Liberty
- Use It Or Lose It
By Niranjan Ramakrishnan
09 March, 2006
Countercurrents.org
Consider these news items from the past month:
Thousands
of people took part in huge and emotional demonstrations in various
Arab countries, and others with large Muslim populations, from Morocco
to Indonesia, to protest the cartoons in a Danish paper, Jyllands-Posten,
and sundry European publications.
Huge protests greeted President George W. Bush during
his visit to India, People marched in New Delhi and Hyderabad, cities
he visited, but also in other major cities including Madras, Calcutta,
Bombay and Bangalore.
Demonstrations in Pakistan, which had commenced with
the Damadola bombing where the US drones bombed civilians while targetting
Ayman Al Zawahiri, melded with the subsequent cartoon controversy and
then morphed into anti-Bush gatherings during his short visit to Pakistan.
Here too, the rallies were not only in places Bush visited, but throughout
Pakistan, including Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar.
In 2005, China had 87,000 protests, demonstrations
and other "mass incidents" (International
Herald Tribune, March 6, 2006).
In Venezuela, "President Hugo Chavez's supporters
and opponents were out in force, taking advantage of the holiday and
their freedom to demonstrate." (from the Register-Guard,
Salem, Oregon)
The massive anti-cartoon protests in the Muslim world invited the derision
of many of our wise men, who pooh-poohed the saps who would expend so
much energy over something so silly. The anti-Bush protests in India
were dismissed by commentators as an unholy combination of muslims and
communists. Every protester was debunked as blind followers at the mercy
of tinpot leaders, false ideologies, or plain backwardness.
Allowing that it is wasteful to spend the day standing in the sun shouting
slogans against a faraway newspaper, let's also ask: are there ever
worthy reasons to protest?
And if there ever are, what
might they be?
The abridgment of liberties, you reckon? The nation being committed
to a criminal military adventure, would you say? Falsehood fed to the
people to gain support for secret agendas, perhaps? Illegal surveillance
of citizens, possibly? The death and devastation of tens of thousands,
maybe? Outing a secret agent in jeopardy to settle personal scores,
by some chance? The consigning of entire generations of Americans to
the shackles of debt, do you think?
So, how many demonstrations against the above atrocities have you seen
in the US? And what, exactly, do you suppose are we saving our protests
for?
It would seem that the people in all those foreign parts hold the liberties
enshrined in the US Constitution in far greater esteem than do its own
citizens, even as Americans look down on others for their lack of freedoms.
Imagine that for a second... We who have, without demur, countenanced
members of the public being thrown out and harassed for no greater crime
than wearing the wrong T-Shirt, while attending a public meeting addressed
by their president, a putative 'servant' of the people!
Rep. John Conyers (Why
We Act) writes of this phenomenon, "For some time,
I have opened some of my speeches with a fairly standard line about
how great democracy is because hardly anyone votes but everyone complains.
There is a new variation on this problem among some in the progressive
community and it goes like this: nothing we do matters, nothing we do
changes anything so why bother doing anything..."
Everyone seems happy to be standing around waiting for someone else
to do something, content in our discontentment. The Congress and the
media are favorite (and deserving) targets of much of our ire, but doesn't
each of us have the duty to ask what we are doing? What could be more
cynical than diagnosing a problem in great detail and then sitting back
to do nothing?
If we are really serious
about our outrage, we can start by helping roll the impeachment ball
up the (Capitol) Hill: Rep. Conyers has a resolution calling for a select
committee to explore impeachment, complete with subpeona powers. Twenty
eight House members have signed on. Has yours? Why not knock on your
Representative's door to ask
that he join Conyers in this effort?
Thomas Jefferson held that the tree of liberty needed to be watered
from time to time with the blood of martyrs. Gandhi's book, "Satyagraha",
begins with him recounting how associates approached him saying they
were willing to follow him to the gallows. He told them it would be
good enough if they followed him to jail.
Poor John Conyers is only
asking for our phone call.
Niranjan Ramakrishnan can be reached at [email protected].
His blog is at
http://njn-blogogram.blogspot.com.