Sacha's love letter (Toronto red-Star runs mega-barfer idolizing Castro)

Sacha's love letter
His father gave us the Charter of Rights.
So what is Sacha Trudeau doing writing obsequious
agitprop for a communist thug?

Jonathan Kay
National Post
Tuesday, August 15, 2006

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 rid the world of a political system that slaughtered tens of millions in purges, and sentenced hundreds of millions more to economic slavery. Less consequentially, communism's demise also spared the world of arts and letters one of the most appalling literary tropes known to history: the mythic communist hagiography.

If you've ever travelled to a communist nation, or read its official histories, you will know they run something like this: Great Leader was born a poor villager in the country's heartland. At the age of four, he single-handedly killed a pack of wolves that threatened his town. At the age of eight, he invented a new kind of rifle. At the age of 12, he heroically denounced his own parents as counterrevolutionaries. A prodigious autodidact, Great Leader became an expert in every subject -- agriculture, warfare, economics -- and tirelessly applied his intellect to advance the glorious revolution. And so on.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, this messianic propaganda style has survived in just two places -- North Korea and Cuba. Or so I thought, until I woke up on Sunday and spotted a museum-quality specimen devoted to Fidel Castro on the pages of the Toronto Star. Had I seen it in The Onion, I would have thought it a fine parody. But the persistently earnest author -- none other than Alexandre ("Sacha") Trudeau -- apparently meant every word.

The legacy of Castro is well-summarized in a recent report by Human Rights Watch: "Cuba remains a Latin American anomaly: an undemocratic government that represses nearly all forms of political dissent. President Fidel Castro, now in his 47th year in power ... continues to enforce political conformity using criminal prosecutions, long- and short-term detentions [and] mob harassment ... The end result is that Cubans are systematically denied basic rights to free expression, association, assembly, privacy, movement, and due process of law."

But those sticks-in-the-mud at Human Rights Watch apparently don't know the real Fidel. Writing on August 13, Castro's 80th birthday, Sacha lovingly described the kindly attentions Cuba's leader once lavished on his late brother Michel, whom the despot nicknamed "Micha-Miche." When Michael was eight years old, we learn, he complained to his mother that he had fewer friends than his brothers. Reports Sacha: "My mother told him that, unlike us, he had the greatest friend of all: He had Fidel."

Such soothing words. Would that we all had a communist tyrant to call our pal.

Sacha's article is full of this sort of maudlin recollection, so much so that one is reminded of the purple love letters Nikolai Bukharin wrote to Stalin from prison in the (vain) hope of winning his freedom. The main difference is that Sacha doesn't have the excuse of imprisonment. He wrote his ode to Cuba's prison-keeper from a nation whose people enjoy freedoms that Cubans can scarcely imagine.

Space forbids a full recitation of Sacha's jaw-droppers, but here are some highlights.

Cuba's Great Leader, we are told, "lives to learn and put his knowledge in the service of the revolution." He is "famous for not sleeping, instead spending the night studying and learning." "His intellect is one of the most broad and complete that can be found." Moreover, Fidel is "a great adventurer," "a great scientific mind," "the most curious man I have ever met," "an expert on genetics, on automobile combustion engines, on stock markets, on everything," not to mention the world's "most audacious and brilliant" leader.

Or, to put it more succinctly, "He is something of a superman" -- a description Sacha justifies with a comic-book propaganda story in which the fat dictator dives 20 metres down into the ocean (without scuba gear!) to collect sea urchins for the Trudeau family's delectation.

Only when we get to the 18th paragraph does Sacha interrupt his sensuous rhapsodies to admit that Cubans "do occasionally complain." But such complaints are akin to "an adolescent [who] might complain about a too strict and demanding father."

In other words, Fidel's single flaw is that he loves too much.

If this were all there were to Sacha's article, then it would merely constitute the unintentionally comic ramblings of a son who still believes the Cuban agitprop passed on to him from his departed daddy -- nonsense that even most Cubans stopped believing decades ago. But his Star essay went beyond that, into something much creepier.

I am thinking in particular of these two lines:
"Fidel may seem an anachronism: a visionary statesman in a world where his kind have long since been replaced by mere managers, a 20th-century icon still present in the 21st century."

"With the possible exception of Nelson Mandela, already well into retirement, Fidel is the last of the global patriarchs. Reason, revolution and virtue are becoming more and more distant and abstract concepts."
(My emphasis in both cases.)

Since the 1980s, Latin America has undergone a stunning transformation. In the time of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, autocratic police states were the norm, democracy the exception. Now it is the opposite, and only Cuba and Venezuela stand as blots on an otherwise democratic landscape. It is one of the most inspiring political transformations of our time. Yet to Sacha, all of these freely elected leaders are "mere managers." For they lack the "machismo and vigour" that can only emanate from a "revolutionary" regime -- which is to say, a community tyranny.

Throughout the 20th century, there were many other ideologues who preferred "reason, revolution and virtue" to the boring give-and-take of democratic politics and due process. Their ranks included not only murdering despots such as Lenin, Mao and Castro himself, but also starry-eyed fellow travellers and apologists such as Sartre, Fanon and Trudeau pere. Thankfully, the failure of the Soviet experiment has driven both tribes into history's dustbin.

Sacha is a rare exception. Yet from the casual way he throws out his nauseating obsequies, he doesn't appear to understand just how historically discredited his message has become. He is more than naive -- he is ignorant.

The saddest part of it is that Sacha is not an insubstantial intellect: In recent years, he has become a respected journalist, civil libertarian and activist. But there are limits to what even an accomplished person may say and still be taken seriously. What Sacha has written here is so ludicrous that it puts into question everything he's said or will say. Now that he's written this glowing tribute to a dictator with blood on his hands, for instance, why should we believe his repeated claims that this or that Arab terrorism suspect is innocent? Why should we believe his reporting from Iraq, for that matter? If the romantic glory of "revolution" is all that matters in Sacha's political universe, surely jihadis are "supermen," too, no?

Sacha is still a young man -- perhaps young enough to rebound from this blunder if he's more careful with his words. But for that to happen, the naive affection for Fidel bequeathed to him by his father should become the love that dare not speak its name.

jkay@nationalpost.com

- Jonathan Kay is Managing Editor for Comment at the National Post.

SACHA TRUDEAU ON FIDEL CASTRO

'Fidel is the most curious man that I have ever met. He wants to know all there is to be known. He is famous for not sleeping, instead spending the night studying and learning.'

'His intellect is one of the most broad that can be found. He is an expert on genetics, on automobile combustion engines, on stock markets. On everything.' 'Combined with a Herculean physique and extraordinary courage, this monumental intellect makes Fidel the giant that he is.'

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH ON FIDEL CASTRO

'Cuba remains a Latin merican anomaly: an undemocratic government that represses nearly all forms of political dissent.'

'President Fidel Castro, now in his 47th year in power ... continues to enforce political conformity using criminal prosecutions, detentions [and] mob harassment'

'Cubans are systematically denied basic rights to free expression, association, assembly, privacy, movement, and due process of law'

Ran with fact boxes "Sacha Trudeau on Fidel Castro" and "Human Rights Watch on Fidel Castro", which have been appended to the story.

The last days of the patriarch

EXCLUSIVE | Pierre Trudeau had a friendship with Fidel Castro that went beyond politics. It was a mutual admiration between two men who put their unmatched intellects at the service of their country. On Castro's 80th birthday, an essay by Alexandre Trudeau

Aug. 13, 2006. 07:38 AM
ALEXANDRE TRUDEAU
SPECIAL TO THE STAR

I grew up knowing that Fidel Castro had a special place among my family's friends. We had a picture of him at home: a great big man with a beard who wore military fatigues and held my baby brother Michel in his arms. When he met my little brother in 1976, he even gave him a nickname that would stick with him his whole life: "Micha-Miche."

A few years later, when Michel was around 8 years old, I remember him complaining to my mother that my older brother and I both had more friends than he did. My mother told him that, unlike us, he had the greatest friend of all: he had Fidel.

Cuban President Fidel Castro holds baby Michel as Pierre
and Margaret Trudeau look on during their state visit to
Cuba in January 1976. Castro presented Margaret Trudeau
with this photo just hours before Pierre Trudeau’s funeral in 2000.

For many years, Cuba remained Michel's exclusive realm; whenever someone would accompany my father there, it would naturally be Michel. It wasn't until after both my father's and brother's deaths that I got a chance to visit Fidel and his country, Cuba.

Fidel may have been at first a political contact of my father's but their relationship was much more than that. It was extra-political.

Indeed, like my father, in private, Fidel is not a politician. He is more in the vein of a great adventurer or a great scientific mind. Fidel doesn't really do politics. He is a revolutionary.

He lives to learn and to put his knowledge in the service of the revolution. For Fidel, revolution is really a work of reason. In his view, revolution, when rigorously adopted, cannot fail to lead humanity towards ever greater justice, towards an ever more perfect social order.

Fidel is also the most curious man that I have ever met. He wants to know all there is to be known. He is famous for not sleeping, instead spending the night studying and learning.

He also knows what he doesn't know, and when he meets you he immediately seeks to identify what he might learn from you. Once he has ascertained an area of expertise that might be of interest, he begins with his questions. One after the other. He synthesizes information quickly and gets back to you with ever deeper and more complex questions, getting more and more excited as he illuminates, through his Socratic interrogation, new parcels of knowledge and understanding he might add to his own mental library.

His intellect is one of the most broad and complete that can be found. He is an expert on genetics, on automobile combustion engines, on stock markets. On everything.

Combined with a Herculean physique and extraordinary personal courage, this monumental intellect makes Fidel the giant that he is.

He is something of a superman. My father once told us how he had expressed to Fidel his desire to do some diving in Cuba. Fidel took him to the most enchanting spot on the island and set him up with equipment and a tank. He stood back as my father geared up and began to dive alone.

When my father had reached a depth of around 60 feet, he realized that Fidel was down there with him, that he had descended without a tank and that there he was with a knife in hand prying sea urchins off the ocean floor, grinning.

Back on the surface, they feasted on the raw sea urchins, seasoned with lime juice.

Fidel turns 80 years old today. A couple of weeks ago, he shocked the world by turning power over to his brother Raul after holding it without interruption since the 1959 revolution. In newspapers across the world, pundits solemnly declared that even giants are mortal and that no revolution is eternal. Historians even began to prepare the space that will be granted Fidel in history books.

Fidel may seem an anachronism: a visionary statesman in a world where his kind have long since been replaced by mere managers, a 20th-century icon still present in the 21st century.

There is also wild speculation about what fate awaits Cuba after Castro. It is important to note, however, that while the whole world works itself up about the matter, Cubans themselves play it cool. Some of my shrewder Cuban friends even say that this temporary withdrawal from power is another one of Castro's clever strategies; that it is something of a test and that he will soon be back at the helm. They say that, on one hand, Castro is allowing the Cuban people, and more specifically the Cuban state apparatus, to become accustomed to the leadership of his brother Raul. On the other hand, Castro is carefully watching for hints as to how the world — and, more importantly, the United States — will react to his final departure.

Cubans remain very proud of Castro, even those who don't share his vision. They know that, among the world's many peoples, they have the most audacious and brilliant of leaders. They respect his intellectual machismo and rigour.

But Castro's leadership can be something of a burden, too. They do occasionally complain, often as an adolescent might complain about a too strict and demanding father. The Jefe (chief) sees all and knows all, they might say. In particular, young Cubans have told me that an outsider cannot ever really imagine what it is like to live in such a hermetic society, where everyone has an assigned spot and is watched and judged carefully. You can never really learn on your own, they might say. The Jefe always knows what is best for you. It can be suffocating, they say.

I met a young man in the small provincial town of Remedios who worked there as a cigar roller. We shared a great love for the works of Dostoyevsky. When I expressed to him my excitement at meeting a fellow aficionado of Russian literature, he flatly told me: "Yes, Fidel has taught me to read and to think, but look what work he sets me out to do with this education: I roll cigars!"

Cuba under Castro is a remarkably literate and healthy country, but it is undeniably poor. Historians will note, however, that never in modern times has a small, peaceful country been more subjected to unfair and malicious treatment by a superpower than Cuba has by the United States.

From the very start, the United States never gave Castro's Cuba a choice. Either Castro had to submit himself and his people to America's will or he had to hold his ground against them.

Which is what he did, in the process drawing the Cuban people into this taxing dialectic that continues to this day. Cubans pay the price and may occasionally complain of their fate, but they rarely blame Castro. The United States never fails to make the Cuban people well aware of its spite for this small neighbouring country that dares to be independent.

With the possible exception of Nelson Mandela, already well into retirement, Fidel is the last of the global patriarchs. Reason, revolution and virtue are becoming more and more distant and abstract concepts. We will perhaps never see another patriarch.

We thus have to conceive of the departure of the last patriarch in psychoanalytical terms. The death of the father doesn't signal our liberation from him — quite the contrary. The death of a father so grand and present as Castro will, rather, immortalize him in the minds of his children.

It is true that Cubans may eventually cast away the communist orthodoxy of the revolution. They will become tempted by American capital and values as soon as the embargo against them is lifted, something that will surely follow in the not so distant future. They will have new opportunities for individual fulfilment and downfall. Without a doubt, Cuba without Castro will not remain unchanged.

But Cubans will continue to be subjected to Castro's influence. Whether they like it or not, they will continue to be called out by his voice, by his questions, by his inescapable rationality, which, whether they heed its call or not, demands they defend the integrity of Cuba and urges them to seek justice and excellence in all things.

For a generation to come, they will be haunted by the vision of a society that never existed and probably never will exist, but which their once-leader, the most brilliant and obsessed of all, never stopped believing could exist and should exist.

Cubans will always feel privileged that they, and they alone, had Fidel.

SOURCE

The threat from Canada’s pro-totalitarian left in a nutshell:
The son of a Marxist demagogue unashamedly idolizing a brutal communist dictator in the same vile ‘newspaper’ which, in the 1930’s, ran all of Walter Duranty’s infamous New York Times articles fawning over Joe Stalin and boldly denying the then on-going Soviet crimes against humanity we now know as the Ukrainian holocaust.

Trudeau's gagworthy paean to Castro is something we will be subject to in our own country when Fidel finally croaks. We will see reams of lavish praise directed at the old creep by our own slavish, commie-loving media. Which will prove once again that there are no fools like liberals. But curiously none of the Fidel-loving libs choose to live in Cuba. Now why could that be? (smirk)

Is it just me, or is the only thing that prevents dictators such as Fidel Castro or Kim Jong Il from declaring themselves to be "gods" the way the Roman Emperors did is that they are nominally atheists?

No, it's not just you.

I loved this piece. It's good to see fatuous and self-indulgent Canadian socialists spouting their delusive beliefs in public.

These indecent "judas goats" do their best to advance the twin causes of socialism and death. It's good to have their hateful lying propaganda displayed in the press.

I glad you posted this. I hope many more Canadians will read it. The Toronto (communist) Star continues to confirm my decision to never read it.

It is good to see that the Toronto Red Star maintains its own standards, contemptible though they may be.

Consistency is as close as these "idealistic" lefties ever get to integrity.

"Heads On Pikes!"

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