Self-determination is as important as freedoms

BEIRUT - The concept of freedom in the modern world has frequently been associated with the political circumstances.

The cold war, the interests of ruling regimes, revolutions and other political unrest have all affected our understanding and interpretation of freedom.

A couple of decades, one could not but notice the two-sided understanding of the concept of freedom. This was due to the propaganda of the different regimes and ideologies promoted worldwide.

On the one hand, there appeared individual freedoms such as freedom of expression, belief and assembly. On the other hand there were collective freedoms such as the freedom of the people to manage their own economic resources and to determine their stances on the international political level.

In third world countries, for instance, most revolutionaries advocated collective liberties. Late Egyptian President Gamal Abdul-Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, Cuban President Fidel Castro broke the monopolies of US companies over Cuban agricultural products.

Yet both Nasser and Castro failed to install a real democracy in their countries. Even worse, some dictators such as Pinochet in Chile undermined individual freedoms while at the same time preventing the nationalization of their countries public facilities.

The solution to democracy problems in Third World countries would be through the establishment of a system in which individuals and collective freedoms co-exist. This might look somehow like the European democratic model, which, even nowadays still has its drawbacks.

Can a veiled woman freely go to school in Europe? Would the references to Christianity be dropped from the European constitution? These issues are yet to be verified.

On another level, it remains interesting to study the evolution of the concept of freedom according to the global political climates in the world. While freedom of speech, press, religion and assembly are crucial in building a country, a society and even a family, they are nowadays being used as landmarks for the US propaganda.

This propaganda would easily disintegrate by recalling the facts of politics in the last few decades. Is Israel giving freedom to its Arab citizens? Were pro-US dictators during the cold war protective of the basic freedoms of their people? Is it true that Saddam was a dictator with devilish intentions (but are those facts new)? Didn't the Taliban ceize power in 1996 and banned women from public life long before they destroyed the Bamyan Bhudas?

After the war on Iraq, all the US promised the Iraqi people with was political freedom, freedom of religious belief and freedom of the press, but never the freedom to run their oil facilities or the freedom to take an opposition stance against Israel.

Our objective here is not to disclose the lies behind US global politics but to turn the attention of the public opinion to the fact that under the claim of preaching freedom and liberty to the world, other US objectives remain in the shadow.

On the other end of the political spectrum, socialist regimes and even movements advocating equality and collective liberties have imposed dictatorships whenever they toppled regimes and ruled.

Wasn't it the case with the Soviet nomenklatura? Isn't it the case of all those close to the ruling governments around the world? Why should the nationalization of the Suez Canal be coupled with the imprisonment of opposition leaders and censoring the press?

Even revolutionary movements are not offering a serious alternative facing the US interpretation of individual freedoms and the failure of the socialist regimes, which only focused on collective liberties.

In that respect, what would Palestine look like if the PLO were to rule it? Or what would Columbia's situation be had the FARC ruled it? Would there be an opposition? Would there be a free press? Evolution is indeed more stable and less volatile than revolution. Going back to the two-sided freedom, history proved that the two sides are necessary to build a viable democratic model. What is amazing is that nowadays, rare are the liberation movements, especially in the third world, that are looking forward to achieve both individual and collective liberties.

Kamal Sanjakdar is the Editor-in-Chief of Alternative