Samizdata

A commenter, who might otherwise buy a moral case for making war on communist regimes, has pointed out that the local citizens should do their ‘job’ and overthrow the nasty regimes. The argument seems to be that the locals should do it, if they are in favour of freedom and democracy, and thus demonstrate that they are worthy of our support. Such suggestion can only be made with certain assumptions. As a self-appointed champion of the individual facing a totalitarian state, I shall respond to them.

It has been said, and I believe it to be the case, that the people of a nation are only as free as they want to be. The Cubans have long had the power to overthrow Castro, but have simply chosen to live with him and the poverty he brings.

With respect, that is utter nonsense. The assumption here is that ‘the people’ are a collective entity with the ability to act unanimously. In reality, it is a large number of individuals against whom monopolised and institutionalised violence is used on a regular basis. After a couple of decades of propaganda and control of information by the state, the system needs only an occassional tweaking and a careful monitoring of the non-conformist elements of the castrated society.

Same with the Iraqis. As vile a creature as Saddam is, he would be out of power if the Iraqis were willing to make sacrifices for rebellion. Sure, the terror tactics used by Saddam (chopping up bodies and delivering them to homes in body bags, killing his own relatives, etc.) serve to scare the populace into submission. However, the power and the choice is there. What is needed is enough patriots to give their blood to plant the seed that will grow into tree of liberty.

No, the power is not there, the choice is not there. You can have as many Iraqis as possible, individually knowing that Saddam is a vile creature and yet not be able or ready to fight him. Unless there is an organised resistance, it is impossible for a ‘nation’ to ‘free itself’ from tyranny. The more brutal a regime is, the more difficult is to dislodge it. You need a critical mass of individuals each one of them willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. The more brutal a regime, the more it has to loose and the more determined and vicious those supporting it are.

The Iranians seem to be realizing this. There are actually true Iranian patriots willing to die for freedom. The roots of liberty are spreading within the hearts and souls of each individual Iranian. This is the best way to overthrow tyrants – from the ground up, not the top down.

Hmm, if the roots of liberty are spreading within the hearts and souls of each individual Iranian, then I’d better move to Iran because it is the only country where this is happening. Don’t you think that Iranian resistance has something to do with the Western life style and freedoms it offers, such as mixed-sex parties and alcohol and other goodies that the islamic kill-joys don’t want young Iranians to have. The professor, who may be prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice, is doing so in a situation that puts the government at the disadvantage. Why has the situation arisen in the first place? Because the Iranian regime doesn’t want to look illiberal to the western world. And so we have the external influence again, getting in the way of the neat image of ground-up liberty blossoming in the heart of each Iranian patriot…

You can point to Germany and Japan all you want, but the tradition of freedom was already prevalent in their cultures prior to hijacking by fascists.

Yes, I will point to Germany where there was the tradition of freedom as much as any other European country at the time. But the Germans did not overthrow fascism and the internal opposition to Hitler had been squashed ruthlessly well before the war. Japan on the other hand, had no tradition of freedom before fascism, hence the need for 7-year US ‘presence’ in the country. The Soviet Union did not collapse because of its citizens rising against their oppressors. The country had never had a tradition of freedom, they went straight from serfdom to er, communism… Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, on the other hand, had been democracies before communism. Dissident movements existed and none of the old-style communists resurfaced in post-Cold War governments like in Russia.

…suppose the US makes war with N. Korea and Iraq, and overthrows the communists and Saddam. Then what? Will that magically create freedom? Will the people recognize individual natural rights that lead to a spontaneous societal order? Will they realize the benefits that a respect for property rights brings?

Yes, overthrowing the communists and Saddam will create freedom. No magic, just logic. If you take away the root of oppression, you get freedom. The question is what the people will do with it. If you expect nothing less than recognition of individual natural rights and a spontaneous societal order, that seems rather harsh. I don’t think it’s fair on the poor oppressed population to hold them to a standard much higher than that reached by the assorted lefties polluting the Western societies. One thing you can be sure of, though, is that their will love property rights…

Or will the N. Koreans simply create another socialist government, like the former Soviet republics have chosen to join the socialist EU?

Are you saying that the socialism of the EU is comparable to the Stalinist totalitarianism of the North Koreans?! No one can accuse Samizdata.net to be pro-EU but such suggestion is preposterous. All statisms are not equal. Some are bad and some are even worse.

And will the Iraqis see the US not as the great liberator that saved them from oppression, but as the Great Satan, much like the ungrateful Kuwaitis see the US today?

I don’t see why it is such a tragedy that Kuwaitis are ungrateful. Perhaps they realised that the US ‘liberation’ was not out of love of Kuwait but because it was in the US national interest. Nothing wrong with either.

Can armies and government, the very wellspring of statism, achieve a top-down conception of liberty?

Why should they? I certainly don’t expect them to! Their role is to protect their citizens and remove tyranny if it threatens their liberty. They are to uphold the framework within which freedom can flourish. To remove tyranny from top down means just that, it does not mean an imposition of freedom. I advocate the use of the army and the state to do the former and reserve the latter for the individual.

You are born in a place and time not of your choosing. Growing up you learn about your surroundings, people and places. You are intelligent and start thinking about ideas, history, the world around you and your place in it.

Imagine all sources of information and knowledge are controlled by the state. The world you live in is the only alternative you know. You may have heard of other ones but you have no means of understanding them from the images and details that seep through. Most people around you form their views on the information that the state provides and controls. That means your parents, family, teachers, friends, colleagues… the entire society or what’s left of it. And, of course, there is an enemy out there, set on destroying the utopia the state is leading you to. Can’t trust the outside, they are devious and destructive. They are the enemy of freedom itself, as defined by the all-knowing and all-embracing state.

But as I said, you are intelligent and things don’t add up, your world doesn’t quite fit. This may happen to you as a teenager, when rebellion comes naturally but confidence to take it further often does not. You are not taken seriously and told to wait and see – life will teach you… Or it may come later in life, when the purpose of your everyday efforts suddenly escapes you and you feel the need to recapture it before it’s too late. Alas, you have a family, children, committments and a new set of insecurities collected over the years, that make you vulnerable and any deviation from the norm too risky.

If you are lucky, you have an aged relative or two who remember a different life, free and full of variety and perhaps can explain principles and rules other than those governing the claustrophobic world around you. You start thinking the unthinkable, you see the full horror of your existence and decide to fight the system. You go out in search of people like yourself in hope that you are not alone in your displacement.

Here the interesting part of the story ends. What comes next is dangerous, lonely, depressing, and often pointless.

You find an Underground, a Dissident Movement that may accept you and share with you the mindset and information you need to resist the state propaganda and its violence. You learn just how much of your life and personal details are monitored by the authorities and if you overstep the line, you abandon everything you have taken for granted. You live in pervasive fear and helplessness punctuated by an occassional underground meeting where you share a few political jokes and keep each other assured that it is not you who have gone insane but the society. For that is the main purpose of a dissident movement. Information, its dissemination and a chance to experience a collective spirit that helps you overcome the terrible sense of isolation.

Fear, clammy and unheroic, is your daily bread, not thoughts of liberty, of human rights and of making history. Oh yes, you dream of freedom but not in terms of lofty concepts of a freedom fighter. You want to learn, see and understand the world imagining how superior those who have the freedom to do so must be. They are free to read whatever they want and go wherever they want and so their knowledge and understanding must surpass yours.

And you wait, with the others, for something to help you change your world. You can’t do much, although you have already risked a lot. You wait for a spark, a collective project that would make your sacrifice meaningful. If the government is afraid to use brutal tactics (due to external pressure, no doubt), mass demonstrations and civil disobedience are a likely option. However, if the government is brutal beyond restraint, then your only salvation is help from the outside.

My question to all those who believe in liberty and the rights of the individual and all things beautiful: would you really fight for them? Would you be willing to put your life and perhaps the lives of your loved ones at risk and do so without any guarantee of success? Would you be ready to shed your blood in the name of liberty without knowing whether you are making history or just adding to the list of nameless victims of the tyranny? Would you be able to remain certain that you are right and that everybody else is wrong when the only world you know is the one where they are right? Because those are the choices you have before you, not one of clarity and moral certitude, supported by intellectual arguments and discourse. Every act of resistance, however insignificant on the large scale, is a small victory for sanity and human spirit. But more often than not, it is not enough to defeat the enemy.

The nature of tyranny in places like Iraq and North Korea is one of unrestrained brutality and although they may collapse economically one day, like the Soviet Union did, ultimately it is not just a matter of brave local people standing up for what is right: in such places to do that is tantamount to suicide… the state must be decapitated and realistically that will only happen via foreign military action of some sort (either military aid or outright invasion).

One could argue that it is not the responsibility of foreign taxpayers to free others from tyranny and perhaps this is true, but do not kid yourself that this is a ‘pro-liberty’ response. The US and British Armies cannot impose liberty in Iraq, only the Iraqi’s can do that, but foreign armies can destroy tyranny.

Free Iraq.