On Iran, China, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, and more
There is something that Donald Rumsfeld often said — some form of, “People want to get up in the morning and do what they want to do. They want to live their own lives. When they get up in the morning, they don’t want other people telling them what they must do.”
He was talking about dictatorship versus individual rights, or ordered liberty. Rumsfeld often used the phrase “get up in the morning,” when he was talking about all sorts of subjects.
I have been thinking about him when reading the news. Russian forces occupying Kherson wanted a Ukrainian conductor, Yurii Kerpatenko, to conduct a propaganda concert for them. He refused. So they shot him dead, in his home. (I wrote about this here.)
Kerpatenko wanted to live his own life, as a free man. The Russian forces had other ideas. They ended his life.
Then there is this: “Iranian schoolgirl ‘beaten to death for refusing to sing’ pro-regime anthem.” (I have linked to an article in the Guardian.) Dictators and their agents are always telling you what you must do. And if you don’t do it — they may well kill you.
Many women in Iran are fed up with having to wear a hijab. It is an important issue. It is not a matter of “a mere piece of cloth,” as Masih Alinejad says. It is a matter of freedom.
An Iranian athlete — a climbing champion — competed in the Asian Championships, in Seoul. She did so without a hijab. It seemed she was making a statement. When she returned home, the state obviously got to her.
. . . a post appeared on her Instagram page saying she competed without the hijab . . “due to poor scheduling and an unexpected call for me to climb.”
“I inadvertently had a problem with my cover,” she said.
Right. (I have quoted from this article.)
In a speech, President Biden said that women “should be able to wear in God’s name what they want to wear.” He also said, “Iran has to end the violence against its own citizens simply exercising their fundamental rights.”
People in the city of Neyshabur (also known as “Nishapur”) pulled down a statue of Khomeini. (See it here.) Since its establishment in 1979, the Khomeinist regime has been a curse on Iran and a blight on the world. Much bad has flowed from its establishment; much good will flow from its downfall.
• Here is another video. It shows a protester being beaten by Chinese agents. That’s par for the course, right? But this is in Manchester, England, outside the Chinese consulate. Dictators’ agents act like thugs both at home and abroad. Cuban agents do it, Russian agents do it, Turkish agents do it — it’s what they do. Democratic governments should be much firmer in saying no to this.
• This was unwelcome news: “China’s Universities Rise in World Rankings as American Schools Continue to Falter.” What the . . .?
• When I read the following, I sat up a little straighter. You might too:
China has made a decision to seize Taiwan on a “much faster timeline” than previously thought, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday, shortly after China’s leader reiterated his intent to take the island by force if necessary.
(Article here.)
• Josh Rogin begins a column,
The Saudi government has sentenced a 72-year-old U.S. citizen to 16 years in prison for tweets he posted while inside the United States, some of which were critical of the Saudi regime. His son, speaking publicly for the first time, alleges that the Saudi government has tortured his father in prison and says that the State Department mishandled the case.
What a nasty, sadistic, evil regime, the Saudi government is. They torture some of the best people in the country — Raif Badawi and Loujain al-Hathloul, for two of them. Are the Saudis a necessary ally for the United States? Mideast experts tell me they are. But people should still look at them with unclouded eyes.
• About the Saudi Golf League, I have said pretty much all I have to say in a piece published last June. What the Saudis are doing, with their new league, comes under the heading “sportswashing.” (This is a cousin of “whitewashing.” Dictatorships try to improve their reputations by funding sports.)
Phil Mickelson is one of the Saudis’ prize catches. They are paying him a reported $200 million. He recently said, “I see LIV Golf [meaning the Saudi league] trending upwards, I see the PGA Tour trending downwards, and I love the side that I’m on.”
I could not help thinking of the famous remark by Whittaker Chambers, the American spy for the Soviet Union who left Communism for anti-Communism (and ended up at National Review, alongside Bill Buckley). He said that he had the distinct feeling of leaving the winning side for the losing.
• The election in Brazil has come down to a rightist and a leftist: the incumbent, Jair Bolsonaro, and a former president, Lula da Silva. Genuine democrats — what Americans might call “liberals” and “conservatives” — seem thin on the ground in South America. (As elsewhere, to be sure.) I think of the choices recently offered to voters of Peru and Chile.
I have choice things to say about Bolsonaro and “Lula,” both, but let me note something about the latter. I will do so by excerpting a column I wrote in March 2010:
You remember that Orlando Zapata Tamayo, the Cuban prisoner of conscience, died on February 23, after a hunger strike — a hunger strike of 83 days. Silva happened to be in Havana, doing his thing with the Castros: schmoozing, paying court. Democracy activists pleaded with him to say something about human rights. He refused. And he refused to do so when he got back home, too.
On the contrary, he defended the Castros’ dictatorship. He said, “We have to respect the decisions of the Cuban legal system and the government to arrest people depending on the laws of Cuba.” He further said, “I don’t think a hunger strike can be used as a pretext for human rights to free people. Imagine if all the criminals in São Paulo entered into hunger strikes to demand freedom.” Thus did he compare prisoners of conscience to drug dealers, rapists, and murderers.
There’s more:
Silva himself was a hunger striker, back when he was a prisoner of his country’s military dictatorship. But now he has changed his tune: “I would never do it again. I think it’s insane to mistreat your own body.” And I think it’s insane to honor or admire Lula da Silva.
• In my column today, I have written about foreign things, mainly. I have a thousand things to say about domestic politics (as always, and as everyone does, or as political obsessives do). But maybe I could turn to sports and music, and come back another day for U.S. politics and other matters?
We are now deep into the baseball playoffs, although the weather is decidedly football weather, at least where I live. When will Major League Baseball push into Thanksgiving? At any rate, I want to tell you a little bit about what it’s like to be a Detroit Tiger, by which I mean, primarily, a fan of that team.
Since I am from Michigan — southeastern Michigan, at that — I am a born-and-bred Tiger, Lion, Piston, and Red Wing. Which can be challenging, from a spiritual point of view.
An article on September 28 noted this: “The Tigers need one win in their last eight games to avoid 100 losses.” You know what I say? Every team needs a goal.
• Long ago, a golf instructor — a famous and decorated one, Bill Strausbaugh Jr. — recommended that I putt crosshanded. (It was more than a recommendation. On a practice green, he said, “You have just hit your last putt with a conventional hold.”) He went on to say, “You know, we should all swing crosshanded, too. We would be a lot shorter. But we would be a lot more accurate. We would have to sacrifice distance. But, in many ways, we would play better golf.”
I thought of that great man, Bill Strausbaugh — “Coach,” everyone called him — when reading about young Patrick Welch (here). By golly, this rising star swings it crosshanded. Marvelous.
• A little music? For a review of Mozart’s Idomeneo, at the Metropolitan Opera, go here. For a review of Britten’s Peter Grimes — also at the Met — go here.
• “Grace Glueck, 96, Dies; Arts Writer Fought for Equality at The Times.” The obit ends with a quotation from the deceased, a quotation that made me smile — almost grin. She said that she liked working hard. “It became my whole life, the paper, as it did for a lot of people. I couldn’t imagine an existence apart from it, which is unfortunate. So I didn’t complain. Or, if I complained, nobody took it seriously, including me.”
Catch you later.
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