Category Archives: Human Rights

February 22, 2015 · 1:29 pm

Dealing with el Diablo

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President Obama’s decision in December to restore diplomatic and eventually trade relations with Cuba has generated some unlikely alliances.

A few pragmatic-minded Republicans, such as Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), agree that the 50-year-old trade embargo has accomplished very little.  Certainly, it hasn’t led to a meaningful change for the better, let alone the ouster of the Castro regime.

At the same time, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) has joined the majority of the Republican caucus in opposition to the president’s policy change, calling it a capitulation.  Even the Washington Post editorial board, hardly a regular critic of this administration, expressed its misgivings yesterday.  The island nation only 90 miles from our shores is no doubt a repressive state.  The Cuban government denies its people virtually every liberty we hold dear, arresting political dissidents and housing them in ghastly prisons, crushing independent media, and restricting movement and assembly of journalists and activists (among other egregious offenses).

But are human rights violations cause for economic retribution?  If so, it seems that not all violators are created equal.  What about the abuses in China?  In Vietnam?  In Saudi Arabia?  In Turkey?  According to Freedom House‘s accounting of political and civil liberties, some of our closer commercial and strategic partners rank near the bottom of the list.

Let’s face it.  If repressive governance disqualified a country from doing business with the U.S., we would be doing a lot less business in foreign markets.  Certainly there has to be something more than concern for human rights behind our persistent impasse with Cuba.

What about the country’s bad behavior beyond its borders?  For decades the Castro brothers have been notorious troublemakers from South America to Africa.  Then again, they don’t stand alone on this count either.  Despite a decade of destabilizing foreign intrigue by Hugo Chavez and his successor in Caracas, we continue to maintain full diplomatic relations with Venezuela, and U.S. trade with the nation totaled $64 billion in 2012.

In practice, every conflict is different.  Effective policy requires a lens of realism.  Sanctions against Apartheid South Africa were justified in retrospect because the leadership of the country wanted to reverse its international isolation.  And for better or for worse, our current sanctions regime against Iran does seem to have brought the ayatollahs to the nuclear arms bargaining table.  In contrast, Kim Jong-un cares little about North Korea’s seclusion and the economic deprivations of his people.  We should not be surprised when our threats and bribes do little to bring Pyongyang into compliance with the most rudimentary norms of international behavior.

So while it may not comport very well with lofty political rhetoric, it appears that U.S. economic pressure is really just a tactical instrument, to be deployed when it helps, and discarded when it doesn’t.

What’s needed today is a bit more candor and clarity about our positions and policies.  We should not mince words when it comes to critiquing behavior which undermines liberty or America’s vital strategic interests.  It does not follow, however, that we need a uniform strategy to contain it.

The question we should be asking about Cuba is not whether the regime is bad — it is.  And it’s not whether 50 years of embargo has worked — it hasn’t.  Instead we should be looking forward with an honest analysis of our options.  Will continued isolation of Cuba perpetuate the problems or will it finally precipitate a tipping point for change?

There are well-reasoned arguments on both sides, but neither seems to acknowledge the other.  It would be refreshing to hear President Obama disparage the Castro mystique that persists among his base of support.  It would also be more convincing to hear Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) critique the shortcomings of the Cuba embargo, even as he advocates keeping it in place.  On balance, we should take steps to normalize, but at a measured pace and with a close eye for proof that it’s making things better.

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February 12, 2015 · 1:50 pm

What is really beyond the pale?

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In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, many were quick to affirm the sanctity of free speech rights.  Je suis Charlie campaigners online and in the streets of Paris promoted the idea that people should be free to say whatever they wish.  Without legal sanction and without violent reprisals.

Not everyone signed on.  Conservative Muslims tempered the view that speech should be unfettered.  They cautioned that some speech is too offensive to be protected.

Americans by and large have sided with freedom.  While some have doubted where our president stands, most in our society have steadfastly disparaged the violent furor over cartoons that upset Muslim sensibilities.

But is the Western world intellectually consistent in its defense of free speech? Do we walk the walk when it comes to speech that offends our sensibilities? We’re all for “ridicule rights” so long as the target is a traditional religious point of view.  (I certainly haven’t noticed anyone among our political and cultural elite wagging a finger at the producers of the The Book of Mormon, the Broadway musical which mocks The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.)

How about something that counters liberal norms about race, gender, or sexual orientation? Or sacred historical memory of epic injustice, such as black slavery or the Holocaust?

In Europe there are laws forbidding denial of the Holocaust.  Europeans are in a particularly tough spot about resurgent antisemitism, and the more responsible political leaders among them understandably want to tamp it down.  It is certainly upsetting to observe neo-Nazi sentiments surfacing amidst radical political and Islamist movements.  As with so many other social and economic maladies, however, the Europeans rely too heavily on government solutions.  Constraints on speech in France eliminate discredited ideas about as well as constraints on commerce reduce their high levels of youth unemployment.

You’d be mistaken if you hoped to find relief in the sanctuary of a college campus.  The Free Speech Movement may have originated at UC Berkeley 50 years ago, but that university long ago sacrificed its integrity on the altar of political correctness.  Nationally recognized speakers at Cal who fail to toe the politically correct line have been “disinvited” to speak or shouted off the podium when they do.  Just last fall the student committee organizing graduation ceremonies withdrew its offer to HBO comedian Bill Maher (until the university overturned its decision).

It would be comforting to write off this pattern as another example of “Bezerkley” politics.  Unfortunately, Cal is not exceptional in its treatment of speakers who stray from orthodox positions.  The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has tracked dozens of similar incidents taking place at public and private universities across the nation.  Victims span the political spectrum.

Anti-Israel dogma has particular resonance in the academy as an excuse to suppress the free exchange of ideas.  The most recent and perhaps the most egregious Israel bashing emerged last month at The Durban University of Technology in South Africa, where student leaders demanded that Jews, especially those who decline to “support the Palestinian struggle,” be kicked out of the university.

Although we may disagree on the specifics, many ideas are genuinely offensive.  We have phrases like “the n-word” which are so inflammatory they can only be uttered without opprobrium by foul-mouthed black comics.  If a position is so fundamentally objectionable, however, it should not require the force of law or the threats of violent mobs to suppress it.  Any idea that is beyond the pale of civilized society we can and should refute with reasoned discourse.  To do otherwise is to undermine what should be the purpose of opposition:  to persuade.

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