“To remember is to resist. Faces of victims of repression ”, is the new title of ebook by the cartoonist Pedro X. Molina, which contains dozens of portraits made in honor of the victims of the Ortega repression who were assassinated since April 2018 and which was presented this December 10 on Human Rights Day.
Among the drawings that the ebook are the faces of young people, mainly, who have been the greatest victims among the 355 people killed by Ortega since the outbreak of social protests.
However, he clarified that this does not mean that pieces of people of all ages are not found, which, according to the author, reflects how “indiscriminate” the Ortega-Murillo repression has been against the Nicaraguan opposition population.
“Beyond the fact that most of the victims are young, the fact is that if you look at the book you will find people from all walks of life, self-employed workers, women, children, babies, peasants (…), the massacre of the The dictatorship has been generalized and they did not go out to repress the rightists, a small group of coup leaders as they like to say. They threw all their repressive apparatus, their murderous apparatus on the people in general ”, explained Molina.
With the ebook, Molina said that he tries to leave additional testimony of how this repression was not focused on a specific group and that it also affected the civilian population of all the country’s departments.
Molina participated in a discussion with the Ecuadorian cartoonist Xavier Bonilla, known as BONIL, who added that the cartoon can, in fact, help the establishment of historical memory in cases such as Nicaragua where there is strong government manipulation to try to make the victims of repression see as perpetrators of crimes.
“In this case, there are certainly some graphics, portraits that the cartoon tends a bit, but, in my view, it has made many cry, I was moved by the story of this boy Jared Ramírez, who was murdered in front of his mother, things that moved me, the reference to the murdered man who had a son or two children, the one who wanted to be a doctor, “added Bonilla.
In the activity moderated by Juan Carlos Ampié, producer of La Último Mirada News of the program This week, the role of the journalistic cartoon as a tool for social denunciation, and the importance of the search for justice in Nicaragua were discussed.
For historical memory
With this project the Nicaraguan cartoonist recently recognized with the Recognition of Excellence from the Gabo 2021 Award, hopes that people will be able to remember, in the future, what the loss of all these lives has meant by the Ortega repression and that this will serve for the historical memory of the country, thus allowing to avoid committing again the common mistakes with authoritarian regimes in the country.
“We must remind people that all this problem has not been solved and we cannot normalize impunity, only that is an act of resistance,” he explained.
In addition, Molina said that with the levels of repression that exist in the country, where public demonstrations cannot be held, it is important to maintain freedom of thought.
“What I wanted to do with this exercise is put a face to those abstract numbers that we are so used to seeing, not only in Nicaragua but also throughout the Central American region and in Latin America,” he added.
???? Welcome to the presentation of the eBook “To remember is to resist. Faces of victims of repression” by the cartoonist from CONFIDENCIAL @PxMolina! I followed the live broadcast here ➡ https://t.co/Q3kIErvPa5 pic.twitter.com/8U5IbTvHg8
– Confidencial Nicaragua (@confidencial_ni) December 10, 2021
The cartoonists defended that some pieces, depending on the circumstance, may carry some comedy touches, such as those directed at political criticism, but they do not mean that they may be more serious, in the case of the portraits that Molina made in honor of the victims. murdered in Nicaragua.
In the presentation text of the eBook, Pedro X. Molina explains that “To remember is to resist. Faces of victims of repression”Came about with Inktober, a popular exercise among the international art community created by Jake Parker – an American illustrator, concept artist and animator – who sought to motivate other colleagues to return to their love of ink and paper drawing.
The ebook by Pedro Molina can be downloaded at Confidencial.club along with other journalistic works and projects of the editorial staff of CONFIDENCIAL.
