Captive Nations Captive Still

Campus Report ^ | July 29, 2009 | Anthony Kang

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Captive Nations Captive Still

by: Anthony Kang, August 29, 2009

In 1959, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed Captive Nations Week into law (Public Law 86-90) aimed at raising public awareness of the oppression of nations under the control of Communist and other non-democratic governments. Though emphasis and/or rhetoric of the presidents have varied, every president since Eisenhower has recognized the third week of July as Captive Nations Week, as did The Heritage Foundation this past July 22nd with two very impassioned champions against communism as guest speakers: Lee Edwards, Distinguished Fellow in Conservative Thought at B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies, and Marek Chodakiewicz, academic dean and professor of history at the Institute of World Politics.

“My thesis is that the drive for equality will endure forever, as will the avatar of communism in many different forms,” Chodakiewicz opined. “Its ideology of gnosticism by a chosen few that is implemented through revolution is what fights against faith, family, private property, liberty, and patriotism. There is no morality in communism—if I’m a communist I’ll do whatever it takes, changing the rules along the way so long as I keep power.”

Though there are only five governments today that are officially run as communist states (Cuba, North Korea, China, Vietnam, and Laos) there are a countless number of states, namely, Iran, Venezuela, Libya, and Myanmar where the citizens suffer under near-tyrannical rule and gross acts of human injustice.

“Captive Nations Week offers us an opportunity to reassert our beliefs and principles to change history for the better,” said Lee Edwards....