As waves of Arab protesters keep taking to the streets in countries across the Middle East, and as panels of Egyptian experts start revisiting their country's constitution in the wake of the people's 18-day revolution, I want to take the infamous FDR line and give it a new ring: "The only thing we have to fear is . . . freedom itself."
At first blush, this may seem foolish. After all, what aspect of the human condition could be more universal than the need to be free, and the desire to have the space to shape one's own life and determine one's own path in the world? And yet, while it's unquestionable that freedom is the fundamental condition for any real growth, freedom from oppression means little if it is not accompanied by the freedom to fully be ourselves -- and not merely the freedom to select what type of jeans to wear, or even which politician to vote for. It's a deeper level of self-actualization that we all seek in that word -- and it's something we in America, two centuries into our own experiment in liberty, are still learning about and struggling to support.
To see this tension played out in the life of a single individual, look no further than the legendary U.S. Supreme Court justice -- and FDR appointee -- Hugo Lafayette Black. It was Black who became known as the Court's most absolutist defender of individual freedoms. And it was Black who warned us, back in 1961, that, "too many men are being driven to become government fearing and time-serving because the Government is being permitted to strike out at those who are fearless enough to think as they please and say what they think. The choice is clear to me," Black wrote. "If we are to pass on that great heritage of freedom, we must return to the original language of the Bill of Rights. We must not be afraid to be free."
Reading these words, it seems incongruous that the Black of 1961 could, in 1969, also write these lines: "Change has been said to be truly the law of life, but sometimes the old and tried and true are worth holding. Uncontrolled and uncontrollable liberty," he asserted, "is an enemy to domestic peace."
What had happened in the span of those eight tumultuous years? Had the social unrest of the 1960s caused Black to lose his abiding faith in the constitutional principles of freedom and democracy? Not exactly. But he had certainly lost faith in the ability of the nation's citizens -- and particularly its young people -- to exercise that freedom productively. In short, the octogenarian Justice whose career had been in the service of expanding freedom, and who had been watching the ways that freedom was being applied in the streets outside his office window -- angrily, messily, passionately, violently -- had started to doubt whether a truly robust application of free-speech rights was in the best interests of safety, order, and the future of the republic. "Anything can happen here," he told a friend, just weeks before his death - on Constitution Day, September 17, 1971.
History has of course shown us that, despite Black's fears, the republic still stands. And yet Black's inability to fully maintain his own commitment to freedom in the face of his own personal fears is instructive to all of us -- particularly our world's newest fellow experimenters in democracy. As with all things worthwhile, rough days lie ahead.
For better or worse, America has committed itself to an unprecedented experiment in freedom, an experiment premised on the principle that more speech is better, that more information will produce better judgments, that more knowledge will make more self-realized persons, that more associations and beliefs will make us more open-minded, that more press freedom will benefit society, that more robust expression of all sorts will make us a freer people, and that the more we allow for all of this the better our chances are to discover truth, beauty, freedom, and something about ourselves as well. That, at any rate, is the operative principle; call it a collective hunch? On that principle -- a core First Amendment principle -- we have banked everything.
Freedom also has its costs. That is precisely why we fear it. And the freedoms we have long honored -- and that the people of Egypt, Tunisia and so many countries throughout that region are now themselves seeking to embrace -- is no different. When liberals or libertarians applaud it, they can all too easily ignore the risks -- indeed, the dangers -- posed by unchecked expression. By the same token, when conservatives or conformists rally against it, they can ignore the fact that unchecked demands for security lead all too often to tyranny.
This is not an argument for a "happy medium." Rather, it is to say that those who love freedom or value security must be mindful of what they wish for. As the great educator John Dewey once warned, "The serious threat to our democracy is not the existence of foreign totalitarian states. It is the existence within our own personal attitudes and within our own institutions of conditions which have given a victory to external authority. . . The battlefield is also accordingly here -- within ourselves and our institutions."
Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Liew Vui Keong today revealed that debt is a problem affecting civil servants in the country, even leading to bankruptcy.
He said the Insolvency Department reported 1,086 civil servants were declared bankrupt in 2009, 72.74 per cent of whom were men.
“Government employees need to understand that debt can affect their performance at work, and disciplinary action can be taken against them should it happen,” he said during the launch of the Whistleblower Protection Act 2010 Briefing, Bankruptcy Briefing and Legal Aid Briefing to members of the Congress of Unions of Employees in the Public and Civil Service (Cuepacs) at the Prime Minister’s Department, here today.
Also present at the ceremony jointly organised by the Prime Minister’s Department’s Legal Affairs Division, Legal Affairs Department and the Insolvency Department was Cuepacs president, Datuk Omar Osman.
Liew added that the briefing was also held to demonstrate to civil servants ways to overcome issues related to debt and bankruptcy.
The opposition’s “Buku Jingga”, or Orange Book, which spells out its election promises, is merely a political ploy, said former prime minister, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
He said it was easy for the opposition to make all sort of promises as it was not in power.
“When you are not in power, of course, you can make all sorts of promises. Since they will not become the federal government, they do not have to do anything.
“So it is alright for them to make such promises,” he told reporters after visiting the Al-Madinah International University here today.
He was commenting on the “Buku Jingga” which is being used by the opposition as a platform in the Merlimau and Kerdau state by-election campaigns.
The “Buku Jingga”, which was unveiled by the opposition last year, proposes an increase in teachers’ incentives, the abolishment of the toll system and an annulment of the Internal Security Act
For now, Prime minister Najib Adul Razak may breathe a sigh of relief as Malaysia has yet to see the chaos that has beset the north African and middle-eastern countries. However, all is not calm. Beneath the surface, tensions are simmering.
Malaysians have seen how the Egyptians and Tunisians have effected change. Therefore, it is not a question of if, but more a question of when change will come to Malaysia.
Najib is aware that Malaysia is a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), a body which is responsible for strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights around the globe.
He knows full well that Malaysian leaders should respect the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) as Article 20(1) of UDHR states that everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
These rights are enshrined in Article 10 (1) of the federal constitution and guarantees the freedom of speech and the right to assemble peacefully.
When the Human Rights Party (HRP) decided to organise the 'Solidarity March against Racism' last Sunday, an application was filed but their permit was rejected on the eve of their march.
The initial plan was to muster at KLCC and march to the Dang Wangi police station to lodge a police report against the Form Five Malay literature textbook Interlok which portrays the Indian and Chinese communities in a negative light.
On the morning of the protest march, leaders and members of HRP were systematically rounded up in a dawn swoop and all roads into the city-centre blocked off.
Perversely, anyone who resembled an Indian had their possessions searched, their identities questioned and they, too were arrested.
Days earlier, Najib told Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to refrain from using violence against protestors who were opposed to the rule of the Libyan dictator.
He said, “We believe that he should not use violence. What is important for us is to take into account the aspirations of people.”
Najib also believed that the Indian community did not need HRP because the government has been looking after their interests.
His deputy, Muhyiddin Yassin also called for firm police action and to ban the march.
The following day, on 28 February, Malaysian inspired marches were underway in London, England and in Ottawa, Canada. This time, Malaysians were protesting against the corrupt and cruel regime of the Chief Minister of Sarawak, Taib Mahmud.
Despite the relatively short notice given and the fact that it took place on a cold and wet Monday morning, the turn-out in London was impressive. The Malaysians who studied and worked in UK were joined by other nationalities. There was no dawn swoop or lockdown of Central London.
A policeman from the Metropolitan Police Force came for a quick chat with the organisers and left minutes later. The protestors marched from one of Taib’s properties to another of the buildings he owned.
Along the way, various members of the public voiced their support for the demonstrators and the whole event was recorded by Malaysian reporters as well as an Australian film crew and Italian media.
What these three marches serve to show is that Malaysians are capable of holding peaceful demonstrations and that it is only in Malaysia, that the leaders and its police fail to respect the peoples’ right to peaceful assembly, association and expression.
Malaysian leaders do not show any leadership. Perhaps these so-called leaders need to understand human behaviour. For example, if they treat a child like a baby, it will behave like one. If they treat a child with respect, it will behave like a respectable adult.
Banning the HRP march last Sunday has made a mockery of the UDHR principles which the Malaysian government pledged to uphold, when it assumed its seat on the UNHRC.
More importantly, when Najib warned Gaddafi to refrain from violence, he wanted to show the world that he (Najib) was a magnanimous leader.
When he failed to listen to his own words of advice and used violence to intimidate his own people, the world saw him as a hypocrite and a cruel despot. Najib is desperate to further his political ambitions and will tread on anyone in his path.
Events in Libya are moving very fast, and their outcome remains uncertain. Leader" Muammar Gaddafi is hunkered down in Tripoli, defended by loyal army units from his tribe and mercenaries from black Africa. But opposition forces appear to be closing in on Tripoli as the threat of all-out civil war in Libya grows.
Watching Col. Muammar Gaddafi deliver a bombastic, defiant speech last week from the ruins of Tripoli's Bab al-Azizia barracks brought me back to 1987 when Libya's leader led me by the hand through this same wreckage of his former residence.
On 14 April, 1986, U.S. aircraft attacked Libya after a Berlin disco frequented by U.S. soldiers was bombed. U.S. President Ronald Reagan blamed Libya and denounced Gaddafi as the "mad dog of the Middle East."
But a defector from Israel's Mossad later claimed the U.S. had been duped by a false flag operation into believing Libya was behind the attack.
A 2,000lb U.S. bomb crashed through the ceiling of Gaddafi's private quarters. He was outside in his trademark tent. But his 2-year-old adopted daughter was killed. Some 87 other civilians and a few French diplomats also died in what was called a "surgical air strike." Americans thought this raid was dandy.
"Why, Mr Eric," a clearly confused Gaddafi plaintively asked me, "why were the Americans trying to kill me?" He really seemed at a loss.
"Because, Leader (he liked to be addressed this way) they think you are funding every kind of anti-western group," I replied. "And they will never forgive you for provoking the rise in Arab oil prices."
In those long ago days, Gaddafi, who considered himself a passionate revolutionary, supported every militant group that asked for Libyan help, including Nelson Mandela's African National Congress, various Palestinian groups fighting Israeli occupation, Basque separatists battling Madrid, the Irish Republican Army and Abu Nidal's killers. To Washington, Gaddafi was the world's arch "terrorist."
I was one of the first western journalists to interview Gaddafi (or Khadaffy as it was then spelled) after the U.S. attempt to assassinate him. I also met the senior members of Gaddafi's regime, including his chief of intelligence who was later accused by France of organizing the bombing of a French UTA airliner over Niger in 1989.
After Gaddafi and I spent the evening talking in his colorful Bedouin tent, I had some fun with him. "We may bomb you, Leader, but we also think you are the best-dressed Arab leader." The dazzlingly vain Gaddafi, dressed in a custom-made silk Italian jump suit and zippered kidskin boots, beamed with pleasure. He asked me where he could get the Ralph Lauren safari jacket I was wearing, adding, "you look very militant, Mr Eric."
I could never get a good fix on Muammar Gaddafi. When he seized power way back in 1969, he was young and very handsome, with movie-star good looks, and an ardent reformist. Gaddafi's hero and father figure was Egypt's charismatic Gamal Abdel Nasser. He was expected to become the second Nasser.
Gaddafi was never the same after Nasser's untimely death in 1970. He grew eccentric, then very odd. He styled himself a revolutionary leader, not a head of state. Libya was to be in permanent semi-anarchy, without any real government or institutions. As the craziness spread, oil billions poured in, allowing Gaddafi to romance foreign heads of state and influence Africa. But his fellow Arabs rejected him as a rich but dangerous, mercurial clown.
Watching Italy's PM Silvio Berlusconi, France's President Nicholas Sarkozy and other world leaders squirm with embarrassment walking next to Gaddafi decked out in flamboyant, clownish uniforms straight from an Italian "opera buffo" was always amusing. Everyone mocked Libya's madcap "Leader," but loved his money even more.
However zany and bizarre, Gaddafi was clever as a fox and had more lives than a cat. He survived many attempts on his life mounted by U.S., British, French and Egyptian intelligence.
In 2003, in a brilliant ploy, Gaddafi bought a pile of nuclear junk on the black market, then told Washington he was giving up his nuclear weapons program. The Bush administration fell for this ruse and ended its punishing boycott of Libya, thrilled it could claim a nuclear victory after finding no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Col. Gaddafi bought peace with the western powers by cutting them into Libya's rich oil fields, investing billions in European industry and banking, and joining George Bush's faux "war on terror."
But now that Libya is convulsed by revolution, Gaddafi seems to have used up all his nine lives. His area of control is shrinking fast, though there are many Libyans who still support him -- for the moment.
While Libya burns, there are serious discussions afoot in Washington and Europe about imposing an Iraq-style "no fly zone" in Libya, followed by possibly western military intervention. Libya would be "stabilized," a client regime made up of CIA-organized exiles installed, and Libya's oil fields made safe for western companies. A western invasion and occupation would be decked up as a peacekeeping/humanitarian mission.
Libya would return to pre-Gaddafi days when it was ruled by a British-managed figurehead king, the doddering Ibn Idris. That is, if Libya does not dissolve into tribal and clan warfare, or break up into western and eastern parts.
Italy, Libya's former brutal colonial ruler, and now main oil customer, may be eager to get involved. So, too, Egypt, France, and, of course, the U.S. and Britain. Oil remains the ultimate geopolitical aphrodisiac.
If driven from Tripoli, Gaddafi will take refuge in his tribe's territory, or bolt to Italy or Venezuela. His five spoiled, feuding sons are unlikely to emerge as Libya's new rulers. All dictators seem to have terrible problems with their out-of-control sons.
Gaddafi is a sad example of the maxim about absolute power corrupting absolutely. People like me who relish political theater of the absurd will miss the "Leader;" but most of his people, I suspect, will not.
While Gaddafi prepares for his last stand, the next storm to hit North Africa may come in Algeria and Morocco, two western-supported regimes that are considerably more brutal and repressive than Gaddafi's ramshackle "people's jamuhyria."
Events in Libya are moving very fast, and their outcome remains uncertain. Leader" Muammar Gaddafi is hunkered down in Tripoli, defended by loyal army units from his tribe and mercenaries from black Africa. But opposition forces appear to be closing in on Tripoli as the threat of all-out civil war in Libya grows.
Watching Col. Muammar Gaddafi deliver a bombastic, defiant speech last week from the ruins of Tripoli's Bab al-Azizia barracks brought me back to 1987 when Libya's leader led me by the hand through this same wreckage of his former residence.
On 14 April, 1986, U.S. aircraft attacked Libya after a Berlin disco frequented by U.S. soldiers was bombed. U.S. President Ronald Reagan blamed Libya and denounced Gaddafi as the "mad dog of the Middle East."
But a defector from Israel's Mossad later claimed the U.S. had been duped by a false flag operation into believing Libya was behind the attack.
A 2,000lb U.S. bomb crashed through the ceiling of Gaddafi's private quarters. He was outside in his trademark tent. But his 2-year-old adopted daughter was killed. Some 87 other civilians and a few French diplomats also died in what was called a "surgical air strike." Americans thought this raid was dandy.
"Why, Mr Eric," a clearly confused Gaddafi plaintively asked me, "why were the Americans trying to kill me?" He really seemed at a loss.
"Because, Leader (he liked to be addressed this way) they think you are funding every kind of anti-western group," I replied. "And they will never forgive you for provoking the rise in Arab oil prices."
In those long ago days, Gaddafi, who considered himself a passionate revolutionary, supported every militant group that asked for Libyan help, including Nelson Mandela's African National Congress, various Palestinian groups fighting Israeli occupation, Basque separatists battling Madrid, the Irish Republican Army and Abu Nidal's killers. To Washington, Gaddafi was the world's arch "terrorist."
I was one of the first western journalists to interview Gaddafi (or Khadaffy as it was then spelled) after the U.S. attempt to assassinate him. I also met the senior members of Gaddafi's regime, including his chief of intelligence who was later accused by France of organizing the bombing of a French UTA airliner over Niger in 1989.
After Gaddafi and I spent the evening talking in his colorful Bedouin tent, I had some fun with him. "We may bomb you, Leader, but we also think you are the best-dressed Arab leader." The dazzlingly vain Gaddafi, dressed in a custom-made silk Italian jump suit and zippered kidskin boots, beamed with pleasure. He asked me where he could get the Ralph Lauren safari jacket I was wearing, adding, "you look very militant, Mr Eric."
I could never get a good fix on Muammar Gaddafi. When he seized power way back in 1969, he was young and very handsome, with movie-star good looks, and an ardent reformist. Gaddafi's hero and father figure was Egypt's charismatic Gamal Abdel Nasser. He was expected to become the second Nasser.
Gaddafi was never the same after Nasser's untimely death in 1970. He grew eccentric, then very odd. He styled himself a revolutionary leader, not a head of state. Libya was to be in permanent semi-anarchy, without any real government or institutions. As the craziness spread, oil billions poured in, allowing Gaddafi to romance foreign heads of state and influence Africa. But his fellow Arabs rejected him as a rich but dangerous, mercurial clown.
Watching Italy's PM Silvio Berlusconi, France's President Nicholas Sarkozy and other world leaders squirm with embarrassment walking next to Gaddafi decked out in flamboyant, clownish uniforms straight from an Italian "opera buffo" was always amusing. Everyone mocked Libya's madcap "Leader," but loved his money even more.
However zany and bizarre, Gaddafi was clever as a fox and had more lives than a cat. He survived many attempts on his life mounted by U.S., British, French and Egyptian intelligence.
In 2003, in a brilliant ploy, Gaddafi bought a pile of nuclear junk on the black market, then told Washington he was giving up his nuclear weapons program. The Bush administration fell for this ruse and ended its punishing boycott of Libya, thrilled it could claim a nuclear victory after finding no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Col. Gaddafi bought peace with the western powers by cutting them into Libya's rich oil fields, investing billions in European industry and banking, and joining George Bush's faux "war on terror."
But now that Libya is convulsed by revolution, Gaddafi seems to have used up all his nine lives. His area of control is shrinking fast, though there are many Libyans who still support him -- for the moment.
While Libya burns, there are serious discussions afoot in Washington and Europe about imposing an Iraq-style "no fly zone" in Libya, followed by possibly western military intervention. Libya would be "stabilized," a client regime made up of CIA-organized exiles installed, and Libya's oil fields made safe for western companies. A western invasion and occupation would be decked up as a peacekeeping/humanitarian mission.
Libya would return to pre-Gaddafi days when it was ruled by a British-managed figurehead king, the doddering Ibn Idris. That is, if Libya does not dissolve into tribal and clan warfare, or break up into western and eastern parts.
Italy, Libya's former brutal colonial ruler, and now main oil customer, may be eager to get involved. So, too, Egypt, France, and, of course, the U.S. and Britain. Oil remains the ultimate geopolitical aphrodisiac.
If driven from Tripoli, Gaddafi will take refuge in his tribe's territory, or bolt to Italy or Venezuela. His five spoiled, feuding sons are unlikely to emerge as Libya's new rulers. All dictators seem to have terrible problems with their out-of-control sons.
Gaddafi is a sad example of the maxim about absolute power corrupting absolutely. People like me who relish political theater of the absurd will miss the "Leader;" but most of his people, I suspect, will not.
While Gaddafi prepares for his last stand, the next storm to hit North Africa may come in Algeria and Morocco, two western-supported regimes that are considerably more brutal and repressive than Gaddafi's ramshackle "people's jamuhyria."
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