What is freedom? For creative latitude is nothing but the basic fabric of freedom itself?

Freedom in essence is a negative concept. In this it is different from power which is a positive priciple. by negative or positive I am not referring to their ethical value. I am only refrring to their intrinsic nature. Freedom is about being free from a subtraction of something undesirable. Whereas Power is an addition of something desirable. As more often than not we differ as individuals about the nature of the desirable but agree on what is absolutely undesirable: Freedom is a higher concept than Power. And nowhere is it more enshrined than in the United States Declaration of Independence. A document drafted by the greatest pioneer of freedom Thomas Jefferson.  A sign of these deluded times is the way we have treated this man whose words have enabled every freedom we have been able to gain over the past 217 years. Freedoms which did not exist for any man before Jefferson enshrined them forever.

I will repeat those words for I feel we are beginning to foreget them often.

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

I also repeat the first five amendments to the US Constitution, popularly called the Bill of Rights, for they make explicit the rights of all men promised in the Declaration.

• First Amendment ' Freedom of speech, press, religion, peaceable assembly, and to petition the government.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

• Second Amendment ' Right for the people to keep and bear arms, as well as to maintain a militia.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.

• Third Amendment ' Protection from quartering of troops.

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

• Fourth Amendment ' Protection from unreasonable search and seizure.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

• Fifth Amendment ' Due process, double jeopardy, self-incrimination, private property.

No person shall be held to answer for any capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury;  nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

I know America bashing is the popular pastime of the day and America itself is rather not conducive to its own constitution these days but if you were Tammam Adi you might agree with me that it is still the freest place on earth. Tammam has been helping me research the background of an immigrant Muslim family in USA post 9/11. He himself is one such immigrant and to top it is a leading cleric of his mosque in Eugene, Oregon. He was born in Syria. I quote him:

I enjoyed reading dictionaries and learning new languages in the same

way other kids enjoyed playing basketball. I did not know that such a

loving, harmless hobby could put me in serious danger.

I had just translated a famous Armenian poem into Arabic when my

translator friend said that he had a great idea and wanted to introduce

me to an interesting man. He took me downtown to a tall unmarked

building and we took the elevator to the fifth floor. We were expected,

and the man behind the desk grinned as he greeted me, but I saw no trace

of humanity in his face. Where did it all go?

It was as if he read my feelings in my face–I am very transparent that

way–and I stuttered into explaining why I was there. He made several

disjointed opening remarks (one would have done if one is honest), I

understood that he wanted me to translate peoples’ letters and phone

calls, just to check them for national security reasons.

I was triply frightened. I was shocked at the “job offer.” I knew that

my face revealed my shock. And I also knew that my refusal to accept the

offer would have dire consequences.

Spy on my beautiful friends who taught me the nuances of all those

beautiful words in their beautiful languages? What a monstrous request!

But I froze. “I would love to serve my country,” I stuttered. He said,

“We will see what we will do next. We will contact you.”

There was only one way out. I had to leave Syria.

An Armenian friend picked me up at the Charles De Gaulle Airport in

Paris. We went to his roof-top apartment and I could not wait to

whisper to him all the gory details of my ordeal with the faceless

spyman. My whispering upset him a lot. It upset him so much that I

felt scared. He stood up, opened his window, stuck out his head and

screamed as loud as he could, “De Gaulle is crap.”  Then, he turned to

me and said, “See, you are free now, free, free, free. You can say what

you want, wherever you want. You are no longer in Syria.”

That was my first lesson in liberty. Paris, October 1970.

Soon thereafter, my joy with freedom was interrupted when I discovered

that every French person I met wanted to know whether I prayed and

fasted as Muslims do. If I said yes, they would frown and turn away

from me. They all believed that religious Muslims were dangerous and

did not belong in Europe. Practicing Muslims had to hide their “foreign

cultural practices” in their own ghetto in the town of the Eiffel

Tower. This was also my experience in Germany for 13 years.

I had to hide my prayers in the West and did so even after I settled in

the US, until I finally found out that, unlike Europeans, Americans

include religion in their concept of liberty. From then on, I no longer

pulled my livingroom curtains closed when I prayed.

Unquote.

This was of course before 9/11. Tammam’s life has changed radically since. An FBI van watches over his mosque 24/7 and monitors/videotapes everyone going in to offer prayers. He finds it humiliating. But still Tammam finds the strength and the hope to write articles like  these: Many Muslims do not understand their religion well anymore. In unfree societies, one is not taught to think, only to hear and obey.

Another of Tammam’s articles:

No dilly dallying, that constitution makes it clear that the state and society that this constitution creates is for the good of each individual. Specifically that this state should facilitate each individual’s pursuit of happiness. In his own way.

Everything else is of secondary importance. Society. state, groups? No. Only that One matters. One that is you, me, him, her and all others. But as one. Not as a horde. There are no rights given to groups of people.

The reason I did not quote the Indian constitution is because the language is not so clear, the heart not so set on the rights of the individual. Our constitution is regressive compared to the US as far as rights and freedoms are concerned. You mights check the exact words if you doubt me but I warn you the shock will be greater at the duplicit and decrepit formulation of our natural rights. Even the UN Charter of Universal Human Rights pale in comparison to the text Jefferson enshrined.

Why? Is the question I have ponedered a lot. Why no stress on the word individual in these two century later modern documents? Why no stress on private property? Why no mention of pursuit of happiness as the goal for ensuring the rights?

Who made sure these were deleted. Only one answer is pertinent. There has been no influence greater than the American Declaration of Independence on 20th century thought except the RussianRrevolution and its individual crushing theries of Totalitarian State. whereas jefferson sought to liberate man from all who tried to control him including the state, the leftists saw the individual as a cog in their social wheel, a part very easily dispensable if the collective good decided otherwise. It is they who weakened the UN charter. It is they who weakened our constitution. It is they who supported dictators like Castro and looked the other way when Saddam and Khomeini appeared. It is they who popularise the concept of collective bargaining and reduce the individuial to a powerless beggar, it is they who want to control the so called greed, lust and passions of the individual and assume the roles of cultural, moral and ethical dictators. These are the purveyors of power in the garb of liberals. They are the self-righteous who often supposedly fight on behalf of the underdog, the people and other half baked group entities who are forever trying to limit the horizons of thought, the floors in buildings, heights in dams, segregated classrooms for intelligent childrten, whatever goes beyond the ordinary and smacks of the individual is to be denied and defiled.

They are stuck to an ancient tribal/cabalistic code that revels in the sacrfice of the individual to the group.

My plea to these tribal gods is to let us alone. We have fought hard to shake off those chains and we are not going to be bullied by your higher moral ground wherever you might derive them from, religion, race, ecology, humanism, communism, nothing allows a group of men to censure and dictate terms to an individual on the basis of the gun or collective will.

They must go to the courts  for all their grievance and the courts should use the bill of rights to judge the truth.

One of my poems has a line: You can let go only that which you are holding back.

In this case all you fascist chieftains; you are holding back the rights that empower me. Let go.

The Spirit of the Age: what is our place in history?

When we think of Descartes’ famous assertion “cogito ergo sum”, I think so I am; we tend to hear it as the supreme expression of enlightenment belief in the power of human reasoning when in fact it was the upshot of his struggle with grave doubts about whether one could be sure of anything at all. His remedy for this uncertainty was to postulate that there could be no capacity for doubt unless there existed an “I” to do the thinking. An I that is separate and individual from all else. With this Cartesian divide he severed the mind from the matter and made the world focus on what was objectively real. And he used this scientific objectivity to banish centuries of dark and malignant orthodoxy and superstition.

350 years on, orthodoxy still haunts us. I will quote now from quickly drafted rant against censorship which I wrote for a PEN Meeting on 13.03.06 called Censorship and Intolerance in the Information Age. It has gained relevance because it turned out to be prophetic in nature. As the Censors, extra legal in this case, came out in full force at my own doorsteps to ban Sacred Evil.

I might have changed my view at some future point in my life but now I permanently abide by these words I wrote then:

It is a dilemma of the liberal world that in the Information Age suddenly we are threatened by censorship.

In many ways it is the doings of the neo-liberals that has resulted in such a situation.

Freedom is a constant vigil and freedom is not a relative ideal. If you let an inch of your freedoms slip, you will lose all of it. Gradually, if you are lucky, without warning, if not.

Remember the old story about the German shopkeeper : first they came for the communists, i wasn’t a communist I didn’t protest, then they came for the poles, i wasn’t a pole, i didn’t protest, then  they came for the Jews, I wasn’t a Jew, I didn’t protest, then they came for the man down the road, well I wasn’t him so I didn’t protest, then they came for my neighbor and I didn’t protest cause it was none of my business, then they came for me! There wasn’t anyone left to protest!

In the last 20 years, we liberals have stood by and watched the rights and freedoms of many a group of people trampled upon and very often (to the horror of someone like Jefferson) joined in the chorus demanding the subjugation of such rights.

First it was the smokers, every conceivable inch of space was snatched from them, they were painted pariahs (forget the fact that from Newton to Russell they were all smokers). People have to stand outside buildings like untouchables to have a couple of puffs.

Before I proceed here is a disclaimer. I am not a smoker. I smoke from time to time only to affirm the right of the smoker to smoke in peace.  The moment I saw Yevegeny Yevtushenko’s grinning smoking picture on the cover of a book Jerry Pinto was reading in this room, I decided to enlarge and frame it. Jerry was not sure about handing over the worn out, out of print copy so mrinal had to win by an auction on ebay  another worn out used copy. The enlarged print has gone n0ow for framing. With the caption in red scrawl: smoking lives.

Let’s not get into the righteous garbage about the rights of non-smokers. Yes they have the right to not smoke passively but where is the courtesy of choice. Yes you can build massive areas for non-smokers but the smokers must be given their space too.

Why is smoking banned completely from public spaces?

Why can’t we provide for their preferences?

Since March the anti smoking lobby has spawned a series of howlarious acts of censorship, the latest being in England.

The man who is playing Churchill in a play about Churchill has been asked not to smoke the pipe. I am amazed they have not actually hopped aboard a Time Machine and snatched the pipe out of Churchill’s mouth even as the poor man stood gaping in the war room! I will return to the need for a time Machine among many protesting groups in our times.

I go back to the Broken Windows theory…if you leave one broken window in the city, you will find the whole city contracting the disease of apathy and disorder…fix the rights of those whom you might even abhor and only then can true freedom flourish.

What of the recent bit about the revision of ba-ba black sheep in British schools to ba-ba Rainbow sheep? What is that? Do the antiracists know that the poem itself was a protest about the tax on wool during the 13th century, 1 to the local lord, one to the king and the last 1/3rd to the poor little boy down the lane, himself?! Where is color in all this? What’s going on?

Why are the anti-racists fighting the free expressionists…are they racists? Aren’t they supposed to be on the same side?

The liberal west denies one the right to deny the holocaust, you can’t and shan’t be a Nazi sympathizer…making us as Nazi as Hitler. Mein Kampf is not the holocaust. If I were to read passages from it without telling you who wrote it, you could be mistaken into thinking they were written by Lenin, or Marx or a latter day Arundhati or Medha Patkar. Hitler’s acts of violence is unpardonable but his ideas and words are as sacred as any other man’s. Notwithstanding anyone’s sentiments.

This business of not hurting the sentiments of others is hogwash. The only hurt we should worry about is the physical kind.

Free expression is bound to hurt sentiment; didn’t Galileo hurt the sentiment of the church? Sentiments are not worth a dime, freedom is. It is the basic right to freedom that gives one the luxury of sentiment.

We must stop ghettoizing drugs, fundamentalism and other so called socially unacceptable behavior… the only thing ghettos breed is violence. Let’s defend everyone’s freedom to be as they choose to be under the Human Charter, even those whose expressions may repel us. And if everyone is confused about what the Human Charter is, let’s draft a NEW BILL OF RIGHTS for the whole world.

Because in the end, people don’t live as groups. People live as individuals. The smallest and most vulnerable minority in the universe is the individual.

We must protect the rights and freedoms of each and every individual and that means we mustn’t gang up against the rights and freedoms of anyone except those who intend to browbeat history back into the Dark Ages. Let’s not champion environmentalists against the entrepreneur, let’s not champion governments against parents rights to raise their children the way they want to, let’s not champion the rights of minorities against the rights of the majority,

let’s not champion the rights of those who question the basic human rights and finally let’s not champion the rights of nations, let’s ask at all times for the abolition of all boundaries.

Let’s not forget that History must march on , liberties must progress, let’s not revise our position backwards, let’s not redraw the boundaries of freedom, we fought hard for 10000 years to find the individual his freedom from the TRIBE, let’s not lose it now.

Now - when the Information Age is ready for freedom of expression beyond the wildest imagination of Jefferson when he wrote the Bill Of Rights.