It has been clear for a very long time that the United States is fighting a three front war against Islamic fascism. The primary theater of operations is in the Middle East, in Afghanistan and Iraq, with Iran ominously looming. The second theater of operations would be with the international community, our European "friends" like France, and "allies" like Germany; this fight has been and is being played out in the UN and the IAEA, among other international venues. The third theater of operations has been and continues to be with the Western elites, both at home and abroad, who are overwhelmingly liberal and/or left and traditionally opposed to American military power. The Europeans have come to stand for an almost complete disdain for any military power; this is a function of traditional European pacifism and antipathy for confrontation as well as the lack of military capability that has been the result of American protection during and after the cold war. The American left has opposed using American military power since Vietnam. It is the closest thing to religious belief that can be found on the left in the area of international relations.
It is often frustrating to hear such people mouth platitudes about the war, about Islamic terror, about Iran, yet it can also be instructive to recognize and appreciate their plight.
Cuba has traced a trajectory which has highlighted the left/liberal dilemma. The European and American elites have pointed to Castro's Cuba as the place where the flowering of communism could be most clearly seen. Although they stopped trumpeting Cuba's advantages over the capitalist system in areas such as education, medical care, and minority rights in the last several years (in part because none of these stood up to careful investigation) Cuba was still held out as a revolutionary exemplar and Castro continues to be counted by the left as one of their great heroes.
Thus, it was particularly illuminating to hear an NPR broadcast yesterday. For the last week, a nationally broadcast show, The World, has been presenting a series on Cuba; yesterday an interview was aired with "Cuban revolutionary and architect, Mario Coyula." The show inadvertently underlined all that is problematic with the Cuban revolution and with the left, in general.
The NPR host, Lisa Mullins, sets the scene:
All this week we're taking you to a place where most Americans can't go because US law won't let them. We're calling our series "Cuba Stories."
The US ban on travel to Cuba does allow journalists to go there.
Once in Cuba though, last month, we were subject to reporting restrictions enforced by the Cuban government.
It's all a reminder that Cuba is a country still shaped by the revolution of 47 years ago.
In January 1959, Fidel Castro's rebel forces emerged from the hills around Havana, and marched into the capital. They toppled the government of Fulgencio Batista -- a dictator accused of being Washington's puppet in Havana. Castro would go on to transform Cuba into the first communist state in the Western Hemisphere.
She then introduces Mario Coyula:
These were heady days in Cuba -- not just for Fidel Castro, but for all those who took part in his revolution. On our trip to Cuba, we met one of Castro's early revolutionaries.
His name is Mario Coyula.
Perhaps it's the fact that Mario Coyula lives in a fourth floor walk-up that keeps him looking younger than his 70 years.
If you discount the gray hair, he could be a ringer for John F. Kennedy.
Mario Coyula still considers himself a revolutionary.
He's a member of Cuba's Communist party.
He's done pretty well for himself.
He's one of Havana's most respected architects.
And four years ago, he became the first Cuban from the island since the revolution to teach a semester at Harvard University.
Coyula lives on the top floor of his family's home. It's a beautiful apartment in a well-to-do section of Havana. Most Cubans don't live this way. Not even close.
And few Cubans, if they were allowed to speak freely, would say Fidel Castro has made good on that early promise of a "well-planned economy."
Today Coyula's critical about certain aspects of the revolution, but only to a point.
It is here that the transcript on the NPR web site ends; the program can be heard at the web site. Mullins asks about his time during the revolution. He was frightened of capture, torture and death and could only function by considering himself already dead. It is a measure of Coyula's commitment to Justice and Freedom that he risked everything for the revolution. After Castro took over, his mother and two sisters fled to America, and though he doesn't comment on it, it is clear the break up of his family deeplypained him. The home he lives in, grand by the scale of Havana, is his family's home. Approximately 4 minutes into the interview, Lisa Mullins asks him if he has any criticism of the Communist revolution and Castro. Coyula's voice becomes filled with sorrow and the following exchanges take place:
MC: It is difficult to oppose, I can criticize, but can never cross the line. To criticize the whole thing, its criticizing myself. ... That would mean the people who were always right were the Batista people. I don't want anything to do with them, with people I hate, people who were servants of the United States interests.
LM: You sound like a critical or disappointed revolutionary.
MC: The thing that disappoints me more is that the economy doesn't work and I don't see ways of addressing these issues. We're always addressing effects at the end and never asking the question why things don't work.
LM: Give me an example.
MC: Everything in the economy; agriculture not being able to feed the people so we need to rely on private peasants who make a lot of money and sell their goods at very expensive prices. A lot of people, and this is perverse, have found a way to make a living, a good living, from scarcity. ... These people do not want to eliminate scarcity.
LM: Is the problem Communism itself?
MC: I don't know if I would have the recipe to make the economy booming again. I know a good way would be to go head first into capitalism but that is not the way I'd like Cuba to go.
[Emphasis mine-SW]
(Please note the web site has only a partial transcript and this has been reconstructed by me form the audio file on the site.)
Here is a man who had devoted his formative years to the Communist revolution; he was a Utopian idealist. Many adolescents pass through a time of Utopian idealism; it is a wonderful and painful experience for them. Very few are unlucky enough to have their dreams come to fruition; those who do "win" soon realize that in any enterprise in which people are involved, perfection is never a possibility. All Coyula has left is his dignity. He knows his revolution has failed. He admits that capitalism works and communism doesn't, yet to take the final step and repudiate his youthful dreams is the equivalent of destroying himself: "To criticize the whole thing, its criticizing myself."
How tragic for Coyula.
Replace Coyula with all the other liberals, socialists, leftists who have nothing left and here is their choice:
Admit that abandoning South Vietnam relegated millions to torment, death, and continuing distress; admit that Cuba is not a communist paradise and exists at the cost of millions held in economic bondage and deprivation; admit that their fealty to notions of internationalism and anti-colonialism has led to disaster in Africa, encouraged Iraq until war became inevitable and threatens to repeat the mistake on a much greater scale with Iran; admit that Capitalism, with all its flaws, works.
Or:
Hold onto your youthful Utopian idealism and never give an inch; risk death and destruction to attack the NSA surveillance program rather than admit the government needs to protect us in a dangerous imperfect world; risk the death and destruction of millions by facilitating the Iranian nuclear weapons program, solely in order to thwart the United States; risk the ongoing chaos in Palestine and terror against Jews in Israel in order to maintain the fiction that the Palestinians are a poor, dispossessed people engaged in an anti-colonialist struggle; above all, treat George Bush and the Republicans as the greatest threat in the world, even while Osama bin Laden uses you in an attempt to remove the pressure and save his movement.
This is where we have arrived. It is sad and tragic when we listen to a Mario Coyula; I am prepared to offer the same empathy to any on the left who are willing to retire to their homes and leave the public square.
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