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Tuesday, March 8, 2022

A Woman's Day: The Inauguration of President Xiomara Castro

It was an eerily calm day for such a big event.  Our group was to be in the lobby of the Hotel Florencia at 8 AM to depart for the “estadio nacional” where the inauguration was being held.  The streets were not filled; there was no noise prohibiting anyone from holding a normal conversation.  Even the sun was slow to warm the land the way it can often stifle one’s energy before enjoying the day’s first cup of coffee.  The celebration of President Castro’s inauguration across town was not a cacophony of chants, claps, and screams but a quiet tiptoe to avoid disturbing the peace that the day promised.  Even the most developed nations understand democracy as a fragile institution.  In Honduras, hours before President-Elect Xiomara Castro was to take the podium to formally end the coup d’etat, the survival of democracy hung in the air like a piñata spinning before its coup de grâce.

Our bus from the hotel to the stadium was packed to the brim.  Ride any bus in Honduras that isn’t Hedman Alas, and there will be standing room only.  Nothing was different on this occasion except for maybe a missing chicken or two and absence of traveling salesmen.  Bill Camp and I sat in the back with the cool kids who turned out to be a delegation representing Frente Obrero (worker’s front) and Via Campesina (the rural road) from Nicaragua.  One of the Nicaraguans, a delightful young woman named Mariana, mentioned Dr. Martin Luther Kind Jr’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” when I told her I was from Birmingham, Alabama.  She also knew all about Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddamn.”  I could tell we were in good company.  As we approached our destination, the clamor began to rise.  The crowds began to form, and I was getting off a bus with new friends who knew quite well that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”  The gringo security guards checking our passes and patting us down at the stadium’s entrance were there to ensure justice prevailed that day. (Were they CIA, FBI, Secret Service, or UN?)

 


Inside, the festivities had already begun, and we were being led across the field toward the stage.  I had no idea that we would be so close to the action; I almost felt like I was cheating the 30,000 Hondurans who had already filled the stands.  I recounted what my HR chief in Franklin County Schools, Tennessee, Linda Foster, once said to me about how my teaching career came together, “Michael, you must have clout.”  Larry “Bucket” Guthrie of AHMEN would say “It’s a God thing.”  The music of the resistance played.  The sun grew warmer, and the sensation that we had arrived overwhelmed me with emotion.

 



What happened next was as perfectly choreographed as a Cirque du Soleil performance.  However, instead of spectacle, the preface to President Castro’s acceptance speech was about healing.  The MC announced the names of the martyrs of the resistance, and tens of dozens of individuals filed through the stadium as family members carried pictures of their assassinated loved ones.  Each somber loved one paced slowly in and around the rows of onlookers.  The voice on the loudspeaker reminded the crowd that the coup government was the reason the announced individuals were no longer with us. 

 



Next, the MC introduced each of the different indigenous ethnic groups of Honduras.  As Chorti, Garifuna, Lenca, Miskito, Nahua, Pech, Tawahka, and Tolupán groups marched in their cultural dress through the stadium, the voice on the microphone announced each as national treasures to be celebrated and not further marginalized as they had been over the last twelve years.

After the indigenous, came the journalists.  After the journalists came the activists.  After the activists came the political prisoners.  Finally, family members and friends of assassinated environmentalist Berta Cáceres came to the stage, and the MC spoke of how the corruption of the coup government took the life of the earth protector in 2016.  The crowd rose to its feet with fists in the air to chant “¡JOH Se Fue!” – Juan Orlando Hernandez (the dictator of the last 8 years) is gone!

 


Finally, the moment we had all been waiting for arrived.  President-Elect Xiomara Castro walked to the stage with her husband former President Manuel Zelaya and daughter Hortencia.  Traditionally, the outgoing president would transfer the presidential sash to the new leader; however, Juan Orlando Hernandez did not attend the event.  Instead, Manuel Zelaya, the former president who the military removed from power, and his daughter transferred power for him.  This move, so symbolic in its gesture, brought me to tears, and I dare say I was not the only one.

 


Upon taking the oath of office, Castro, without pause, went straight into her inaugural speech.  There was not a moment to waste.  There is no time to lose in making up for lost time.  One point after the other signaled a new day in Honduras.  With promises to end the corruption, stop the narcotraffickers, eliminate impunity, protect the environment, return students to school, among other initiatives to improve the lives of everyday Hondurans, President Castro proclaimed that she would not only be the first woman president of Honduras but also set the bar high for the future female leaders of her great nation.  In doing so, she inhabited a space as a woman who would change the world.

 


President Castro, we are excited to see what you accomplish and are here to help you every step of the way.  We are here to hold you accountable.  For as empowering as this moment in time is for individuals all over the world and yourself, it is together that we are the difference!



Happy International Women's Day, Madam President.

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