Because You Never Asked

THE ODD COUPLE or FIDEL AND J.P.

     (This essay was written in response to Pope John Paul’s visit to Cuba in the late 90’s. For those of you who don’t remember, he arrived on the island just as the Monica Lewinsky saga was breaking, thus engendering this essay’s first paragraph.)

     It is ironic that the art of fellatio has pushed the Pope’s visit to Cuba off America’s front pages, because J.P.’s visit to El Comandante’s island most directly pertains to the United States. Notwithstanding the adolescent infatuation of America’s media with anything having to do with a blow job, the get together of the Polish-Cuban Odd Couple is a significant happening.

     It might be said that except for the loud mouth girth of the Cuban exile community dripping gold chains in Miami, just about everyone else in the world is fed up with the attitude of Uncle Sam towards Cuba, including the bulk of what moves and shakes amongst the “Yanqui” power structure. Any fears of Fidel’s revolution spreading beyond the sands of Varadero has long since evaporated, and yet, the idea of strangling the Bearded One out of power with embargoes and mean spirited spite, seems equally ridiculous. The practitioners of the global economy, both Yanquis and non-Yanquis alike, would like to get on with it, unencumbered by the Neanderthal indigestion of the likes of Jesse Helms.

     The Cubans, on the other hand, simply want the opportunity to modify their revolution to the dictates of a world without Karl Marx --- a la China and Vietnam --- in a way that does not relegate them to the quasi-colonial status of pre-revolutionary days. The only thing holding this back is the personal nature of the Cuban-American conflict. The Yanquis have never gotten over the fact that their asses were booted out of Cuba in 1959.

     It’s time to get over it.

     Most diplomatic conflicts that can be resolved without bloodshed are the result of a generous dose of face saving devices. At first glance, the Odd Couple might seem a preposterous alliance, but if one digs under the superficiality of official dogma, this unlikely pow-wow is not as absurd as it initially seemed.

     Perhaps one of the great errors of the socialist ideologues of this century was the complete severance of the umbilical cord connecting their movements and religious practices. I cannot speak confidently about the socialist movements in the East, but with regard to what happened in the West, I am on firmer ground. As the game was played out, what developed was a kind of war between Communism and Christianity, which, as I shall explain later on, are two forces that never should have been antagonistic.

     In looking back at the historical context of the leftist movements since the days of Karl Marx, it is easy to see why their proponents considered organized religion a mortal enemy. The hierarchies of the various Christian religions were always allied with the privileged classes of their localities; their churches glittered in gold, their clothing paraphernalia shone in silk and satin, and the clergy was always conspicuously  present at all state functions.

     The church had become an essential player in the theater of the status quo.

     It is my guess that most of the candidates for clerical vocation in pre-revolutionary Cuba came from the island’s whiter, more comfortable classes, and all the higher rungs in the hierarchy were occupied by some of Cuba’s most accommodated oligarchs. It would be very difficult for any leftist revolutionary to not see these people and the religions they represent as part of the problem. Couple this with the fact that not just leftist intellectuals, but intellectuals of all persuasions are generally left limp by immaculate births, second comings, resurrected lives and people walking on water (I wonder if they could have ever believed someone could take off from the foul line and dunk a basketball?), and it is easy to understand that the world of Holy Water and Virgen sightings would not be seen sympathetically in their “Manifestos”.

     But the Communists were not being very practical. Sure, no doubt they believe as much in Casper the Ghost as they do in the Holy Ghost, but they underestimated the need to play politics here. The Christian religion not only never should have been an enemy of the socialist movement, it could have been turned into its ally.

     If the leftist philosophers had been politically shrewd enough, they would have drawn a distinction between the “political wing” of Christianity as embodied by the various church hierarchies, and Christian doctrine as set forth by the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The former would be discredited for their self serving perversions of Christ’s word, while the latter would be praised for his populist politics. In this way, the masses could have retained their religious opiate while being inculcated into the new socio-political reality.

     There can be no doubt the Commies and J.C. represent the same constituency. I ask you, does “the meek shall inherit the Earth”, or “the first shall be last”, sound like something Steve Forbes would say?

     J.C. was the original Che Guevara.

     But there is even more common ground than that.

     If I might steal a phrase from the yuppie orb, the “life style” of Jesus Christ is much more akin to that contemplated in the successful worker’s ”paradise” than to that of the “American Dream”. Unless I’ve been watching all the wrong movies at Easter time, J.C. seemed totally oblivious to the joys of a two-chariot garage, He never wore real shoes, let alone socks, and preferred moldy bread to vichyssoise. Only the most recalcitrant Occidental cultural apologist could possibly reconcile the hyper-materialism of the global economy with the Christ-like persona.

     The Communist repulsion for anything “bourgeois” is in reasonable harmony with the style and teachings of Jesus Christ. The socialist utopia, although it contemplates a dignified material existence for all, is a far more spiritual place than the currently triumphant ethic espoused by the “Clinton-Thatcher cowboys”. The longed for socialist “paradise” is less a Darwinian commercial rat race and more a Brotherhood of Man. In truth, the Communist movement of the 20^th century was an heir to the agitation caused by Jesus in Roman times. All it did was remove the miraculous hocus-pocus from the rhetoric, something they might have been better off not doing. The masses going to church on Sunday does not seem to threaten the socio-economic scheme envisioned in a socialist state.

     The visit of Pope John Paul II to Cuba, in some semi-conscious, subliminal way, is an attempt to bridge a gap which is a historical mistake. Superficially speaking, the Pope is a high profile anti-Communist, but what is he really attacking when he fights the Communist regimes of the 20^th century: is it their concept of economic distribution, or is it the lack of liberty embodied, amongst other things, in the strict anti-clericalism of these regimes? I venture to say it is more the latter than the former.

     There is a certain degree of religious sincerity in the Pope’s mission to Cuba. John Paul understands that a world based purely on market principles leaves very little space for Christian behavior (maybe an hour on Sunday). Perhaps I overrate his motives, but some commendation for his efforts seems in order.

     Fidel, of course, is a practical politician. It is not so much that he fears for his regime’s survival, but he is like a man with stacks of Cuban pesos; he can keep them, but it is worth less all the time. Unless he can find a way to ease his country back towards a hostile mainstream world around him, he remains “El Comandante”, but of what? The Pope’s visit did not happen in a vacuum. Everyone, both inside and outside Cuba and the Papal State, knew what the script would be. It gives all sides involved a chance to “save face” as they try to evolve away from the untenable Yanqui-Cuban quagmire.

     It was a gambit well taken. What a shame it is that the erotic energy that flows so electrically between men and women swept it away from the mass consciousness.

     Relevant Material: I am about to quote from a novel entitled “The Aquero Sisters”, by Christina Garcia. The author was born in Cuba but came to the United States as a child, displaced by the upheavals of the Cuban Revolution. Her writings are some of the most objective, thoughtful treatments of the Cuban reality one can read today. The book in question has a scene where one of the principle characters, a recently arrived refugee in Miami, laughs in response to a news bulletin about an exile group’s attempts to invade the island. She then thinks to herself, “no matter how unhappy their poor companero’s in Cuba might be, these exiles would be the last ones on Earth to govern them. They will eat dirt, but they won’t eat shit.”        

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Email: JerryG@postcman.info