I felt that Gregorio was getting a trifle restive among all these females so we moved to the front porch to smoke. He brought out a bottle of Cuban rum. “As long as I have this,” he said, pouring me a hefty slug, “and my cigars, I am content.” Now talking soberly he said, “Marta, all the intelligentsia left, all of them.” I was baffled by that word: what would Gregorio know of intelligentsia? Then I guessed he meant the world he had known with Hemingway, the Sunday parties with the jai-alai players at the finca, parties at the Cojimar pub, the carefree company of the rich and privileged, the big-game fishermen, the members of the pigeon-shooting club, and though I had never seen the Country Club he meant that circle too, since the Pilar was berthed there in later years. He may have missed the glamour of a life he shared and did not share. But he had met Fidel. “I think he is a good man,” Gregorio said. After Hemingway left in 1959, Gregorio returned to his old profession of fisherman, then retired and became unofficial adviser to the Museo Hemingway. “I have never had any trouble with anyone.”
I asked about the few Cubans I could remember by name; they had all long decamped. I asked about the Basque jai-alai players, exiles from Franco's Spain, who had fought for their homeland and lost. I loved them, brave and high-spirited men who never spoke of the past, not expecting to see their country and families again.
“They left when Batista took power. They did not like dictatorship. There was much killing with Batista, in secret. I heard that Patchi died.”
“Patchi!” I was stunned. “And Ermua?” Ermua was the great pelotari who moved like a panther and was the funniest, wildest of them all.
“Yes, he died too.”
“How could he? Why? So young?”
And suddenly I realized that Patchi was probably my age, Ermua maybe five years younger; they need not have died young.
“Gregorio, I am growing sad. Cuba makes me understand that I am old.”
“I too.” Gregorio laughed. "Pues, no hay remedio.”
My bag was packed, my bill paid and I had nothing to do until two a.m. when I took the plane to Nicaragua. I went back to Jibacoa where I had gone in hope of snorkeling on my first day. Now the weather was the way it ought to be, brilliantly blue cloudless sky, hot sun. I went to the Cuban resort, not the foreigners’ tourist domain on the hill. There were dozens of small cabins for two or four people, a boat-yard with rentable pleasure craft, an indoor recreation room, ping-pong and billiards, a snack bar to provide the usual foul American white bread sandwiches and a restaurant. The main feature was a beautiful long white sand beach, bracketed by stony headlands. Where there are rocks there are fish. I was loaned a cabin to change in and a towel: No, no, you pay nothing, you are not sleeping here. I could never decide whether I was treated with unfailing kindness because I was a foreigner or because of my age.
There were many people on the beach, looking happy in the lovely weather, all ages, sunbathing, swimming, picnicking. A young man offered me his deck-chair so that I could read and bake comfortably between swims. I put on my mask and plunged in, feeling the water cold after the storm, but bursting with joy to see familiar fish, special favorites being a shoal of pale blue ovoid fish with large smiles marked in black on their faces. In my old Cuban days, I wore motorcyclist's goggles; masks and snorkels had not been invented.
When I returned to my deck-chair at the far end of the beach, I found two small fat white bodies lying face down near me. After a while they worried me, and I warned them in Spanish that they were getting a dangerous burn. A grey-haired man sat up and said, “Spik Engleesh?” They were “Greek-Canadians” from the tourist resort above; they liked the place, they even liked the food. He said, “They work slow. No, lady, I don't think it's the climate. But they're happy. The guy who looks after our group is doing double time. For that, he gets a month off.” He smiled, he shrugged.
From nine to five, the tour guide would be on hand to interpret if needed, to coddle the old if they wanted it, swim with the girls, play table tennis, eat, drink. Maybe he would take them on a day sight-seeing tour of Havana. And then, from five to one in the morning, if anyone was still awake, he would do the same, except he would drink more than swim, and dance with the girls to radio music in the bar, and of course escort them all on the big night out at the Tropicana. The Greek-Canadian's shrug and smile said clearly that he did not consider this to be hardship duty. Here was a small-scale capitalist deriding the easy life of communists. Soft communism, a comic turn-around from the dreaded American accusation: “soft on communism.” I thought it the best joke yet.
The Eighties
In my considered opinion, this decade is infuriating and shabby. I can think of at least six more adjectives but might then give the impression of foaming at the mouth. I am not making a worldwide judgment since for all I know this is the best decade of the century in Iceland and New Zealand or points between. My aversion to the eighties is caused by the governments of the two countries I do know something about, Britain and the U.S.
Nobody has a good word to say for politics but scorning politics is a waste of time. We are governed, that's all there is to it. Short of keeping house in a Tibetan cave, nobody can escape the ripple effect of politics; and even in Tibet, a Chinese cadre might show up. In the eighties, politics in the two great English-speaking democracies have been stamped hard by the personalities and prejudices of the tough handsome lady Prime Minister and the smiling waving President. We used to have the Tory Party in Britain, now we have Thatcherism; we used to have a Republican administration in the U.S., now we have Reaganism. It seems to me that we, the people, have never been more battered by politics than now when both leaders claim zealously to oppose government interference in the lives of the citizens.
As the Prime Minister and the President are soul-mates—she is smarter but he has wider power—Thatcherism and Reaganism are similar in views, values and aims. Vainglory is rampant in both regimes. President Reagan has made America stand tall. Apart from shuddering embarrassment, I cannot decipher this phrase. Was America supine until 1980? Mrs. Thatcher orates frequently, given any excuse, about a strong Britain, “respected in the world” because of its strength; she embodies that grandiloquent strength, having elevated stubbornness to the highest virtue. Both are infatuated with military might, especially nuclear military might. Both exalt wealth; acquiring money is righteousness. They are apostles of the belligerent Selfish Society.
My vehement distaste for Reaganism and Thatcherism is joined to 35.2 million Americans who voted against Reagan in 1980 (out of a total 76.5 million votes cast) and 37.5 million Americans who did likewise in 1984; and allied with 57.8% of the British electorate who voted against Mrs. Thatcher in 1987. Plus 56.1% anti-Thatcherites in 1979 and 57.6% in 1983. That is quite a lot of consensus repugnance.
The U.S. has one priceless advantage over Britain: the Twenty-Second Amendment to the Constitution which forbids anybody to hold the office of President for more than two terms. If you cannot stand the type of government you are getting, you know there is an end in sight. And also the American president must be elected by popular majority. Not so in Britain. I was thinking that the British were as easily fooled by vainglory and as mercenary as Reaganite Americans until I realized that Mrs. Thatcher has been an elected dictator for eight years.
Mrs. Thatcher has never been the choice of the majority of British voters. She holds power because the formation of the constituencies and vote-splitting between the two Anti-Thatcher Parties produce a dominant Conservative majority in Parliament. Only proportional representation would give all the British a square deal in government. If the Prime Minister has a majority of well over a hundred MPs obediently voting as directed by the Party Whip, there is no Opposition. The Opposition can talk its collective head off and accomplish nothing. As an elected dictator, Mrs. Thatcher has imposed a retrograde revolution. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. The same is true in the U.S. If things keep up like this, we will have a large Third World bang inside
our countries.
I find myself missing the old Tories. Rueful laughter. We don't choose the progress we get; we just get what comes. I cannot feel that national rejoicing is called for because 8.5 million Brits now own shares. Not only do I pine for the civilized manner and reading habits of Harold Macmillan, but I wish that America would mind its own business, instead of dangerously minding everybody else's. Foolish dreams. The unappealing narrow new Tories are here to stay and no American President is apt to renounce the heady excitements of being a Superpower Commander in Chief. Imagine the thrill of ordering the invasion of postage-stamp Grenada, the ecstasy of sending an armada to the Gulf. Poor Mrs. Thatcher must content herself with memories of her glory as Britannia during the Falklands Campaign. I guess I am really sighing for the good old days when hubris in high places had better style.
But there are gallant generous-minded minorities, in both countries, who fight defensive actions against the worst abuses of Thatcherism and Reaganism, and I put my hope in them.
Since I wrote “White into Black” in 1983, the Haitians have rid themselves of Baby Doc Duvalier. It does not sound as if they have rid themselves of traditional Haitian misrule. But anyway, the people revolted and that suggests they are no longer cowed and brain-damaged by Voodoo fears. Having lately seen a bloodcurdling British TV documentary called “The Sword of Islam,” I think Voodoo is wholesome compared to Shiite fundamentalism and Hizbollah. (Dear God, please don't let Mrs. Thatcher, the Sword of Capitalism, destroy British TV by making it like American TV. Dear God, please lead Mrs. Thatcher to understand that cultural assets are more enduring than here-today-bust-tomorrow commercial assets. Fundamentalist Christianity, as also seen in TV documentaries, implies that Jesus has changed His mind; no longer the scourge of the money-changers in the Temple, He is all in favor of money now, especially for his preachers. The need of millions of people, in this decade, for entranced subjection to mullahs and evangelists is beyond my understanding; it scares and repels me, as long ago I was scared and repelled by Haitian Voodoo.
Racism—skin color as a reason to take against people—is also beyond my understanding. It was not funny to be on the receiving end of racism in Haiti. I don't find the grayish-pink or greenish-gray, which is our average Caucasian complexion, all that superior. I take against people violently for what they proclaim and act out, irrespective of skin color. Racism seems somewhat calmed in the U.S.; or has distance blurred my sight? Racism is rife in Britain, from the National Front, a political party of slob losers, Pakibashers, to the Immigration Laws. There are still enthustiastic Neo-Nazis in Germany. No cure has yet been found for cancer cither.
The Women of Greenham Common are still there, three long bad winters after I visited them. The harassment I reported in 1984 has become spiteful persecution; they are driven from their “benders” every night. I am dazzled by their fortitude. Thatcherism is authoritarian; the lady is a confirmed nuclear warrior and does not tolerate disagreement gladly. Hundreds of thousands of British people, and the whole Peace Movement, disagree with her resolutely. Nuclear weapons, militarism, the insistent political rhetoric of fear and war have had a sensational side effect: world-wide, they have created a citizens’ opposition. They have taught people to think and act for themselves. Peace protesters will never again accept the statements of government as revealed truth. The triumphant word why has spread through the ranks. Citizenship on the march. I really believe in democracy, which has nothing to do with trust in the wisdom of governments. It has everything to do with the communal rights and responsibilities of each of us; we are not helpless and alone; we have a voice. Public opinion, though slow as lava, in the end forces governments towards more sanity, more justice. My heroes and heroines are all private citizens.
In 1983, I brought back from El Salvador a document of 23 single-spaced typed pages: the detailed account of the tortures suffered by a young Salvadoran. I read it in my Welsh cottage, remote from the horror of El Salvador. After a few pages, I had to get up and walk and gulp air; I felt choked and sick. This testimony, like the sight of Auschwitz, is proof again of absolute evil. Torture continues in El Salvador; it is state-sanctioned routine. The U.S. government last year gave over $390 million to the Salvadoran government, and as usual the best weaponry including napalm, and the beneficent assistance of American military advisers. According to President Reagan, El Salvador is a democracy, defending itself against Communist insurrection. Everybody in El Salvador knows about torture; every journalist there knows about CAIN; everybody in the U.S. Embassy must know too. El Salvador is off the front pages and forgotten.
I have expanded the translation that appeared in Granta, but still you do not hear enough of the language of the torturers, coarse and obscene taunting; you do not realize that these subhumans were men in their twenties, who laughed and joked at their work. As the testimony is given in flat legal terms, it is hard to convey the sense of time; the exhaustion of Miguel, the young Salvadoran, blindfolded, naked, dragged like an animal from one torment to another. And these excerpts are not a complete account of all the torture. Miguel talked to himself to resist humiliation, for that is the filthiest purpose of torture; the destruction of identity, of self-respect. Many of the most disgusting outrages against Miguel are not translated; they are unprintable, but they happened. And these excerpts have not explained the prisoner, Miguel.
How can he be explained? From internal evidence, Miguel belonged to the small wealthy class for which El Salvador is ruled. His family had emigrated, and was evidently rich enough to support Miguel, who, by his own description, was adventurous, pleasure-loving, carefree, liking to travel, the author of 70 pages of an unpublished book, and epileptic, a very detached privileged young Latin American. After what seems to be ten years’ absence, Miguel showed his naive ignorance of the real world by thinking he could safely return to San Salvador to visit the Psychiatric Clinic, presumably because of his epilepsy. Nothing more. He answered no questions that could involve others. When asked where he stayed in San Salvador he said he lived in pensions, hotels. How is it possible to explain the unbreakable courage and moral integrity of this man? Where did he find the strength of spirit that carried him through to the end, to the clear denunciation in court of his torturers and the whole system of torture?
There is no greater abomination in the world, though the world is oversupplied with cruelty, than the fact of torture. Many strong, healthy, well-fed men playing with one defenseless human being as if that human being were a tiresome insect. Sadism and sexual perversion are clear in this testimony; the torturers were the lowest, most debased creatures that our species produces. But Miguel, though nearly destroyed, was not defeated. His testimony could be a parable of the good and evil in man; one such parable would be enough. Neither Miguel nor this torturers are unique in our time. We do not know how many Miguels have died, nor how many torturers live.
It should be noted that doctors served in this torture prison. As a noble contrast, full documentation for 1982 alone shows that at least 32 doctors, nurses, medical students, known for assisting the poor, were murdered by Salvadoran security agents. In that debased society, compassion is communism, inimical to the state.
I have wished for fame a few times in my life, to use fame as a means of being heard. This was one time. I wished I had the VIP standing to call a press conference and talk of Miguel's testimony and of thousands of others who could not testify, condeming with all my force the Salvadoran government and its support by the American government. Condemming, while I was about it, official American hypocrisy on human rights: ignore their violation in capitalist regimes, upbraid their violation in communist regimes only. The British government is just as blandly dishonest but at least does not subsidize the violators.
These few pages are in print and therefore on the record. I do not know if any of the heroic young volunteers of the Salvadoran Commission of Human Rights are still alive or if the Commission is still operating. (A deceptive governmental Comm
ission has been formed.) The aim of the genuine Commission of Human Rights was to keep the record of abuse “for the eyes of the world.” The eyes of the world have been blind, or merely turned away.
President Carter introduced the revolutionary idea that respect for human rights should be linked to American military aid, which at least hampered Guatemala, if little more. President Reagan put an end to that nonsense. El Salvador is Vietnam in miniature, without Communist leadership. Salvadorans are Catholics; the Church, at its peril, is on the side of the poor and has always urged “dialogue” with the insurgents. When poor people are driven to desperation by decades of unyielding social injustice, they take up arms because they have no other remedy. This does not prove that they are Communists, as President Reagan insists; it proves that they are human. The humanity of the Washington policy-makers is in doubt. I cannot comprehend these men. If you prick them, do they bleed?
Have they no imagination? Do they think only in terms of geopolitical claptrap? Do they know what they are doing? They are ensuring the hatred of hundreds of millions of poor non-white people around the world. America is seen as the friend of the rich, the enemy of the poor. Washington policy-makers, from the President down, should meet some of these non-white poor, listen to their stories, try to picture the misery in their lives. Washington deduces nothing from the fact that the civil war in El Salvador, a country the size of Massachusetts, has lasted for eight years. No matter what Washington says, there is no logistical means for the insurgents to be armed by Cuba or Nicaragua. And yet—despite over a million external and internal refugees, 60,000 casualties, the crushing power of military and civil repression—the war goes on. Will Washington never learn anything about real people and real life? When American anti-communism, in action, is simply anti- human, what does America stand for?
The View from the Ground Page 46
