Freedom in Iraq: A Talkback
By Charles Rush
February 6, 2005
Exodus 3
want to open the floor in a minute for your reflections on the moment of this week and the vote in Iraq. Last Sunday, I sat in front of the T.V. during the evening half relieved, half in wonder as I watched the actual vote in Iraq reported. President Clinton spoke to the bankers at Goldman Sachs a couple months ago and they asked him about Iraq. He reportedly responded by saying that "whether you were for the invasion of Iraq or whether you were against it, all Americans have a vested interest in our success there at this point. The alternative is simply unthinkable." I think that he is correct and that is the relief part.
Yet, I was struck with a sense of
gratitude, about the many surprising, transforming initiatives that we have all
lived through in the past few decades. I know for me personally, and probably
for quite a few of you, some of the more important spiritual moments of my life
were connected to these wider social movements around us.
In
1991, I went with Dr. Ernest Gordon to Moscow State Open University to speak as
the first Americans on the subject of Christianity, Human Rights, and
Democracy. Dr. Gordon wrote a book "Miracle on the River Quai" that
has been made into two movies that lift up the role that faith played in the
prisoner of war experience in Japan during World War 2. That book was the very
first American book on spirituality translated into Russian after the fall of
the Iron Curtain. At the time, it was a big deal because the communists wouldn't
allow any religious publication in the previous 50 years. In that first period
after the fall of the Iron Curtain, survivors of the Gulag had a moral
authority in Russia to speak on the freedom after communism. Dr. Gordon's book
was an inspiration to a whole generation just released from prison. So I went
along, rather like Timothy following St. Paul on his mission trips, and the
highlight of the trip was speaking at the University.
We spoke on the founding of our
country, the biblical ideas that inspired our founding fathers and the role of
conscience and free speech in our countries history. In one of my lectures, I
went a little further and began a critique of Communism from within, hitting
what I thought were pretty routine highlights. I explained how the suppression
of free speech really didn't happen just under Stalin in Russia, but really
should be traced back to Lenin when he invented the concept of the 'Vanguard of
the Proliteriat' and the notion that some people could be filled with what Karl
Marx called the 'conscientization' of proliteriat and could speed along the
people's revolution. This is what Mao Tse Tung attempted in the disastrous
"Cultural Revolution", a few elite leaders imposed a draconian reform
on the country in order to speed up the dialectical tempo of history. It is what Stalin attempted in his disastrous
"Collectivization" across rural Russia.
I finished my speech, sat down, the
hall was quiet. I was young, needing feedback. I turned to the Dean of the
faculty and asked how he thought it went. He paused a long pause… not good… He
leaned over to me and whispered, "that is the first time in public that
Vladimir Ilyich has been criticized here." Vladimir Ilyich is Lenin's
first name. I immediately turned green… How stupid… It never occurred to me… where angels fear to tread… But then he
leaned over again and said, "But everything you said is true." Dr.
Gordon put his hand on my knee and said, in his Scottish brogue, "Chin up
Lad." I probably looked like I was ready to wet my pants.
As soon as it sunk in that I wouldn't
be escorted away by the new K.G.B. something swept over me- the awareness that
in something simple, by someone of no repute or influence, a mere youth,
something new had happened, a new chapter was opening before us. I was riding
the tide of history. I kept thinking "the first", "the
first"… We are making history. It was a moment where gratitude wells up in
you spontaneously that fills you to the gills and you can bubble forth with
tears at any moment, like the first hour that your children are born.
I'm not describing this very well, but
in that moment, I had a feeling of the wonder of living in God's good earth, a
feeling that I was living to see the fulfillment of the hopes and promises of
so many people that died in the Gulag, the simple goodness that God wants for
us. It gave me goose flesh and a moment of transcendence that I was in the
presence of the Almighty and grateful to be part of it.
We read these stories in the Bible
that once in a while God reaches down, like God did in the Exodus and
"Sees the suffering of the people… and promises to deliver them from their
captivity and open before them a new day. It is the most powerful part of the
Bible spiritually. It has inspired countless generations of people through the
centuries. And what strikes me these days is how many moments we have been
privileged to see in the past 3 decades together.
I remember that night a year and a
half previously when the Berlin Wall came down, November 9th, 1989… I remember
sitting watching television. I couldn't really believe my eyes. Just like that
an era was coming to an end, an era that great intellectuals like Arthur
Schlesinger just a couple years before had pronounced with confidence would
last for decades to come. In the West, we were all taken by surprise. Those men
standing on the top of that Wall, after 50 years of tyranny and oppression,
drinking champagne, taking turns with a sledge hammer, chipping piece by piece
on the Wall… Piece by piece, it was
coming down all night long… People all over the world with tears of joy, just
mute that a new era was opening before us.
I think back to a movement before that
actually happened, the Steel worker and Ship yard workers strike for freedom in
Gdansk, Poland led by an ordinary worker Lech Welesa and supported by the first
Polish Pope in history. At the time, everyone thought the movement would be
quashed or that it couldn't possibly organize itself to stand up to the
Russians. But days led into weeks and the next thing you know it was a
nation-wide plebisicite and people the country over were in the streets
demanding rights, representation and the vote.
And who can forget the Economist
turned playwright, Vaclav Havel in Czechoslovakia. After being part of the
student movement that was crushed in 1968, Havel was arrested half a dozen
times for sedition of various kinds by the Communist party. Fast forward to
1989. In November of that year, a protest movement for social change takes to
the streets and it is violently put down on the 17th of November. But this
time, the crowds do not disperse. Massive demonstrations began in earnest, more
than the police could contain. They organized themselves into one group called
the Civic Forum, their leader, Vaclav Havel. Their principal demand, democratic
reform, representative government, freedom of speech.
Another night joy filled for all
humanists and spiritual people came on November 20th when Havel addressed half a million people gathered in
Vaclavske Square in the centre of Prague. "Speaking from the balcony of
the Melantrich publishing house he encourages the crowd to keep on
demonstrating against the regime. "The truth and love will always beat the
lie and hatred," he tells them."[1]Civic
Forum quickly gains the support of millions of Czechs, as does its Slovak
counterpart, Public Against Violence. The so-called 'Velvet Revolution' sees
the Communist Party capitulate in early December and form a coalition
government with Civic Forum. Havel was elected interim president of
Czechoslovakia on 29 December, promising to lead the nation to free and
democratic elections. His inauguration held at the Prague Castle is witnessed
by a crowd numbering hundreds of thousands. The elections take place in June
without incident and with more than 95% of the population voting. Civic Forum
and Public Against Violence win landslide victories. Havel is reelected to the
presidency on 5 July, remaining in the position until 1992.
And we have seen the end of
a number of dictators. I recall December 1989, when demonstrations broke out in
Romania against the oppressive tyranny of Nicolai Ceausescu. Ceausescu had his
troops open fire agains the unarmed demonstrators in Tismora and he killed
4,000 people in the next couple days. But the protests simply spread to the
capital Bucharest. Again, he ordered the troops to open fire on the unarmed
protestors. This time, the General in command, General Vasile Milea, refused
the order and was executed by Ceausescu. The crowds swelled. After a failed
attempt to address them, Ceausescu fled by helicopter with his wife. He was
found unceremoniously hiding, was arrested, put on trial and executed after
nearly 50 years of tyranny.
Finally, this past November
in the Ukraine, after wide spread election fraud manipulated by then President
Leonid Kuchma, the Ukrainian people took to the streets in massive protests for
new elections. Eventually, the Supreme Court agreed with them, and the Orange
revolution was borne. With hundreds of thousands of people fanned out across
the country, Victor Yuvshenko was elected the new President by a free and
independent vote, and a new chapter of freedom and self-determination opened
for one of the biggest former Soviet blocs and an very important country for
Europe's future.
We may well be at the front
end of a century long story on the spread of freedom and self-determination
around us. Sometimes in history it appears that the time is just right and
these movements spread, pretty much like nation-state development happened all
across Europe in the second half of the 19th century and the countries of
Europe as we know them today were established.
In the bible, this story of
the emancipation from slavery towards self-determination and freedom is modeled
in the Exodus. That is the fundamental story on which all others are modeled.
God looked upon the Israelites suffering in slavery and sent Moses to tell the
Pharoah, "Let my People Go." That is the sure and certain direction
that God's liberation intends for people. We see it in the intrinsic aspirtaion
that people have for freedom. I couldn't help but remember that this week,
watching Grandmother's holding grandchildren as they went to the polls in Iraq.
They were willing to brave suicide bombers for the privilege of acting for
themselves. There was something noble and ennobling about watching them turn
out in such great numbers. Though the rest of the world feared for them, they
were not afraid themselves, so powerful is the longing in the human heart for
freedom.
With that I close and invite
your response to what has happened this week. I have not mentioned the moral
difficulties of our occupation, only for lack of time, not because they aren't
important. I skipped over the morally ambiguous movements towards civiliation
such as Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia- not because they aren't important but for lack
of time. I didn't bother to contrast the positive steps towards freedom in Iraq
with the continuing revolution and chaos in Sudan- not because it is not
important it is. Any and all of these might well be part of your response. But
for 10 minutes or so, let's hear what you are thinking about the present
situation in Iraq that together we might be edified, for it is a season where
what is happening is not all that clear and we hope that the collective voice of
all of us will illumine better than a single analysis of the situation. What
strikes you about the present state of affairs?
[1]
http://www.moreorless.au.com/heroes/havel.htm
© 2004
Charles Rush.
All rights reserved.
