Yalta and the Little People
Minh-Duc at State of Flux writes about Bush’s recent trip to eastern Europe and the Yalta agreement controversy. I mentioned Bush’s trip here and said that he was doing and saying the right things. Liberals, on the other hand, have gotten all worked up over the speeches that Bush gave while over there. They didn’t like him saying that FDR got a bad deal at Yalta, and that we should be apologizing for it. But Minh-Duc (from Vietnam) lived under communism, and here is his take:
… The little people who had to live the consequence of power politic between the giants. For the people of Latvia and Eastern Europe who had to live under Communism, it is not easy to forget the event that lead to their immeasurable suffering. They were freed just recently; the wall just came down in 1989. Most of them still have painful and fresh memory of those day.
Unlike liberal Western academics, I did not have the luxury of studying tyranny as an academic subject from afar; my experience with it was close and personal. I was only one year old when the Paris Peace Accord was signed. To this day I am still bitter about it. It was long ago for most people, mere history. But it is fresh in my memory since I had to live it. For most of my childhood, I lived under Communist tyranny, the one that born out of Paris 1973. I still remember having to listen to VOA and BBC clandestinely, having to turn the volume just enough so that it can only be heard if I put my ears next to the speaker. I still remember the food shortage of the late 70’s and 80’s, the one that result in my malnutrition. I still remember growing up for years without my father, for he was in jail. I still remember the fears and paranoia of living under a police state.
I have no doubt the Latvians remember and were hearten by the comment. For all their pain, they deserved to hear an apology and I am happy for them. And I hope that when it is time for a US president to apologize for the 1973 Paris Peace Accord, no liberal academic will rub salt in my wound by denying me those words of comfort.
So who do you side with, the liberal armchair activists that are muttering outrage at Bush saying Yalta was a mistake and unfair, or people like Minh-Duc who have endured communist tyranny first-hand and lived as ponds on the Cold War checkerboard? Somehow I find Minh-Duc more credible. And if Bush went a little overboard in his characterizations of Yalta - so what? These people deserve some unambiguous words regarding the fate that they were handed for half a century.
