January 18, 2005, 8:38 a.m.
Conservatives and the world, a letter from Valladares, remembering Victoria, &c.

The other weekend, I read a column in the New York Post by Peter Beinart. (I can't find it on the Post's website, but a version is here, from The New Republic. Subscription required.) Beinart is the editor of The New Republic. The gist of his column is that conservatives don't care about people. "Conservatives are fascinated by American power, but they are not all that interested in the world."

I actually know quite a few conservatives who aren't all that interested in American power but are fascinated by the world.

Anyway, I was going to ignore this column, but — perhaps unwisely — decided to say something. I have heard this baloney pretty much all my life: "You conservatives don't care about people, you're not interested in the world, you just want to sit by the pool smoking cigars." This charge is so inane, I can barely get my fingers to type in response. But . . .

When I was in college, "liberals" basically cared about three groups of people: South Africans (above all), Filipinos, and Chileans. But they didn't really care about them, as I saw it; they just used those people to attack the United States. Once apartheid fell, Marcos left, and Pinochet stepped aside, who cared about those countries' citizens?

You could not get anyone — anyone — interested in the peoples behind the Iron Curtain. If you tried to do so, you were a right-wing fanatic, or "poisoning the atmosphere of détente." That was the big catchphrase of the day; I heard it constantly. Solzhenitsyn — another conservative who doesn't care about people and is not interested in the world — was vilified as a fascist, a reactionary, a warmonger.

You couldn't get liberals interested in Nicaraguans, certainly not in the Miskito Indians, who were essentially an embarrassment to them. You could not get them interested in Grenadians — not in ordinary ones, only in "leftist thugs," as Reagan aptly described them. You could not get them interested in any black Africans who were oppressed by black strongmen. A rank impossibility.

And shall we get started on Vietnam? I don't think so. Why is it that, when I was younger, I heard about the boat people, the reeducation camps, and so on only from the lips of "right-wingers"? Has anything changed? And burned into the mind of every conservative is the New York Times's headline, when the Khmer Rouge took over in Cambodia: "Indochina Without Americans: For Most, a Better Life." Nice going, guys.

What about today? I am repeatedly praised — by Cubans and Cuban Americans — for my attention to Cuba, yet I do practically nothing. The reason I am praised is that I do a little more than nothing. The same with the Chinese, who are more than a billion people, aren't they? I once received an award from an exile group — a human-rights group. In my remarks to them, I said I was embarrassed to be receiving the award, because I had done so little — an article or two about Falun Gong, some acknowledgments of Laogai (the Chinese gulag), a few squibs about someone I know, Jian-li Yang, who languishes in some Chinese dungeon.

But many liberals think that to note persecution in China is, somehow, to give aid and comfort to Joe McCarthy. Really.

Back to Cubans for a minute: Not long before he died, I talked to Ambassador Vernon Walters about the Free World's indifference to them. (Actually, the indifference is not the worst part; the excusing of that brutal regime is the worst part.) Said Walters, "[Journalists] would go to the death searching out Franco's or Pinochet's prisoners. But the attitude toward Castro's is, 'They probably deserve to be there anyway.' Anti-Communist prisoners are of no interest to anybody. A prisoner of a left-wing government is highly suspect, probably a fascist."

Which reminds me: I twice interviewed René Montes de Oca, a Cuban political prisoner who was on the lam when I first talked to him. (For relevant articles, please go here, here, and here.) After our first interview, René was denounced on a left-wing website as a "Batista stooge." Batista was overthrown in 1959; René was born in 1963. This is, as Ambassador Walters said, "absolutely normal."

It's hard to get liberals interested in the Sudanese, massacred as they are — because they are not massacred by the "right" murderers — and you really can't get them interested in Arabs. They care about Palestinians to the extent that they can cast Israel as a monster, and the United States as the monster's Frankenstein (Great Satan/Little Satan). What the PA does to Palestinians is of no interest to virtually any liberal. You couldn't get liberals to care about Kuwaitis, except to mock them as rich and languorous. They left the impression that they thought Kuwaitis deserved invasion, rape, and subjugation. (Do you remember Alexander Cockburn, from December 1979? "If any people deserves rape, it's the Afghans.")

About the Afghans: There are liberals who would rather homosexuals be stoned to death than that they be freed by George W. Bush and the U.S. military. The latter is the greater insult.

As I said, I should perhaps have left this topic alone. The theme of "Conservatives don't care, they're insulated, they're incurious," blah, blah, blah, has been sounded all of my life, and it will be sounded until I die, I have no doubt. A person can't react to every offense.

But, you know? One of the reasons I migrated right is that I sensed that the Left didn't care about people, while "conservatives" — who were often genuine liberals — did. (For a speech I gave, touching on this subject, please go here.)

I don't wish to be naïve, or as categorical as Peter Beinart: Some of the conservatives' caring, no doubt, is opportunistic, as some of the liberals' is. But most of the best, most humane, and (frankly) most worldly people I know are political conservatives. I look back and think, Who were the ones who connected me to the lives of people around the globe? Solzhenitsyn, Pryce-Jones, Conquest, all the writers in Commentary, all the writers in National Review. In fact, Pryce-Jones, who is regularly denounced as anti-Arab, is now and then contacted by Arabs themselves, who, communicating furtively, say, "Why do you care about us, that you should write about us so honestly?"

Perhaps conservatives aren't credited with caring because they blather about it less; they are less self-congratulatory about it. Beinart, in his column, writes that President Bush "tries to see as little as possible of the countries he visits. (When Bill Clinton went to Africa, in 1998, he visited six countries in 11 days; when Bush went in 2003, he visited five countries in five days.)" So we're counting countries and days.

Maybe the lesson is that conservatives aren't so good at biting their lips and tearing up and otherwise emoting. Maybe conservatives are better at deeds than at words and emotions. But consider the millions whom Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush have liberated. (I speak broadly — too broadly — but not inaccurately.) Isn't that a little better than biting your lip and tearing up? A little?

I leave you with a strong dose of our liberator-president, Bush — from the West Point commencement speech:

Some worry that it is somehow undiplomatic or impolite to speak the language of right and wrong. I disagree. Different circumstances require different methods, but not different moralities. Moral truth is the same in every culture, in every time, and in every place. Targeting innocent civilians for murder is always and everywhere wrong. Brutality against women is always and everywhere wrong. There can be no neutrality between justice and cruelty, between the innocent and the guilty. We are in a conflict between good and evil, and America will call evil by its name. By confronting evil and lawless regimes, we do not create a problem, we reveal a problem. And we will lead the world in opposing it.

That's what I'm talkin' 'bout.

Speaking of people who connected me to the world: After publication of my piece "Che Chic," I received a letter from Armando Valladares. Valladares is often called "the Cuban Solzhenitsyn," and like Solzhenitsyn, he has been vilified as a fascist, a liar, a warmonger. Valladares's book is Against All Hope, memorializing the Cuban gulag (founded by Che Guevara, before he left the island for South America). My encounter with this book, long ago, was a milestone in what you might call a political development; the same is true for many, many other people as well.

Anyway, Valladares writes,

Communist icons inevitably are found out. We need to look no further than the deaths of some 5,000 Polish officers, murdered by Communist firing squads in the Katyn Forest. The Kremlin laid the blame for this act on the Nazis, and succeeded in convincing nearly the entire world.

When those of us who knew better voiced the truth, no one listened. We, and the 5,000 murdered, would have to wait until the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the Kremlin finally admitted blame for the atrocity.

It is the same with Che Guevara. I knew Che Guevara. He was an assassin, unscrupulous to the core. Many died at his hands, and many more died on his orders. His legend is pure fiction, masterfully crafted by his fellow Communists and the nostalgic Left. Add to their numbers every misguided liberal, a gullible multitude resembling the deluded masses who believed the cowardly lies of the Communists about the Katyn massacre.

[I interject to say that, when I was in college and graduate school, to finger the Soviets for Katyn was to start a furor.]

Che adulators and fans miss the logical conclusion. Had the object of their adoration and his ideology triumphed, their victory would have unleashed the Communist system worldwide, resulting in the bitterest fruits: total loss of personal freedom, execution by firing squad for dissent, concentration camps, an end to religious expression, and to a free press. Stalin's Russia replicated across a global stage.

That is the legacy Che Guevara intended for us — including for those who adulate him.

The cult of defending dictators and their henchmen is a repeating, albeit illogical, phenomenon. Stalin and Hitler, Pinochet, Castro, and Hussein ruthlessly purged millions of their compatriots and enslaved millions more. They heaped misery and horror on their own people, and yet their defenders vie with impunity against the truth. So it is with Che — a tired old tale.

Well, after that, we can hardly continue with breezy ol' Impromptus. But let's have a few more items, then out.

In my judgment, the world — i.e., the press — overreacted to the Harry Nazi caper. The prince did a stupid thing, of course. But it is apparently easier to denounce Harry for wearing a Nazi costume than it is, say, to denounce Saddam Hussein for children's prisons. And, for heaven's sake, don't send the kid to Auschwitz, as a kind of punishment, or for "reeducation" (initial education?). That may breed resentment, rather than sympathy.

By the way, many, many readers wrote me to say, "If only Prince Harry had worn a Che T-shirt or beret!"

I was interested, too, in all the talk about the Holocaust, following Harry's blunder. It was natural to raise the Holocaust, of course — but what about Nazi Germany's attempt to subjugate Great Britain? I mean, the Blitz and all? This is the grandson of the Queen!

A last comment: According to Reuters, "almost three out of four Britons believe [Harry] was wrong to wear a Nazi uniform to a costume party." You mean, more than a quarter of Britons believe it was not wrong? That's the news!

By now, you surely know how Ted Kennedy referred to the new senator from Illinois, Barack Obama: "Osama bin . . . Osama . . . Obama." All I can say is, Thank goodness it was a prominent liberal who said this — an iconic, untouchable liberal. Can you imagine — can . . . you . . . imagine — if a right-winger had done this? The media outcry would have lasted a week, ringing with "How can you be so insensitive?" and "So, all the darker people look alike to you, huh?" and "So typical of the Right: Illinois elected a [partially] black senator, and you immediately equate him with Osama bin Laden."

Thank goodness it was Kennedy who said it. Perhaps this will evoke empathy with Dick Armey.

A little language: During the Harry scandal, Ian Kershaw, the historian, was quoted as saying, "Prince Harry acted with grotesquely bad taste and with extraordinary lack of sensitivity. He seems particularly prone to clottish behavior." No doubt Kershaw actually said "cloddish." I love transcription mistakes, don't you? (Except when I am their victim.)

UPDATE: Anglospheric types have informed me that "clottish" is, indeed, a pejorative British term — and that I should stop being so Americentric!

A little music criticism: For reviews of the mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe in recital, and of the premiere of Robert D. Levin's "completion" of the Mozart C-minor Mass, and of the violinist Julia Fischer in recital, please go here.

As long as we're thinking about music, let me close with a story about Victoria de los Angeles. The great soprano died on Saturday.

Many years ago, de los Angeles and the pianist Alicia de Larrocha gave a joint recital in my hometown. (De los Angeles and de Larrocha were longtime friends and fellow Barcelonans.) I went to hear only my idol, de Larrocha, caring nothing for singers, thinking them dumb and not really musicians (as most young instrumentalists do). Afterward, I went back to the green room, to shake de Larrocha's hand. She was standing between two men — managerial types. They were all holding drinks, I remember. I could not get de Larrocha's attention. I stood there for a while, but — no luck.

I turned to leave, and I heard this voice behind me, beckoning me. The sound I heard was the sound a Mediterranean woman would make if she wanted to stop and call you, but didn't know your language: "Eh . . ." It was de los Angeles.

She had witnessed the whole scene, between de Larrocha and me. The soprano was seated at a large vanity, whose mirror was outlined by bright round lightbulbs. I went to her. She hugged me and kissed me. (I was young and cute.) I remember that she smelled good; she had been sweating, and her makeup had run a little. She took my program — unasked; I was never an autograph-seeker — and signed her name, her signature being as flowery and beautiful as her name: "Victoria de los Angeles." Then she patted my head and sent me on my way.

I grew to love her.

Anyway, that's my story, and I'll see you later.