|
Peace and Freedom?
By Susanne Sklar, TFF Friend, Chicago
September 17, 2007
"Orange terror alert" said the notice board at the little station. The train was to take me to Kenosha, Wisconsin, a small friendly town. To get a discount card at the supermarket there I needed to show a state I.D. I'd been gone for nearly six years, living in Russia and in England. I knewthings were atrocious politically, but they have been atrocious before. I didn't expect the spirit of my country to have changed.
I grew up feeling free. I was born in Chicago and I can dimly remember watching Martin Luther King preaching his dream, going to the mountaintop, and inspiring thousands of activists to begin the ongoing process that makes his vision a reality. I remember peace demonstrations. As an eight year old I truly believed that "All You Need Is Love." Didn't love, stamina, and vision bring an end to the immoral Vietnam War?
In the 80s I worked with peace activists in Germany, America, Sweden, and the Soviet Union. I believed that love, stamina, and vision could bring an end to the cold war. In November, 1989, I was working in Sverdlovsk, a "closed" Soviet city, and my friend Uli called long-distance, incoherent with joy at the Brandenburg gate: "The Wall is down!" The line crackled. "The Wall is down!!"
I thought, then, that the ongoing process of building a culture of peace was beginning. I thought globalisation could be humane and inspiring. I may have read too much Dostoyevsky for I believed that increased freedom meant an increased sense of social responsibility. Did the 9/11 terrorists triumph? In the name of Security we relinquish our freedom and ignore the basic needs of people around us.
Patrick Henry, an exuberant American patriot cried: "Give me Liberty or give me Death!" in 1775. Freedom is not about being comfortable. It is about taking risks, about being willing to challenge and be challenged by others. Of course this is difficult when people are starving. Franklin D. Roosevelt, taking office in the depths of the Depression, needed to free the American people from fear. His social programs helped millions of desperate people to make better lives for themselves. You are not free when you are frightened. You cannot help to build a culture of peace if you are hungry, unhealthy, or exhausted.
Millions of Americans have no health insurance; millions more have inadequate care. Millions are underemployed, working two or three jobs to maintain a modest life --while CEOs grow obscenely rich. When the New Testament writer said: "The love of money is the root of all evil" he was not denouncing trade. Money is a form of energy and it can serve freedom and peace. It can be a means to a greater end. Loving money for itself confuses means and ends. Where will that end?
There is a war going on. I read about Iraq on page 3 or page 4 of the daily papers here; I hear a snippet about the suffering there on the news. Then I hear a much longer report about the stock market. Why is the stock market more important than the havoc being wreaked in the name of global democracy? How can democracy be so inhumane, so destructive? I have been taught and I still believe that democracy gives all people the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Happiness is not all about consumption; an amoral free market creates oligarchy, not democracy. Greed squelches freedom; generosity enhances it. A contagious vision of global generosity is needed. This probably involves making the concept of "enemy" as unacceptable as the concept of "slave." Courage is sexier than fear, and trust brings more happiness than suspicion. "There is no fear in love," and the love that is more than an emotion could be a social structuring principle.
"Where there is no vision, the people perish."
Susanne Sklar can be reached at susanne.sklar@gmail.com
*
Copyright
© TFF & the author 1997 till today. All rights reserved.
Tell a friend about this TFF
article
Send to:
From:
Message and your name
Get
free TFF articles & updates
|