Once this was a place of great hope. During the late 1980’s, the Sandinistas were consolidating the revolution in Nicaragua, the FMLN were on the brink of overthrowing the government in El Salvador and the radical movements in Guatemala and Honduras were gaining ground. Today it is a region convulsed by massive delinquency and chronic state corruption whose economies are surviving tenuously on remittance money sent by migrants. The defeat of the revolutionary movements has ushered in an era of social disintegration resulting in a veritable neo-liberal dystopia.

Diary Extract: I scurry over to barrio Martha Quezado – Gringolandia - where once there was a scattering of bars and cheap hotels, the main hang for all the international solidarity activists, Central American guerillas and various renegades and desperados. Today it’s a curious mix of back-packers and local hipster hangouts. The infamous Sara’s bar, where once you could sit around a merry table of quite serious international revolutionaries plotting all kinds of trouble, there is a bunch of ubiquitous students of Spanish and a group of Australian tourists talking about new age spirituality. Up the street, I can’t find the Bobby Sands Bar. Maybe it’s that cell phone dealers store. Or maybe it’s the cobblers. The barrio is unrecognizable. I am quite lost in a place where once, 15 years ago, I spent many days and nights of intrigue and adventure.

I stumble upon an Irish bar called The Shannon. Now here’s a pleasant surprise! Lured by the prospect of a cead mile failte (big welcome), I take a peep. But this new bar is fancy, and populated by a hip crowd. Its reminiscent of a typical Irish theme bar you encounter anywhere across the globe, corny Guinness posters and soccer paraphernalia decorating the walls. I’m disappointed to be told by the standard gorgeous barmaid that they don’t actually serve Guinness. It’s not like the ramshackle Bobby Sands Bar of yesteryear, filled with provos on the run romancing heart-wrenching Salvadoran political refugees.

So I decide that this place, this pastiche representation of a global Irish bar is a symbol of all that has changed in Managua. A neo-liberal outpost trading a cultural brand, profiting upon other peoples misery. I’m appalled: so this is the new Nicaragua, where once there was authentic international solidarity as people shared a common purpose, coming together in the bars at night to exchange experiences of struggle and plot. Now there’s a bunch of random trendy people gathered in a commercial space to have vacuous fun. Revolutionary Nicaragua is dead and gone; it’s with the Bobby Sands Bar in the grave.

Read The Complete Diary Here

The fifth World Social Forum (WSF) which took place last week in Porto Alegre, Brazil was a vital event for all those who are concerned with the state of the World. The WSF showed clearly that five years on from the Seattle protests, the ‘alter-globalisation’ movement continues to grow in strength and importance. 120,000 registered for the forum, almost 200,000 took part in the opening march and 352 proposals and calls for action came out of the more than 2000 panels and workshops that took place.

The fifth WSF was an inspirational event. In this piece I write about three important issues that capture that inspiration and also address the question of where do the movements go from here? They are firstly, the important diversity and strength of the movement shown in the opening demonstration, the call that came from the final assembly for global action on March 19th against the occupation of Iraq and finally, the debate over the future direction and strategy of the WSF movement.