Ithaca NY: “My country is under a dictatorship, so even if you don’t want to talk about politics, politics is everywhere.”
Pedro X. Molina, renowned Nicaraguan cartoonist, has been awarded the Vaclav Havel Prize for creative dissent for his work as a political cartoonist. This work has continued since Molina fled his home during a crackdown on politically vocal members of the media, settled in Ithaca as a guest of the Ithaca City of Asylum organization, and taught at Ithaca College. Created in 2012 by the Human Rights Foundation, the The Vaclav Havel Award recognizes artists who use their work for dissent.
Molina was born and raised in Nicaragua and grew up during the Nicaraguan Revolution in the 1980s. Because of the war and the economic embargoes placed in the country, the country’s economy struggled, making leisure activities difficult. Thus, as a child, he drew for entertainment, drawing inspiration from the newspaper cartoons his father read. As he grew up he continued to draw and at the age of 17 he became a professional cartoonist, using his drawings as a means of expression in difficult times.
“I got into politics because I wanted to ask why we went to war, why we couldn’t live safely, why schools were the way they were, all from a young person’s point of view,” Molina said. . “You could see that things were not as they should be, or as the government presented them.”
His work did not go unnoticed, attracting the attention of the Nicaraguan government, which in 2018 raided the offices of Confidencial, the news outlet for which Molina worked, as part of an extensive campaign of intimidation, arrests and imprisonment of journalists. In response, Molina left the country with his family and arrived in the city of Ithaca, as a guest of Asil through the Ithaca Organization of the City of Asylum.
“If we wanted to continue doing independent journalism and talk about the regime’s abuses, we were forced to go into exile,” said Molina. “This is not me, but many of my colleagues [also] forced to leave”.
The crackdown on dissent continues today, affecting not only the media, but higher education and even the catholic church. In 2021, the Nicaraguan police raided the offices of Confidencial again.
“The fact is that, for a dictatorship, whoever does not agree 100%, all the time, is the enemy,” said Molina.
For him, what really matters is raising awareness about the problems affecting Nicaragua.
“Personally it’s great [to be recognized], but it is also a sense of responsibility”, said Molina. “If I’m one of the few Nicaraguans who really has a voice to speak, then I feel like I need to.”
Attacks on the media and the spread of disinformation, from governments for everyday people, they have become almost common place around the world, including the United States. Molina said now, more than ever, is an important time for journalists to continue to emphasize critical reporting.
“I think you have to be careful, but you can’t adopt silence or self-censorship,” said Molina. “You have to be smart. We’re in a digital age […] I am convinced that good journalism is needed now more than ever, because there is all this technology that people don’t know how to deal with.”
