In Human Rights, Is Shcharansky Worth 10 Unknowns?

Be ready to celebrate. Anatoly Shcharansky may be allowed to leave prison and the Soviet Union next week.

Word has it that some Americans aren’t ready to show any pleasure at the prospect.

Their grievance is that Shcharansky is a lucky nobody. Lucky, because he’s a Soviet Jew, which means he automatically has a lobby in the West. They count him a nobody because he was only an anonymous 30-year-old computer specialist when he was arrested. His government tried him as a spy for the United States. He got 13 years.

There you have it: A kid, a Jew, a Soviet, a nobody. A person whose name would never have been known if people with pull hadn’t gotten him a lot of space in the media. Others, presumably, are more worthy.

This is selective human rights. Part One of its thesis is: The world is full of people who are terrorized, tortured, jailed and deprived of their basic rights by their government. No President of the United States will receive their wives. No activist will make the rounds of Congress on their behalf. No child will plead for help at the State Department. Influential newspapers will not keep their names alive. You won’t see their pictures on television, or get an update on their status in the mail.

All of that is sadly true. Not enough attention is paid, not enough action is taken to make unacceptable the brutalization of women, men and children by their rulers.

Part Two of the complaint about Shcharansky is wholly false: That media attention and public concern should somehow be parceled out so that the geographic and political spread is more fairly divided. There is too much emphasis on Soviet Jews. Nonsense. There is not enough emphasis on anyone.

Here’s where we detect an ugly and unspoken aspect of this mean-spirited barking about Shcharansky’s possible release. Does it all emanate from anti-Semitism? The grafting is explicit: too much attention to Soviet Jews. The practical effect is anti-Semitic. There is no question about that.

My guess is that some who attach themselves to the human-rights issue do act from such a base. But most would be appalled at the designation. They would say: Look at the facts; Soviet Jews and their troubles do get a lot of attention. That excuse is a mighty weak reed. In trying to speak out on behalf of those whose cases are never raised, whose plight is hardly known, the Shcharansky complainers have fed the fire of anti-Semitism that they themselves abhor. Ugly business.

This hullabaloo is swirling around the release of one human being who has suffered mightily. If he is sprung, it will be because his government has reached into its basket of things pleasing to the West and found a face-saving way to rid itself of an irritant. By making him part of a big “spy swap,” they are hoping to brand him as a traitor. His fellow citizens can believe it or not. It is an odd mark of the Soviet government that it makes its political gestures with human beings. But that is another thing to think about. Today, we think about Shcharansky.

The fact is, Shcharansky isn’t out yet. What if he doesn’t get out? Will those dogs in the manger be satisfied? No, I don’t think so. For those who profess to care about human rights, the carping about Shcharansky indicates a loss of compass. It’s nutty, venal and unworthy.

If Anatoly Shcharansky gets out, we must keep working for all the rest. And rejoice.