A review of "The Education of a Radical: An American Revolutionary in Sandinista Nicaragua"
I haven't read this book. I probably never will.
However, I did read the sample pages. The author is a disaffected Communist or
Marxist who supported the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua, but ended up
demoralized, etc, etc. The usual stuff.
However, what captured my attention was his mocking attack on Sandino, the revolutionary nationalist who fought the U.S. Marines in the 1930's. Apparently, Sandino was a "political oddball", a "mystic, a visionary, a hearer of voices, a believer in reincarnation". Sandino was the official representative in Nicaragua of the Magnetic-Spiritualist School of the Universal Commune, which blended Zoroastrianism, Kabbalah and Spiritism with the politics of communism and anarchism. The result was a "spiritism of Light and Truth", which would usher in a new and final dispensation of human history. Sandino's rebel army used a symbol showing a pyramid, the Star of David and an anchor surrounded by a sunburst.
This is supposed to be criticism?! Sounds like my kind of guy!
I knew that Sandino was politically closer to anarchism than to Marxism, but this was the first time I heard that he was also an occultist. In my younger days, the local "anarchists" (libertarian socialists) used to annoy the local Marxists by pointing out that Nicaragua's revolutionary hero was really an anarchist. Clearly, they didn't know half of it!
Now we do.
Am I being flippant, you probably wonder? Maybe. And then, maybe not...
However, what captured my attention was his mocking attack on Sandino, the revolutionary nationalist who fought the U.S. Marines in the 1930's. Apparently, Sandino was a "political oddball", a "mystic, a visionary, a hearer of voices, a believer in reincarnation". Sandino was the official representative in Nicaragua of the Magnetic-Spiritualist School of the Universal Commune, which blended Zoroastrianism, Kabbalah and Spiritism with the politics of communism and anarchism. The result was a "spiritism of Light and Truth", which would usher in a new and final dispensation of human history. Sandino's rebel army used a symbol showing a pyramid, the Star of David and an anchor surrounded by a sunburst.
This is supposed to be criticism?! Sounds like my kind of guy!
I knew that Sandino was politically closer to anarchism than to Marxism, but this was the first time I heard that he was also an occultist. In my younger days, the local "anarchists" (libertarian socialists) used to annoy the local Marxists by pointing out that Nicaragua's revolutionary hero was really an anarchist. Clearly, they didn't know half of it!
Now we do.
Am I being flippant, you probably wonder? Maybe. And then, maybe not...
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