I was listening this morning to a Spanish radio program on Vancouver's Co-op Radio, which could be reasonably called one of our most stubborn leftist voices in this city. I have been listening to Spanish programs on this station since I started learning the Spanish language in the early 2000's. The broadcasting has always been interesting, often controversial, often informative and often mis-informative. To this day I deeply admire these people for their unflagging support of the oppressed, and the underdog. I have also felt often vexed by their lack of proportion.
This began back in 2002 or so when I first became aware of their uncritical endorsement of the Castro revolution of Cuba, that pesky little thorn in the side to US interests. On their Saturday program, America Latina Al Dia, they had two members of the Cuban government on the air as guests. Everything was laudatory and unflinchingly admiring towards Fidel Castro, the Cuban government, the Glorious Cuban Revolution, and the late great Ernesto Che Guevara. I naively phoned the program to ask about alleged human rights abuses in Cuba. Both government officials vociferously denied that any such thing could exist. Unconvinced, I did some homework.
I did some Google searches about Cuba and, you guessed it, Amnesty International, to discover that their dossier on the Castro regime is so vast that to do it justice would require a new blog. It is also salutary that Amnesty International has been banned from Cuba since 1988. I wrote a letter to Co-op Radio about this and received an extremely lame-ass reply that they are not interested in providing balanced information, that they simply want to counter the mainstream media with their own take on situations, accuracy and objectivity (and integrity?) be damned.
And then there was the deification of El Che. I sometimes envision El Senor Guevara as roasting marshmallows in the deepest circle of Hell with the likes of Hitler, Genghis Khan, Pol Pot, Stalin and Pinochet. Now for all I know they might all have been absolved and forgiven their egregious crimes against humanity and are bouncing around on pink and golden clouds in Heaven. In the words of Pope Francis, "Who am I to judge?" I also wonder whether they would still be adorning t-shirts with Che's pretty mug if he hadn't been so film star handsome with an uncanny resemblance to our Lord Jesus Christ.
Che, however, was a murderer. A monstrous ideology-driven killer. I have a volume of his writings, in Spanish. The English translation of this book would be "Revolution and the New Man." (sic). I do not for a moment deny the nobility of his ideals: justice and equality for all, especially the poor, the workers and the socially oppressed of the world. He framed his concerns with Marxist ideology. He quickly saw that not everyone agreed with him, nor would everyone easily fit into his ideological design for socialist humanity. He discovered a very quick and efficient solution. If they don't agree and if they won't conform to the template of the Revolution, they should be liquidated. Shot. In cold blood murdered. Revolution through the barrel of a gun.
His ideals were noble and lofty: justice and vindication for the workers, for the common man (sic). His mode d'emploi, however, was inhuman and monstrous, discrediting Che, the revolution and converting him to a monster, since he had adopted monstrous means. Looking like Christ, he was in reality Barabbas, the violent revolutionary chosen to live by the Pharisees, Sadducees and Scribes, to be allowed to live instead of Jesus.
And the good comrades of Co-op Radio, especially those running some of the Spanish programs, ignore the bloodshed and the massacres and continue to adore El Che as though he were a secular god.
I don't really think or worry too much about el doctor Ernesto Che Guevara, though of course he was a medical doctor under the Hippocratic oath, "Do no harm," which he violated and nullified with the first bullet he fired.
I do think and worry about the way we selectively praise and deify some while selectively demonize and criminalize others according to our ideology de jour. Incidentally, from what I know of the Cuban Revolution, I can only agree that the country is infinitely better off under Castro than the execrable Fulgencio Batista and understanding just how much harm that dictator committed against the Cuban people does much to inform and enhance one's understanding of the need and inevitability of a revolution.
That said, Castro, with the brutal enforcement of his deputy El Che, simply carried on the theme of brutal repression of the Cuban people. Yes they were free from Batista, free from American domination, but now under the sphere of equally questionable Soviet influence and control as well as the iron hand of Fidel, little brother Raul, and best friend forever Che. The Cuban people all had now the same amount of food to eat which is to say not enough. They did and still have universal free post secondary education and housing and health care which is laudable, but no freedom of speech, assembly, due process, expression or press. Thousands upon thousands left at great cost and risk to their lives to test their luck in the big bad USA and many have since prospered and formed a formidable anti-Castro lobby. And as far as I know Amnesty International still is not welcome.
To clarify things I am not a right wing apologist. Anything but. While I do not hate Americans or the US I certainly would not want to live there. Heck, I won't even visit. But I am not going to demonize them and go knee jerk against anything they do or propose just because they happen to be the United States of America and that one must always hate America.
Which means that hating America, we are expected to unconditionally love and approve of the Castro dictatorship (calling it what it is) in Cuba, the Bolivarian debacle (though for me really the jury is out since I don't know enough to form a believable opinion about Hugo Chavez and his legacy) in Venezuela and the dreadful mistake otherwise called Hamas that is systematically contributing to the destruction of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. And I am not by any means shape or form going to let Israel off the hook either.
I am not completely against Cuba under Castro. Their models for socially sponsored education, health care and housing need to be emulated throughout the world. On the other hand they would do equally well to emulate the freedoms and liberty of some aspects of the political and social and economic zeitgeists of Canada, Scandinavia, the Netherlands and even the big bad old USA. Neither am I against the late Hugo Chavez or his successor Victor Madera since I think it is wonderful that so many of the poorest of the poor Venezuelans are indeed benefiting from reforms and government largess under the stewardship of the Bolivarian Revolution. If that is indeed what has been happening and I have little convincing impartial evidence to convince me. I am also aware that Caracas has one of the world's highest rates of violent crime, that no stable or reliable infrastructure has been developed for eliminating poverty and that the petro dollars that make this possible come from a very dubious and unreliable fuel source that is more than anything else contributing to global warming and environmental degradation.
This is what particularly concerns me: the international networking between Cuba and Venezuela with such horror stories as Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and North Korea, among other monstrously repressive and destructive state dictatorships. No, this is not an apologetic in favour of the United States of America and the widespread destruction and wholesale murder they have wreaked, in some ways thanks to the infamous School of the Americas, on the Allende administration of Chile, not to mention the brutal civil wars in El Salvador, Guatemala, to name but a few.
This post is if anything a plea for a balanced sense of proportion. If we are going to condemn Israel then let us equally criticize Hamas and their refusal to compromise (as well as the Netanyahu government and their support base's) refusal to also compromise and make concessions. Both the Jews and the Palestinians have ancestral rights to Palestine/Israel and both entities have to begin to accept this if peace is to come to this region. I have a dear friend living in Israel who was involved in some of the peace processes who recently told me that I have no idea what it is like living in that tense, dangerous zone of conflict, threat, destruction and death and I heartily agree and for which reason I will not make judgement. I do acknowledge how horrible it must be to live under daily threat of missile attacks and this does not diminish my sense of horror over the hugely disproportionate number of deaths suffered by the Palestinians. But if anyone is going to make a convincing case for either side then they have to equally take into account the sufferings and traumas being inflicted upon the other.
I have another friend, from Venezuela, whom following a recent visit was horrified at the damage that the Bolivarian Revolution had inflicted on his country and that he himself had to leave prematurely because his own life and safety were at risk. I am not going to judge and blame him for saying that Venezuela has been destroyed by communism, though this is language I myself would shy away from, but I am still going to give him the benefit of the doubt, without taking sides, because I have never been there myself and the only knowledge I have of that country is anecdotal and therefore less than reliable.
Having already vented plenty about Cuba and El Che, but still without the authority of solid information or lived experience I would like to conclude this post with these words. Especially regarding troubled parts of the world where there is nothing but violence, brutality and killing, we still are going to have to learn to cultivate empathy, not for the perceived victims, but for everyone involved, even for the alleged aggressors and perpetrators. This does not negate judgement. It informs judgement and no one is left off the hook.
To put it more simply, "There is no way to peace: peace is the way."
I write this from the safety and security of living in one of the wealthiest, most democratic and freest and most privileged countries on the face of this earth which I already acknowledge severely limits my credibility. That said, I do hope that those who read this post will gain some benefit and will also forgive me for my obvious smugness.
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