Tudeau "Fascist" Hero Worship Runs In The Family

Sacha Trudeau is showing the same tendency to hero-worship socialist tyrants as his father, who was then fascinated by Castro and Mao

By PETER WORTHINGTON
TORONTO SUN
Sunday, August 20, 2006

Usually when a newspaper prints nonsense, rival or competing newspapers ignore it, not deigning to react and possibly give the nonsense credence.

But a tribute to Cuba's Fidel Castro in last Sunday's Toronto Star by the late Pierre Trudeau's son Alexandre (also known as Sacha), was so extravagant, ignorant and nonsensical that it demands reaction.

I suspect the only reason the Star published Alexandre's homage to Castro on his 80th birthday was because he is Trudeau's son. Even Star editors must have retched when they processed his copy, lavish and uncritical in its reverence of the aging tyrant.

STARSTRUCK

It's perhaps understandable that Sacha would be star-struck upon meeting Castro for the first time when he visited Cuba after his father's and brother's deaths. Celebrities can have that effect on people, and no one has ever accused Castro of being unable to turn on the charm when occasion demanded.

It's well documented that Pierre Trudeau was enamored of Castro, whom he and then-wife Margaret met in 1976. Trudeau, remember, was also fascinated by Mao Zedong when he first visited China. He was about 10 years older than Sacha is now, but he exhibited the same tendency to hero-worship Fascist/Socialist Tyrants.

Where Sacha Trudeau goes off the rails -- as his father did by ignoring Mao's propensity to slaughter and oppress his own people -- is his categorical statement that:

"For Fidel, revolution is really a work of reason ... (that) when rigorously adopted, cannot fail to lead humanity towards ever greater justice, towards and ever more perfect social order."

Consider that statement for a moment. Does anyone (even the Star) consider that Cuba, some 47 years after Castro's revolution, is a place where "justice" prevails or is approaching an "ever more perfect social order?"

Here's a country rich in intelligent and able people, a country blessed by climate and potential, which today, after Castro's enlightened rule, can hardly feed itself. It is the only country in the western hemisphere (if not the world, apart from North Korea) where food is rationed.

When Sacha opines that Castro's "intellect is one of the most broad and complete that can be found ... an expert on genetics, on automobile combustion, on stock markets. On everything," it's tempting to think he's joking.

Expert on "automobile combustion" in a land where the most modern car is a 1959 Chev, held together with baling wire and ingenuity? An expert on stock markets in a land where there is no stock exchange, no prosperity? Naive at best, ignorant at worst. And the guy is a journalist? Holy mackerel!

Far from being a "monumental intellect," Castro has proven rigid and without the flexibility of the Russians or Chinese, or even the Albanians, in adapting to changing times. Fidel cannot accept that he erred in his communist fixation.

While Sacha praises Castro for making Cuba "a remarkably literate and healthy country," it seems never to occur to him that literacy in Cuba consists of reading Castro's speeches, with little access to divergent views and anything critical of Fidel.

Cuba, like the Soviet Union that once sustained it, boasts of many doctors, but no mention of their competence. The U.S.S.R. once boasted it had more medical doctors than any other country; after the system imploded, it turned out that its medical system was hopelessly primitive.

'GLOBAL PATRIARCH'

Sacha calls Castro the last of the "global patriarchs" who "by his inescapable rationality" always "urges (Cubans) to seek justice and excellence in all things." What drivel!

Of course, young Trudeau blames America for Cuba's economic ills ("unfair and malicious treatment by a superpower"), neglecting to point out that by boycotting Cuba, the U.S. inadvertently opened the door for every other country in the world to do business or invest there.

The fact that this opportunity fizzled is Castro's fault, and a flaw of the system his "monumental intellect" has foisted on that unfortunate people who, 47 years later, still seek to escape his enlightenment -- and are imprisoned if they fail.

Happy birthday, Fidel. Shame on you, Sacha.