ONLY 44 YEARS TO RECOGNIZE A DICTATOR

Coddling Castro No Longer? (Michael Gonzalez, Wall Street Journal Europe, 4/23/2003, subscribers only)

The European left is having one of its sudden flashes of the obvious. Every time you pick up a paper these days in Europe you find out that some intellectual, journalist or union leader is coming around to the view that Fidel Castro is not such a good egg after all and that he may be depriving Cubans of their basic freedoms, when not their lives. Some socialist politicians are even insisting that, actually, they were the first to denounce Castro....

Jose Saramago, a Portuguese communist who had defended Castro for years, suddenly last week bid adios to his favorite uniformed tinpot dictator. In the briefest of notes to the Madrid daily El Pais, Mr. Saramago, a novelist, wrote words that have now become famous, because they have been quoted so often: "This is as far as I go. From now on Cuba will go its way, but I'll stay."

"To dissent is a right that is found and will be found written in invisible ink in every declaration of human rights past, present and future," the Nobel laureate wrote. "Cuba has won no heroic battle by executing those three men but it has lost my confidence, damaged my hopes, cheated my dreams."

I've long suspected that the dominant leftist trait just might be narcissism. Yes, Cuba was a cruel tyranny for 44 years, but that didn't justify opposing them; now, however, they have "lost my confidence, damaged my hopes, cheated my dreams" -- off with Castro's head!

I also like the "invisible ink" line. Clever of those authors of human rights declarations to put some rights in visible ink and others in invisible.

From Mexico, novelist Carlos Fuentes, like Mr. Saramago a supporter of Castro until yesterday, said this too was as far as he would go. But for lovers of Latin American magical realism, Mr. Fuentes put his criticism of Castro in its proper context. "I congratulate Saramago for drawing his line in the sand. Here's mine: against Bush, against Castro."

Clearly, abandoning an elderly dictator is not the same thing as seeing the light.

Back in the U.S., the stifling of dissent under the Bush regime continues apace:

After showing his documentary about Castro, "Comandante" at the Berlin Film Festival in February, [Oliver] Stone said of the dictator he had been privileged enough to spend three days with: "We should look to him as one of the Earth's wisest people, one of the people we should consult." Mr. Stone described Castro as "a very driven man, a very moral man. He's very concerned about his country. He's selfless in that way."

The U.S. cable network Home Box Office, which had planned to air the Stone paean to Castro next month, has now put it on ice. "In light of the recent alarming events in the country, the film seems somewhat dated or incomplete," said HBO.

Strangely, HBO didn't acknowledge the influence upon its decision of the USA Patriot Act.

Posted by Paul Jaminet at April 23, 2003 8:52 AM