Every so often Amnesty International has to toss a bone to its
wealthy liberal contributors. Otherwise the Ted Turners and George
Soroses may begin to wonder whether they are getting the best bang
for their buck. No doubt its annual assault on the U.S. is the
meatiest bone Amnesty International can serve up.
After all, what profit is there in constantly harping about
third world dictators? Not only is it ineffective, but more
important it’s not going to make headlines. And headlines equal
more donations. Besides we all know that conditions in Sudan,
Haiti, Zimbabwe, etc., etc., are hellish. And what wealthy liberal
wants to pick on a developing country? Haven’t they endured enough
suffering at the hands of the brutal European colonials? This
explains why Amnesty International spends an inordinate amount of
time trying to dig up dirt on countries like the U.S. and Britain
(and not enough time on France, in my opinion).
Speaking of headlines, last week Amnesty International’s
Secretary General Irene Zubaida Khan called Guantanamo Bay “the
Gulag of our time.” The obvious reference was to the Soviet Union’s
notorious Gulag Archipelago, made infamous by Aleksandr Isaevich
Solzhenitsyn’s memoir/history, called by one reviewer, “the modern
equivalent of Luther’s 95 Theses.” Evidently, the Muslim head of
Amnesty International has never found time to read Mr.
Solzhenitsyn’s book or even bothered to look up the word gulag on
the online encyclopedia. If she had Ms. Zubaida Khan would have
been amazed to learn that the 30 million inmates of the secret
Soviet camps were by and large political prisoners, writers, and
dissidents like Solzhenitsyn (arrested for writing a private letter
criticizing Stalin), or Soviet soldiers welcomed home from years in
German prison camps with a one-way ticket to Siberia. (Besides
punishing dissidents, Lenin and Stalin had important economic
reasons for the camps. It was due largely to this slave labor that
the Soviet economy remained precariously afloat for 70 years.)
Gulag prisoners were systemically starved, beaten, and forced to
labor in sub-zero weather. The lucky ones were shot immediately. In
contrast, at Guantanamo Bay, 1,300 Korans in 13 different languages
were handed out to prisoners. Prisoners are served “proper
Muslim-approved food.” The International Red Cross has been
monitoring the camp from Day One. Gen. Richard Myers noted that the
organization has consistently given the U.S. high marks for the way
it takes care of terrorists. What is Amnesty’s biggest beef about
Gitmo? That some guards “mishandled” a book.
Nevertheless Amnesty International’s “gulag” reference came as a
bit of a surprise. The left has been notoriously silent about the
gulags. It is normally a chapter in the history of socialism they
prefer to leave out. On the other hand, the fact that Amnesty
International used the term shows how little respect the left has
for the tens of millions that suffered the hell of the gulag. You
would never hear Amnesty International call Guantanamo Bay the
“Auschwitz of our Time.” Auschwitz is sacred to the memory of the
Jews and Poles who died there. The gulag? That’s not sacred. Just a
failed experiment.
A final “minor” point. The gulag prisoners were innocent. The
roughly 650 prisoners that have gone through Guantanamo Bay, on the
other hand, are terrorists and terrorist allies.
Ms. Zubaida Khan apparently cannot tell the difference between
Solzhenitsyn and Bin Laden.
By making such asinine comparisons, Amnesty International risks
losing whatever credibility it has left. This is unfortunate
because the organization normally does important work. However,
Amnesty is caught in a Catch-22 situation. It can risk losing its
credibility by throwing a bone to its wealthy liberal donors, or
risk losing its funding. Amnesty has obviously chosen to risk its
credibility.
If nothing else good came out of the recent “gulag” stories, I
was encouraged to go back and reread some of The Gulag
Archipelago. How nice to be reminded that Solzhenitsyn’s
masterpiece contains some of the most darkly humorous and lyrically
beautiful writing of the 20th century:
We have been happily borne — or perhaps have unhappily
dragged our weary way — down the long and crooked streets of our
lives, past all kinds of walls and fences made of rotting wood,
rammed earth, brick, concrete, iron railings. We have never given a
thought to what lies behind them. We have never tried to penetrate
them with our vision and our understanding. But here is where the
Gulag country begins, right next to us, two yards away from us. In
addition, we have failed to notice an enormous number of closely
fitted, well-disguised doors and gates in these fences. All those
gates were prepared for us, every last one! And all of a sudden the
fateful gate swings open, and four white male hands, unaccustomed
to physical labor but nonetheless strong and tenacious, grab us by
the leg, arm, collar, cap, ear, and drag us in like a sack, and the
gate behind us, the gate to our past life, is slammed shut once and
for all.
I intend to send Irene Zubaida Khan my copy. It’s a little worn,
so perhaps it’s time I found another.
