understanding the great struggle we are faced with at the beginning of the 21st century
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Natan Sharansky knows more about resisting tyranny than most, having been incarcerated in a prison of one of history's greatest tyrannies-the Soviet Union, as he illustrated in his incredible memoirs Fear No Evil: The Classic Memoir of One Man's Triumph over a Police State
In this book he puts under the microscope the totalitarian states of the world, dissecting the inner workings of fear societies.
Sharansky contrasts fear societies with free societies. The profound moral difference between a free society and a fear society, as Sharansky shows us, is that people in free societies can publicly express their own ideas and persuade people to accept these ideas as well.
Sharansky points out that "moral clarity provides us with a place to stand, a reference point from where to leverage our talents, energies and ideas to create a better world. Without moral clarity, without a referewnce point, those same talents, ideas and energies are just as likely to do harm as good...A world without moral clarity is a world in which dictators speak of human rights even as they kill thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions, tens of millions, even hundreds of millions of people. It is a world in which the only democracy in the Middle East is percieved as the greatest violator of human rights in the world. It is a world in which a human rights conference against racism, such as the one that took place in Durban, South Africa a few years ago, can be turned into a carnival of hate".
Sharansky reminds us that there has never been a war between two democracies. He attacks those who believe that democracy cannot work in certain countries, pointing out that the same was said about Germany and Japan during and just after the Second World War. Today Germany and Japan are among the world's strongest democracies and human rights societies in the world.
Sharansky also condemmns the distortions by the world media, painting the masses in tyrannies such as that of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and the Taleban in Afghanistan, as being contented. He compares this to leftist intellectuals in the West who praised the Soviet Union as a paradise on earth at a time when Stalin was killing tens of millions of men, women and children.
While Sharansky is hopeful for an eventual peace settlement betwen Israel and the Palestinian Arabs, he is adamant that this must be tied to improvements in human rights and basic freedoms in Palestinian society. He condemmns the Oslo Process for strengthening and attempting to appease the mass murderer and tyrant Yasser Arafat and his ruthless terror network.
He points out how the human rights principles that once guided him in the Soviet Union remain the cornerstone of his approach to the peace process, that a neighbour who tramples the rights of his own people will eventually threaten the rights of the author's people, and that the only way to create Arab-Israeli reconciliation is to press the Arab world to protect human rights.
Sharansky reminds us that those who hoped for a quick fix to the conflict should not have been surprised when the Oslo process collapsed and Arafat began his war of terror against the Israeli people. For seven years Arafat had been doing what all dictators do, using his power not to promote peace and better the lot of the Palestinian Arabs but rather to turn the Palestinian Arabs into a battering ram against the Jewish State. Money allocated to improve the Palestinian Arab's living standards was diverted to support a vast network of terror.
"By allowing and often encouraging Arafat to create a fear society, a peace process that should have been steadily reducing a century old animus had instead exacerbated it".
Sharansky stresses that he is not opposed to legitimate criticism of Israel's policies. However to distinguish legitimate criticism from anti-Semitism he has come up with what he calls the 3 D Test. If the criticism of Israel contains demonization of the Jewish State, double standards against the Jewish State, or delegitimization of the Jewish State, then it certainly can be termed anti-Semitic.
Sharansky believes that bthe war between the Jews and the Arabs is not a tribal war but a part of the first world war of the 21st century between the world of democracy and the world of terror.
Leftwing extremists who support tyranny ands terror and who do not want people to be free, will of course try to rubbish the book.
But for true lovers of freedom and human rights, this is an essential guide to understanding the great struggle we are faced with at the beginning of the 21st century.
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A case for idealism in the spread of democracy
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Natan Sharansky's book , "The Case for Democracy" is an ingeniously written work that can be used as a manifesto on foreign policy by the USA and the rest of the western democracies. He succinctly made a strong case for democracy in this book and also stresses on the fact that liberty abroad and home security are intricately linked. It goes to support the long held view that there can be no peace and justice without democracy. This is best explained by the fact that as liberal democracy is spread all around the world as desired by the people, the oppressed people in those countries turn to feel liberated and with that goes individual and collective efforts that not only improves their standards of living , but also improves worldwide security. The author holds that the link between foreign policy and human right is paramount for security. This belief is illustrated in his pyramid of the three sources of power.
At the bottom of the pyramid are the ordinary people who are privileged to live in a free and democratic society. In the middle are their leaders who are voted in or out of power through free elections that are held over certain periods of time. At the top of the pyramid is to be found the society or commonwealth of free nations where liberty, freedom and development reigns. Consensus holds the free societies together, through the recognition of the right to dissent. But then the free societies also need the moral clarity to identify evil .
Sharansky explained that the courage to dissent is the first human quality to confront evil in a fear society. While fear societies are unsustainable, the practice of "realpolitik" and maintaining the "status quo" that focuses on strategic interest alone without moral obligations tend to breathe more air into the lives of fear societies. Free societies make little effort to press for democracy in the fear societies because of excuses that: some cultures and civilizations lack the enthusiasm for democracy, chaos and instability may result from the transition, and not enough strings are there to make the fear societies to change.
Madness! Sharansky made the effort to link foreign policy with respect for human rights, a course that is considered as unavoidable to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to establish a democratic Palestinian state.
I also recommend DISCIPLES OF FORTUNE, FEAR NO EVIL
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No compromise against Totalitarism
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A reminder that at the source of our freedom, lays Democracy. A reminder to all the citizens of the Free world, that we should not compromise an inch against regimes led by terror, against regimes of Fear. "Chapeau" to Mr. Sharansky that expresses simply what we may sometimes forget...
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From the Presidential bookshelf
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In a recent interview, Natal Sharansky said that he was pleasantly surprised when he heard his concepts being used, almost verbatim in expression, in President Bush's Inaugural Address in January 2005. It makes sense, however, that the President would pick up on the themes expressed by Sharansky. A former Soviet dissident who spent nearly a decade as a political prisoner, Sharansky embodies the idea of resistance and struggle for the ideal of freedom. After his release from the Soviets, Sharansky immigrated to Israel, where he became a political figure and member of the Cabinet, continuing to argue for the kinds of freedom that citizens of Western countries have increasingly come to take for granted, but which are in fact very precious and fragile in many respects. Freedom in Sharansky's view is rooted in freedom of expression -- freedom to say what one thinks, both politically and socially, without fear of governmental reprisals. This is the core freedom from which most every other political freedom derives, in Sharansky's framework. This is the heart of democracy, and explains why repressive regimes on the left and right politically often take freedom of speech, press, assembly and other freedom of expression rights away from the people. Sharansky's idea of freedom has strong international ramifications for him. Sharansky's primary ideal, stated in the President's Inaugural Address, is that the democratic countries are inherently safer as international partners than autocratic and repressive regimes, and the democracy always tends toward peace as a primary goal. The people in democratic societies tend not to support terrorism and not to support warfare. Sharansky's ideals are strongly stated and well argued. There is a strong element of political idealism here -- democracies are unfortunately rather good at waging war and supporting some activities that might be defined by others as terrorism; however, Sharansky's primary thesis is correct in that few democracies will hold these up as goals or ideals for which the nation strives, and warfare and terrorism will be seen as aberrations. Sharansky spends time in the realm of the practical rather than simply theoretical. He surveys recent and current international relations and American/Western foreign policy with regard to the break-up of the Eastern Block and Soviet Union as well as the Middle East. Sharansky's argument here is that the press for democratic reform that worked in the case of the former communist republics should not be abandoned in the case of the Middle East in an effort to sustain a peace with repressive or autocratic regimes. The one primary failing in this text from my perspective is that it does not adequately account for Israel's own continuing problem with the issue over Palestinian self-governance. That would undoubtedly take a book of its own to do, but Sharansky could have acknowledged the difficulties in this area, as it would undoubtedly have an impact on the way his wishes for affairs in the broader Middle Eastern context would be conducted. Worth reading, particularly as it is on the Presidential bookshelf at the moment.
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What's behind this "Freedom" mantra?
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If you want to get a clear and easy to understand explanation of why many Americans use freedoma and democracy in often interchangable roles, read this book. I'm not talking about the highly educated elite, I'm talking about the middle of the road person who experiences, on a daily basis, what it means to be truly free. My favorite paragraph is when the author discusses how the elite in a free society start to lose perspective about what is truly totalitarian and what is not. The line between a free society and a "fear" society is blured in the elitest mind so that they end up supporting leaders like Castro, Hussein, and others in the guise of what's "right." Great and easy read for everyone.
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