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Freedom and "Freedom"
By Iftekhar Sayeed
Rated "PG13" by the Author.
Last
edited: Sunday, May 13, 2007
Posted: Sunday, May 13, 2007
Individual freedom has been a recurring theme in western literature and society. The essay argues that the word freedom connotes individual freedom in western culture and literature because of the experience of slavery. Since Asia lacked this experience, freedom in the sense of individual freedom has no meaning here. In Asia the word freedom connotes collective freedom in keeping with its colonial experience. Present day implications for the cultural and political transmissions taking place are profound.
The Quiet American, the novel by Graham Greene, explores the consequences of trying to impose an alien view on another culture. A bizarre conversation on political philosophy takes place between Thomas Fowler, the narrator, and Arden Pyle, an undercover OSS agent, in a tower amidst paddy fields, manned by two colonial, Vietnamese soldiers.
‘I said to Pyle, “Do you think they know they are fighting for Democracy?”’
‘“And as for liberty, I don’t know what it means. Ask them.” I called across the floor in French to them. “La liberté – qu’est ce que c’est la liberté?” They sucked in the rice and stared back and said nothing.’
And yet the Viet Minh were fighting for freedom. Therefore, freedom does have meaning in Asia The Vietnam War, as one historian observes, was ‘fought to achieve a united, independent country’ . Freedom in Asia and Africa, thanks to colonial experience, means collective freedom.
‘Pyle said, “Do you want everybody to be made in the same mould? ...You stand for the importance of the individual as much as I do....”’
However, does freedom mean individual freedom as well? Consider the sentiments expressed in these words (more or less the same sentiments expressed by Arden Pyle in the preceding paragraph).
The freedom which we enjoy in our government extends also to our ordinary life. There, far from exercising a jealous surveillance over each other, we do not feel called upon to be angry with our neighbour for doing what he likes, or even to indulge in those injurious looks which cannot fail to be offensive, although they inflict no positive penalty.
Is there any counterpart here to the privacy that was the boast equally of Pericles and of Nicias - he reminded them of their country, the freest of the free, and of the unfettered discretion allowed in it to all to live as they pleased?
To the Athenian citizen, this was the negative side of freedom; the positive side was equally valuable, the other side of the same coin. As Aristotle observes:
He who has the power to take part in the deliberative or judicial administration of any state is said by us to be a citizen of that state;
Again:
One principle of liberty is for all to rule and be ruled in turn, and indeed democratic justice is the application of numerical not proportionate equality;...This, then, is one note of liberty which all democrats affirm to be the principle of their state. Another is that a man should live as he likes. This, they say, is the mark of liberty, since, on the other hand, not to live as a man likes is the mark of a slave.
Does freedom in the sense of individual freedom have any meaning here - that is, is the idea of freedom prevalent in Asia, or only its outward form: is freedom just a word? To answer our question we must trace the career of another word: slavery.
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