Thankfully, Fidel Castro’s regime is coming to an end. It’s important to look back at his horrifying legacy, described chillingly in today’s Wall Street Journal by a former prisoner. The whole article is a must read, but this passage makes an important point – it’s not only Castro’s legacy that’s worth examining but the legacy of all of those who have given him a pass:
“The legacy of Castro for Cuba will be much like that of Stalin in Russia, Pol Pot and Ieng Sari in Cambodia and Hitler in Germany. It will be the memories of the unknown numbers of victims, of concentration camps, torture, murder, exile, families torn apart, death, tears and blood. Castro will go down in history as one of the cruelest of all dictators — a man who tormented his own people.
“But his poisonous legacy will also include the double standard by foreign governments, intellectuals and journalists who fought ferociously against the unspeakable violations of human rights by right-wing dictatorships, yet applauded Castro. To this day many of these intellectuals serve as apologists and accomplices in the subjugation of the Cuban people. Rafael Correa, the recently inaugurated president of Ecuador, has declared that in Cuba there is no dictatorship. Evo Morales, president of Bolivia, considers Castro his mentor and has already shown that he is willing to silence his own critics at the point of a gun. Venezuela, once a democracy, is the new Cuba, replete with a growing population of political prisoners.
“Castro hemmed and hawed in the early 1960s, concealing his ideological allegiance to the most murderous system of government humanity has ever experienced. Today’s Latin American caudillos openly express their allegiance to communist ideals. ‘I am very much of Trotsky’s line — the permanent revolution,’ Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said in January.
“If we have learned anything from Fidel Castro, it is that the totalitarian impulse outlives even its most hardened – and ruinous – practitioners.”
This reminds me of my days at Harvard when so many of my fellow students – supposedly the best and brightest in our country – would thoughtlessly wear Che Guevara t-shirts. Did they realize this is akin to walking around with a picture of a smiling Hitler? Ignorance is no excuse on something this important and much of the lefts willingness to ignore Castro’s treachery is nothing less than shameful.