On Carlos Alberto Montaner, Milan Kundera, America’s ‘uniparty,’ the importance of an ‘iron stomach,’ and more
Carlos Alberto Montaner had to be a Cuban writer in exile, but he was a Cuban writer to the core — always letting readers know about the torments of his island, always defending the right of Cubans to live in freedom and democracy. At the same time, he wanted this for everybody. His values, he regarded as human and universal. Montaner has died at 80.
Let me quote from the obituary in the Wall Street Journal written by my friend José de Córdoba:
In Havana, independent journalist Yoani Sánchez, who publishes the website 14ymedio, recalled how Montaner’s books, banned in Cuba, were passed secretly from hand to hand by dissident writers, as were videotapes of his television conferences. “Cultured, calm, without histrionics and with his prodigious verbal skills, Carlos Alberto Montaner practiced an art that had been lost in national political life: to debate with respect and with arguments,” Sánchez wrote.
Let me quote a little more from José’s obit:
In the hothouse world of Cuban exile society and politics, known for its sometimes violent rhetoric and extreme views loudly expressed, Montaner stood out for the equanimity of his voice and for his trenchant analysis.
“Carlos Alberto created a space to analyze and discuss Cuba in a rational and calm manner,” said Pedro Freyre, a Miami-based lawyer active in Cuban affairs. “He was an example of moderation, intelligence and cordiality.”
He was feared by the Castro regime as perhaps its most dangerous intellectual adversary.
Oh, yes.
Bear in mind what Yoani Sánchez and Pedro Freyre have said about Montaner’s manner — because another obit leaves the impression that he was extreme and coarse. I will address this further on.
Carlos Alberto Montaner Suris was born on April 3, 1943, meaning that he was 15 when Castro’s revolution triumphed — on New Year’s Day 1959. Like many Cubans, he welcomed Castro’s triumph, happy to be rid of the dictatorship. And like many Cubans, he quickly turned against Castro, realizing that Cubans were faced with another dictatorship.
He joined an anti-Castro rebel group. He was arrested and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He managed to escape from a detention camp. He fled to the Honduran embassy, where he was afforded refuge. Then, on September 8, 1961, he was able to go to Miami.
“I sang the national anthem,” Montaner recalled many years later, “and was sure that I would quickly return to a free Cuba.”
The young man had experienced something like a lifetime of drama and dislocation while he was still 18.
Montaner spent his exile largely in Spain. He wished for Cuba the kind of transition that Spain saw, after Franco — a transition to democracy. He joined the Liberal Club of Madrid. He became a vice president of Liberal International. He favored a free economy, a free society — freedom in general.
In 2011, he said the following to the George W. Bush Presidential Center: “There is a secret family of victims of totalitarianism, which can be the families in Burma or the victims in North Korea or in Iran or in Cuba. We feel a special bond with them because we belong to the same family.”
The obituary of Montaner in the Washington Post ends as follows:
In 2014, an interviewer in Cuba asked Mr. Montaner by phone if he would like to return to Cuba.
“Yes, I would,” he said. “I am nothing other than Cuban.”
“Do you think that will be possible?” the interviewer asked about a visit to Havana.
“No,” he said. “I think I will die without returning to Cuba.”
I am glad to have the information supplied in the Post obit. But I would like to spend a moment on the tone of that obit. In its first sentence, the obit says that Montaner was “a fierce opponent of the island’s communist ruler.”
Yes, I suppose Montaner was a “fierce” opponent of Fidel Castro. A fierce opponent of dictatorship, of totalitarianism. What is an un-fierce one? Someone who objects to dictatorship only mildly?
The first sentence also says that Montaner was “a polarizing figure across Latin America with harsh critiques of politics and culture.”
He was polarizing, I suppose. Dictatorships have detractors and defenders, both. Anyone who takes a stand will “polarize,” you could say. And “harsh critiques”? I would say those critiques were truthful.
Let me ask: Were critiques of apartheid South Africa harsh? They were, and rightly.
The Post’s obit says, “Nearly all Mr. Montaner’s works blasted Cuba’s regime and predicted its demise.” “Blasted”? Okay. I suppose I blast dictatorships in Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, North Korea, and elsewhere every day.
Another sentence: “He often struck a hectoring tone that resonated with hard-line Cuban exiles but drew criticism from others as stuck in Cold War-era simplicity.”
“A hectoring tone.” It’s as though Montaner had scolded neighbors for playing their music too loud. “Cold War-era simplicity.” Would that be the conviction that one-party police states are bad and democracies good?
Let me ask again: Were critics of apartheid South Africa hectoring? Also, were they stuck in simplicity? Equal rights and all that kindergarten stuff?
“In 1999’s ‘Viaje al Corazón de Cuba,’” the Post’s obit says, “Mr. Montaner tried to delve into the mind of his arch-nemesis. Castro is portrayed as a narcissistic overlord who cares for nothing but power.”
Sounds like an accurate portrayal to me. But focus on “arch-nemesis.” That sounds like something out of a comic book — unserious. Castro spent a career imprisoning, torturing, and killing his opponents. He caused millions to seek exile. His forces often shot people in the water as they tried to escape, on rafts and anything else that would float.
“Arch-nemesis”?
Was Stalin the “arch-nemesis” of Anna Akhmatova? Hell, was Hitler the “arch-nemesis” of the White Rose? Would anyone ever put it that way?
The Post quotes a review of Viaje al corazón de Cuba (“Journey to the Heart of Cuba”): “Montaner’s unequivocal approval of capitalism . . . his categorical attack on communism (undifferentiated from Castroism) and his failure to acknowledge his own justifiable subjectivity call into question his overall perspicacity and reliability.”
There are many things to say about this passage. I will say only this: It would be interesting to hear the writer try to differentiate between communism and “Castroism.”
Enough — except to say, God bless Carlos Alberto Montaner. And viva Cuba libre.
• Milan Kundera was born earlier than Montaner — 1929, in Brno. When the war ended, he was 16 and on the cusp of life. Like many others, he embraced communism. Like many others, he soon dis-embraced it, so to speak. He was a highly unusual writer, and a highly gifted one. His big hit came in 1984: The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Four years later, it was made into a movie, starring Daniel Day-Lewis.
Kundera has a signature statement: “The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.” In 1979, he published a novel called “The Book of Laughter and Forgetting.” Also associated with Kundera is that word “laughter.”
In 1967, he wrote a novel called “The Joke.” Two years later, he came out with a short-story collection titled “Laughable Loves.”
He said that he treated the most serious of subjects with “utmost lightness of form.” Any of his novels, he said, could have been titled “The Joke,” “Laughable Loves,” or “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.”
Was he loved by all of his fellow Czechoslovakians, or his fellow Czechs? No. He emigrated to France in 1975. By contrast, another writer, Václav Havel, stayed. And endured prison, and became president.
But listen: People make their choices, and these choices can be exceptionally difficult in a police state. Also, people have their own natures, their own inclinations — their own destinies, if you will. Milan Kundera was not only a splendid writer. He alerted people around the world to the oppressiveness of the system that he got free of.
Milan Kundera died this week in Paris at 94.
• I have many more items for you. But I have gone on — haven’t I? — and you don’t have all day. Maybe a few quick ones.
There are people who complain that America has a “uniparty.” There is no real difference between the Republicans and the Democrats, they say. In at least one respect, I think they’re right: Neither R’s nor D’s give a fig about the national debt, the federal budget deficit, the looming insolvency of our entitlement programs.
George F. Will makes this clear in his latest column: “The U.S. debt tsunami meets with a reflexive, mindless bipartisan shrug.”
You know why politicians don’t care? Because people don’t. Voters don’t. And leaders are reluctant to lead. They follow (for the purpose of holding office).
• I think this is well played — literally, I mean. In the musical sense. Not in some cute, other sense:
Pres. Biden is welcomed to Windsor Castle by King Charles III and a rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner." https://t.co/Cy7IumTTRG pic.twitter.com/SNQSVuANiW
— ABC News (@ABC) July 10, 2023
• Depending on the subject — depending on what I’ve said — I am under attack from the right or from the left. This week, I had some turbulence. And I thought of something that George Rochberg said. Rochberg, as you know, was an American composer who lived from 1918 to 2005. He once made a remark to my friend Michael Hersch, another American composer, when Michael was starting out.
“It takes an iron stomach to be a composer,” said Rochberg.
The same applies to being a writer, I think. Or to being anyone else who puts his work — and himself — “out there.”
My advice is: Express what you think is right and true and valuable. You will receive plaudits and brickbats. Maybe nothing but brickbats, in some cases. Regardless, keep your stomach iron — like one of those old stoves.
My friend Jim Harbaugh says he’s “all burnt wood” inside. He has had a long career in football: as a player, as a coach. He has had many wins and losses. Sports can be unbearably tense. As a player or as a coach, you are “out there,” for all to see, and judge.
Iron, burnt wood — whatever. Steel yourself and forge ahead.
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