper tells him freedom of the press is merely "cosmetic." Rushdie
then partakes in a "silent argument" with himself about its necessity.
His conclusion comes quickly: the "flaws of censorship" are not suffi–
cient reason to overthrow a decent and good revolution. Moreover,
he has faith in the leaders. He is sure they don't want censorship,
since they are definitely not "dictators in the making."
Like Mr. Rushdie, Peter Davis went to
Nic<~ragua
for a scant
three weeks in 1983, on assignment for
The Nation.
He returned to
update his material for a shorter period in 1986, and the result is a
book. Unabashed apologia is not Mr. Davis's style. He means to
appear as balanced observer. Nicaragua, he suggests, is neither the
Gulag nor a workers' paradise. He manages to find great fault with
aspects of the revolution , but in the last resort he always attributes
its defects to the policies of the United States. Mr. Davis does not
seem to understand that despite his good intentions, he travelled in a
con text established by the Sandinistas.
Thus he visits the powerful Minister of the Interior, Tomas
Borge, and retells the story of how Borge captured and then freed the
very Guardia who had tortured him before the revolution . Borge's
act is meant to reveal both his sense of mercy as well as the values of
the revolution . This obligatory story also appears in Mr. Rushdie's
account. Neither seems to know, or to see a need to seek out, all
those Nicaraguans who have been subjected to unspeakable tortures
by Mr. Borge's own ministry .
When Mr. Davis seeks to find out how the revolution treats
workers, the subject of a separate chapter, he is taken to the leader of
the official Sandinista trade union. The National Secretary of the
CST is described as "modest, teacherly, patient." Mr. Davis does not
know that the Sandinista union is acting as a company union, using
its power to force workers into its ranks and to accede to the
demands of the state - which include a compulsory ban on strikes.
Mr. Davis does not see fit to go to the headquarters of the old, mili–
tant trade unions, to the CTN or the CUS, whose leaders have been
harassed, arrested, and beaten up by goons working for the patient
Mr. Chavarria.
Mr. Davis wants us to think he is thoughtful and skeptical, not
another revolutionary tourist. Yet he writes to "locate context" for
the confl ict between the United States and Nicaragua. By the book's
end, he suggests this means the necessity of ending aid to the
contras.
If
we continue to support them, he argues, the United States will be
forced to send troops to their rescue , or sacrifice American credibil-
