Edward Snowden’s quest for refuge reminds me of a short story I read moons ago, “The Man
Without a Country”, by Edward Everett Hale. Whether you believe Snowden was
just a whistle blower or traitor for disclosing the extent of our government’s
record keeping on its citizens, Snowden’s plight has some parallels with this
work of fiction. I wonder if he would eventually meet the same emotional end as did the subject of Hale’s story.
Hale wrote about a fictional Army Lieutenant, Philip Nolan, who was being
tried for treason for being too close to Aaron Burr, a former Vice President of
the United States, who , in real life, was
also tried for treason but acquitted.
Nolan renounced his country during the trial and shouted out with anger “, "I wish I may never hear
of the United States again!" . He should have been careful for what he
wished. The judge sentenced him to spend the rest of his life aboard US Navy
warships, never permitting him to step on US soil, and anyone in contact with
him was forbidden to mention his country.
He still was treated per
the privileges due his rank on board the
ships he sailed and he was never confined to the brig.
Even so, he gradually realized how much he missed home and his country.,
Nolan tried to contact sailors to get news of home and once he was reported to warn a sailor
not to make the same mistake he had as he realized the value of the country he
denounced. He missed it more than his friends or family, more than art
or music or love or nature. Without it, he felt he was nothing. The
day before he died,after 56 years on
ships, he revealed his feelings to the fictional
teller of his story. In his cabin, the narrator saw The Stars
and Stripes draped around a
picture of George Washington. Nolan
had painted a bald eagle over his bed.
The plight of exiles and their conflicted emotions in later life, are
often the subject of works of fiction. Many
in real life must of have traveled that road to inspire writers to draw on that
theme so frequently. . Like Dorothy
returning from Oz, waking up, sometimes
there is a realization that there is no place like home. Opera, too, had its exiles inspired by late
18th and early 19th
century fiction. The Flying Dutchman was set to music by Richard Wagner.
One version of the story that may have inspired Wagner was John
Leyden’s writing in Scenes
of Infancy in 1803: “The crew of this vessel are
supposed to have been guilty of some dreadful crime, in the infancy of
navigation; and to have been stricken with pestilence ... and are ordained
still to traverse the ocean on which they perished, till the period of their
penance expire”. The Dutch man’s ghost
ship was graphically portrayed in the movie, “ Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead
Man’s Chest”.
Snowden for now can only find refuge in those countries who
count themselves as critics of the US
and most of those are a fire into which
he jumps from the frying pan…autocratic, repressive, and hardly champions of
freedom of the press or freedom of expression. The three countries he
considered for refuge, at the time of
writing the column, could face regime changes in these days of democratic
populist upheaval.. Where he lands is
likely to be only a temporary perch forcing him to sail from one safe place to another during his
lifetime to avoid facing justice in the US.
One thing is for sure, his blowing
the whistle on his hosts would never be appreciated by those kinds of countries offering him refuge. He should be careful for what he wishes.
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