Castro Regime and Dissident Agree on 'Right' to Suicide

Through an article published in its media monopoly, the Castro regime has argued that it is ethically obligated to respect political opponent Guillermo Fariñas' right to die through a hunger strike. While alluding to existing bio-ethical principles for its position, Granma failed to cite any specific arguments or make any valid ones of its own. Instead the article begins by boasting about the tyranny's vaccine program and its mission to Haiti, leaving one to wonder how either of these initiatives justify allowing Fariñas to kill himself.

As if calculating that the latter approach might not convince many, Granma then prefaces the regime´s supposedly bio-ethically driven position with a litany of accusations. But what do they expect this to accomplish? Does the regime mean that Fariñas should be allowed to commit suicide because he is guilty of this and that? So therefore it means that letting him die is, effectively, a death sentence for the crimes they contend he has committed?

He is accused of treason, a grave crime in any country. But why then, one immediately wonders, was Fariñas walking the streets just 2 weeks ago? Why was he effectively sentenced to death only upon initiating a politically motivated hunger strike?

According to Granma's article, Fariñas is a 'salaried US government employee' (cooperates with European enemies too), a 'vendepatria' (traitor), a maladjusted personality, a violent criminal offender (has struck others but never killed anyone), and is guilty of lies and blackmails which have been broadcast by 'subversive' networks (within Cuba, where only Castro's media monopoly is allowed) such as the anti-Cuban station Radio Marti (run by 'apátridas' which is how they now politely refer to the millions who have gone into exile since 1959, also called 'worms' by them). Those are the crimes for which he is to be allowed to die. Oh, and the bioethical principles too.

Evidently unaccustomed to having its astonishing cynicism ever questioned, the regime then argues that force feeding the hunger striker would be ethical only after he goes into shock! That's apparently their guiding 'bio-ethical principle'. But according to which authority? The tyrant?

But then the article adds that Fariñas´ organism is rapidly deteriorating. After all he has worn out after several other hunger strikes demanding one thing or another from tyranny (e.g. Internet access), and was last in shock just last week. The Granma article then boasts that if it were not for the tyranny’s medical team's skill and compassion, he'd be dead, for they helped Fariñas even though he is a mercenary working for the enemy. They just feel he must be on the edge of death, or at least in shock, before exercising said compassion and skill. Ethics obliges them, that´s what we are told.

They don't mention he fought for them in Angola, but do warn readers that he abandoned his socialist principles, and everyone knows that in Cuba, as the tyranny's billboards warn (do they still?), it's "socialism or death"! Too bad you drifted away, comrade Fariñas. Didn't you know what happens here to people like you?

Since history must always absolve Castro (or else, and now his brother too), Granma places the blame for comrade Fariñas' death squarely on Cuban exiles, foreign governments, the foreign press. and on Fariñas' criminal record. Blame can never be Castro's, in any degree. Their system does not allow either Castro to ever be formally accused. No, the accuser invariably and immediately becomes the accused. Which Cuban would ever risk formally accusing either Castro of anything in their courts, let alone pretend that either could ever be judged or condemned for anything whatsoever?

But Fariñas' hunger strike, blackmail in a sense it is, and he has learned the art and crime well from his former master. After all, before Fariñas was even born, Castro had already traded Cubans for tractors (1961). Give him money or a tractor, or it´s life in prison for your Cuban father or son. Upon receiving both in healthy quantities he immediately released his Cuban hostages, but that he contends, is his glorious ‘revolution’ not blackmail.

What about Cubans critical of the Castros not being allowed to enter or leave their homeland? Support the Castros or you cannot leave or return freely. If still on the island, support them or be stigmatized, threatened, beaten up, stoned, banished, imprisoned or killed. That too is revolution, not blackmail.

Leave and you will lose your home unless you return within 1 year. But that's not blackmail either. Castro is always innocent, always justified, always absolved by history, directly, with no intermediaries.

Supposedly also a Christian, Fariñas has nevertheless argued that the homeland, not God, is above all, just like the atheistic regime. Therefore one can no longer consider him a Christian; he has become an idolater, and from the Christian view he will die as one, unless he repents.

Apparently he is caught between what he feels is his commitment to commit suicide unless the tyrant acts justly by releasing political prisoners, and his honor or patriotism. He must realize that honor, patriotism, or conscience can never require one to act irrationally; and that to expect a 50 year tyranny to suddenly act justly because otherwise he will kill himself is unrealistic, if not irrational.

Furthermore he wants to protest against a tyrant while addressing him as Mr. President. This too is irrational.

What would happen to Cuba, or to any nation, if all of its patriots were to act like this? Has Fariñas ever considered the question? Does he believe suicides should be historical role models for Cuban children? If so, that is irrational too, for it could eventually lead to the nation's self destruction.

Having lived 48 years under Castro, Fariñas has regrettably internalized some of his traits. Indeed, he shares more with the tyrant then he might care to admit, for he has absolutized his political beliefs.

Tragically, a sadistic tyranny and a masochistic opponent have joined in purpose to insure the latter's death by suicide. Of course, this latest emanation from a culture of death is not just a Cuban phenomenon but one that infests the globe. Hopefully, it will be categorically condemned by Cubans everywhere and by all people and governments of good will, very soon.