Our last great hope, Siva Vaidhyanathan

Wed, 12 May 2004 23:00:00 +0000

Miami, Florida

Much of Miami, a prospering, bustling metropolis, seems designed with democratic spite, as if to ridicule the arbitrary, impoverished socialist dictatorship of Fidel Castro’s Cuba, which sits less than 100 miles from here. South Floridians conjured up Castro’s worst nightmares of freedom and indulgence and built all of them almost within sight of his palace.

Castro has spent much of the past two years cracking down on dissent and free thought with a vigor not seen in a generation. He has jailed journalists, intellectuals, and librarians with impunity.

For much of the 20th century, the United States ruled Cuba by remote control. In recent months, we have been reminded of that history. A tiny naval base at Guantanamo Bay on the southern coast of Cuba has been controlled by the United States since 1898, when the United States wrested it from Spain and began “leasing” it for $1 per year from a series of American-sponsored puppet dictators.

This historical footnote lies at the heart of the Bush administration’s defense of the practice of holding thousands of people indefinitely, often secretly, in cages in Guantanamo – without charge or access to counsel or any protections afforded by the Geneva Conventions.

Each prisoner might have some connection with the Taliban, al-Qaida, or anti-American forces in Iraq. But we might never know. Everything is closed to public scrutiny. There is no deadline for charging or releasing these prisoners.

The US Supreme Court is now considering whether two American citizens held in Guantanamo should be granted the basic Constitutional civil rights afforded every other American.

The Bush administration argues that Cuba has sovereignty over Guantanamo because of that century-old lease with Cuba (Castro does not recognize the lease), so Guantanamo “belongs” to Cuba and US courts have no jurisdiction there. If the government prevails, US citizens (and anyone else) may be held indefinitely, incommunicado, in limbo.

This cynical legal argument has turned Guantanamo into the anti-America. It’s the land of the unfree, home of the cowards. It is the ugly back alley where our government can do its dirty work beyond the gaze of anyone who might raise a complaint or read the US Constitution or Geneva Conventions.

The best case for humanitarian interventions is that the interveners act humanely.

Now it is undeniable that US soldiers have been torturing prisoners, many held without charge, in Saddam’s own prisons. Last week, Bush boasted that he was “closing the torture chambers”. As he spoke, image after image of Iraqis being broken filled every major news program.

At moments like this it’s important to remember that, like every other country, the United States has a dark history of killing, torturing, and terrorizing peoples who stood in its way. But it also has something that distinguishes it from almost every other expansive country in modern times. It was not founded on a myth of a Volk or a triumphant theological vision. It was founded on enlightenment ideals.

The United States has a creed. And it has a code. Its creed is that of individual liberty and equality before the law. Its code is the Constitution. Every time that some Americans have forgotten our creed and code, others have strived as hard as they can to revive, strengthen, and expand the basic principles of liberty and equality.

The torture that goes on in America’s name does not come close to the brutality executed regularly by regimes across the Middle East. But Americans should be exponentially more incensed at our own moral transgressions. We don’t believe in such inhumane acts. That belief is the essence of who we are as a nation. And it is our great hope to finally live up to our principles.

During much darker times, before the American civil war, millions of Americans were held in bondage without basic human rights and dignities. Yet a young slave named Frederick Douglass refused to be broken by the violence and hopelessness of his condition. He taught himself to read. He absorbed the liberating promise of the Old Testament, the loving humanity of the New Testament. And he took the promise of the Constitution seriously.

In every speech he made, in everything he wrote, Douglass appealed to the basic American creed and code and challenged his fellow Americans to live up to them. By the time Douglass left this earth, his country had altered its Constitution to outlaw slavery and guarantee every person equal protection under the law. Now is a good time to remember such courage and fortitude. America might not be the last great hope of mankind. But we owe it to ourselves to become the America that Frederick Douglass believed in.

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Our last great hope, Siva Vaidhyanathan