“You have no idea how many people are in here due to senseless heroics.” That’s a line from The Lives of Others, in which Stasi interrogator Gerd Wiesler, speaking to Christa-Maria Sieland in the main Stasi prison, is trying to get her to betray the fact that her lover has written an article highly critical of the East German regime. His argument, that it would be a waste of one’s life to get imprisoned over a principled stand against snitching against loved ones, hinges on the idea that the work of those working against the regime is futile. For better or for worse, the regime is here to stay. The world has made its peace with its existence.
Cuba’s communist regime may or may not fall in the next decade (longstanding Cuba watcher Jay Nordlinger thinks it might soon enough, and worries that Obama’s policy will get the credit–more from Nordlinger on the deal here), but obviously, its leaders feel their deal with Obama to normalize relations is more likely than not to shore up their power. That is, their calculation is at least somewhat in line with conservative Cuba expert Mark Falcolff’s:
The normalization of relations with Cuba comes at precisely the moment that the Castro brothers need it the most, since their principal foreign patron, Venezuela, is running out of money because of the collapse in the world price of oil. …It couldn’t come at a better time for the Cuban regime and gives it yet another lease on life.
Busy this Christmas season with visiting relatives, like most Americans I’ve not followed this story closely. Perhaps that’s why I’ve yet to read an adequate defense of Obama’s new policy—please provide a link if you know of one, and no, the various editorials over at Huffington Post don’t really pass muster—but I do assume there could be one of these, particularly if couched in the idea that Obama could have consulted Congress more on it. Our embargo did worsen the plight of the worst-off in Cuba, it had gone on for a long time without much public debate, it was not in harmony with key Latin American allies, and there is arguably always a case against extended non-normalization of relations of this kind. I have quibbles with and objections to all those points, but I will say that Falcoff’s judgment that American supporters of normalizing relations with Cuba are either a) persons who (errantly) think that this will weaken the communists’ hold, or b) persons who actually want to strengthen that hold with new infusions of cash, etc., is too simple. Many Americans could conclude the policy has gone on too long without having an opinion about a) or b) one way or the other.
All I’m saying is that I have some understanding for some of those who support Obama on this, even though I think it’s a mistake. But let me shift back to the dissident perspective: whatever your opinion about Obama’s policy, I think you have some responsibility to face the emotional cost of this decision to those it impacts most. Unknown Cuban prisoners were undoubtedly taunted by their jailers with copies of the news, taunted that their past “heroics” really have been proven “senseless.” Castros and their ilk will rule Cuba for another half-century at least, and so, those Cuban citizens who dared to suggest that the nation could do better, whether they languish in prison or whether they simply live in fear, without career prospects and connections, will have been shown to have wasted their lives and pointlessly harmed their loved ones. They made a gamble on the side of liberty, categorical morality, and what God sees, and now we all see that they should have stayed silent. So the cynical reasoning will go.
I’m sure there are some dissidents who basically support the normalization, even if they have qualms about how little Obama got in return, but the dissident voices we’re beginning to hear are mostly critical. (Again, I would appreciate any other links readers are aware of.) And that does nothing to remove the bitterness with which this news was received by many Cubans unknown to us, such as the sorts of Cubans portrayed in the 1996 film Azúcar Amarga, aka, Bitter Sugar.
In our recent book Totalitarianism on Screen: The Art and Politics of The Lives of Others, co-editor Flagg Taylor and I argued that that film was a major cinematic achievement, and really one of the best artistic representations of life under communism in any genre. I wouldn’t say either of those things about Bitter Sugar—I would give it no more than a solid B as a film, even if to my mind it would deserve extra attention due to its rarely-treated subject matter. The film shows how a young man prepared to become devoted to the Cuban regime, and in a position to be awarded for his support, is turned against it by the day-to-day facts of his life, and by a love affair. The creepy importance of prostitution in Cuba, and its relation to foreign tourism, is highlighted, as are shortages of medical supplies, but otherwise, the film essentially addresses the same sorts of issues that The Lives of Others does. The all-encompassing corruption and oppression (however “soft” or “subtle” it may be compared to earlier eras of Stalinist massacres and Gulags) characteristic of “late totalitarian” communist regimes, eats away much of one’s possibility of living a good life.
In our book’s introduction, Taylor and I say the following: “A communist party in power rests its claim to authority upon its purported knowledge of history and its claim that the dream of communism has been at least partially realized. Thus, communist regimes must insist on mass participation in a multifaceted and constant endeavor to maintain the appearance of the triumph of the ideology. They likewise insist that everyone chalk up any remaining difficulties to the predicted resistance of class enemies. This is why such systems, according to Václav Havel, are
…so thoroughly permeated with hypocrisy and lies: government by bureaucracy is called popular government; the working class is enslaved in the name of the working class; the complete degradation of the individual is presented as his ultimate liberation…Because the regime is captive to its own lies, it must falsify everything…Individuals need not believe all these mystifications, but they must behave as though they did…For this reason, they must live within a lie.”
Make no mistake. This is the inner reality of the Cuban regime, a reality that impinges day after day, year after year, upon nearly every one of its subjects. Do not underestimate what it takes to resist the lie. It takes the risks of perilous emigration across the seas, or of dissidence within the society. Do not be surprised if those who have taken the latter risk, or who simply know of those who have, look upon this action by our president as a great betrayal, as an action that suggests that the actions of liberty’s real heroes are utterly senseless.
Before I wrap this up, let me strongly request that commenters to this post refrain from in any way comparing our life under President Obama with that under a real totalitarian state like Cuba or East Germany. Such would unfairly dishonor Obama, sure, but it is a truly obscene moral equivalence for those who really lived and still do under such regimes. That said, I’ll end with another quote from The Lives of Others–the script was written by its director, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck:
Don’t I need this whole system? What about you? Then you don’t need it either. Or need it even less. But you get into bed with them too. Why do you do it? Because they can destroy you too, despite your talent and your faith. Because they decide what we play, who is to act, who can direct.
Without explaining it further–look, The Lives of Others is a 100% must-see film, so I don’t want to spoil things for you–I’ll just say that quote sums up the moral situation of the most privileged subjects of the “soft” communist tyranny that was yesterday’s East Germany, and which is today’s Cuba. That’s what life in communism holds for anyone of talent and aspiration, even artistic aspiration: you have to get in bed with them. That is what Cuba’s leaders have been offering their subjects for decade upon decade now. Don’t we Americans owe those who have rejected that deal, and especially those who have openly resisted it, something better than the present policy shift? What do the dissidents get? How do they feel? May our president remember their plight and their point of view as he tries to get Cuba’s tyrant-clique and our own Congress to implement this at-best highly questionable policy. No doubt, his action has already wounded many of them to the core.