Nobel Fools

A group of Latin American intellectuals are petitioning the UN not to condemn Cuba for violations of human rights. Their petition takes place as Castro further tightens its grip on the country. The group makes moral equivalences, linking the US treatment of al-Qaeda operatives in Guantamo with the Cuban persecution of peaceful dissidents in Cuba. In essence, the argument turns to saying that if the Americans violate human rights, it is therefore okay for Castro's Cuba to do the same. Castro is after all simply persecuting his own people.

One of the signatories of the document is Rigoberta Menchu, the Guatemalan Indian woman who received the Nobel Price for her work with Guatemalan natives. Menchu had been earlier exposed for a web of lies that the Nobel authorities never acknowledged. Why would the Swedes let truth get in the way? Menchu hardly has the authority morally to endorse or condemn after the string of lies that fill her autobiography, and from which she received the international award.

That the affirmation of the evils on one side must accompany a denial of the other's is a product of their ideological dreamworld. Sadly, many Latin American intellectuals are unable to abstract themselves from the manichean trap in which they reside: it is perfectly feasible to condemn Castro without endorsing abuses in Guantanamo. One would think that all those Nobel recipients coming together to sign the petition would have figured that out already.