To Bear Witness: A Journey of Healing and Solidarity

The Symbolism of Salamanca

104 105 The Symbolism of Salamanca University of Nicaragua Press, 1990 After the Sandinista government had been overthrown, and the goals of the revolution crushed, I gave this talk at a Convocation at the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua, 1990. Several years ago, in an address at your neighboring college here in Managua (The University of Central America, 1987), I suggested that “a university reflects the society it serves,” that if academia was to thrive in the throes of a revolution it must assert its relevance by crossing the campus gates, temporarily forsaking the privileged protection of lecture halls and immersing itself in the struggles of the oppressed. Time has passed, taking its toll on the dreams of those who envisioned a new society in Central America. The will of an exhausted people has apparently sought refuge in the relative safety of past practices and postures, accepting, at least for the present, the realities and traditional exercise of power in this hemisphere. The slogans are now muted, the focus of world attention is elsewhere, and the tensions of a decade seem to have faded into columns of sterile statistics documenting a return to the predictable supplicant position of a small, dependent country. What is the role of a national university at this point in your history? What constitutes the society it is supposed to reflect, and whom does it serve? There are precedents that offer both direction and courage in answering these questions, and in facing existing and future challenges. As Salamanca fell to the Falangist forces of Franco and his superpower allies of the day, the great Spanish education by example and support. One of the most remarkable demonstrations of the critical importance of a university to a revolution is the current effort of President Daniel Ortega to continue his law studies. Having abandoned his formal education in 1965 to participate in an armed struggle for independence, he has now returned to complete the academic demands of the legal profession and, in doing so, he offers a unique lesson to his country. Neither the military nor the presidency confer degrees; a university establishes standards in education, and even the most powerful must seek its recognition. That lesson of mutual respect and cooperation is being watched around the world. What the superior general of the Society of Jesus Peter-Hans Kolvenback, S.J. said in a sermon he gave in Caracas, Venezuela, on October 12, 1984, can surely be applied to the work of UCA: “It is Latin America that has opened the eyes of all Jesuits to the preferential love for the poor and to the fact that the true, integral liberation of men and women must take priority as the focus of the mission of the Society of Jesus today.” As so often happens in history, Jesuit educators are once again on that borderline where the church meets the world. The business of a university is knowledge. Sharing that knowledge with a nation striving toward the basic rights of literacy and health will guarantee UCA a place of pride when the history of the revolution can ultimately be written. May that day of peace come soon. 106 107 criticism were recognized as essential elements of education and not condemned merely because they differed from popular positions. The students grew in an environment where the barriers of class structure steadily fell before the impartial power of open debate. Unamuno insisted that those who could lead a life of the intellect must come to know the pain of poverty in their communities. He then urged them to employ every tool available to foment disaffection among a placid populace who, he believed, did not rebel largely because they had never been taught to think of other options or to realize that suffering and failure need be neither perpetual nor inevitable. The inherent freedom of a university allows the escape valves of irony and satire, exposing political pandering and pomposity, the clichés of expediency and oppression. Such freedoms, universally recognized as essential for intellectual survival, can be, as you well know, dangerous, for their exercise too often attracts reprisals from the powerful and insecure. Attempts to control freedom of expression within a university will always ultimately fail, and it is important, at convocations such as this, to recall but a few of the inalienable rights, ancient roles, and glorious possibilities you possess. For example, academia can: 1. Preserve the heritage and national pride of a people. 2. Protect scholars...