Ibadildin Nygmet
ALMATY, May 11
(Specially for THE GLOBE)
The 20th century has seen many events. There was history and hysteria, mass society and mass murders in this society, a baby boom and genocide. People lived and loved, struggled and died, as it had happened in all the previous centuries. A great number of conceptions appeared in the 20th century. People dreamt, invented and give arguments to their ideas. One of the achievements of all these fantasies was the idea of freedom. People talked about it 200, maybe 2000 or 3000 years ago. Though not that is important, the significant point is that in the 20th century people believed freedom real and achievable.
Politicians fascinate and hypnotise people, the philosophers write their wise tractates about freedom, poets compose odes devoted to freedom. On one hand, the Statue of Freedom became a symbol, on the other hand � it is a finding for caricaturists. In the 20th century freedom was slandered and praised, crucified and appreciated, analysed and grounded. We will try to go through the ways of this century�s freedom, avoiding unnecessary quotations.
Freedom may be, and for more cynic people � should be a subject to political speculations. Politicians use the argument �I will make you free from�� extremely often, passing over in silence that �freedom� of the patronised mass will be at the politician�s disposal. Everything following �from� depends much more on the politician�s imagination mysterious for us, than on concrete historical circumstances. In the 20th century after �from� there were the Jewish people in the Third Reich, the Armenians in Turkey, oppressors in USSR, the Reds in USA, and USA in Iraq. Everything was done according to the simply method of choosing a victim for the public execution. Hebbels, one of the authors of the Third Reich, called it �an object of hatred�. For the USSR which history is closer to us, �the object of hatred� from whom freedom was promised, were in a chronological order: �capitalists blood-suckers�, �semi-cut bourgeoisie�, �lousy intelligence�, kulaks and nationalists, engineers-saboteurs, enemies of the people, nations-betrayers, cosmopolites without kith or kin, later Stalinists, voluntarists, fops, etc. Today �the Reds�, �Jewish people�, �rich�, �Foreigners�, �Blacks�, etc. are simultaneously pretending to take this place in Russia.
As we can see, people may be enticed with freedom, especially those people who want to be enticed. People follow a sweet voice of policy like navigators the magic singing of sirens. A man deceived several times, �is again ready to be deceived� hoping that a new leader will be more honest, will give freedom and release everybody from troubles and problems. The 20th century has taught, such a self-deceiving costs millions of peoples� lives and results in more significant problems. That is why, let�s be attentive, let�s think twice, three and even seven times, before we believe a politician. A naive belief in a father of the nation or tsar-father is one of the symptoms of an infantile fear before freedom. �The master comes, he will judge us.� He will not come, and even if he comes, he will not judge, he will just say: �Take a decision yourself, you are free people.�
Freedom imposes a high responsibility. It makes us think, decide and undertake responsibility. We have shifted to philosophic aspects of freedom smoothly. Freedom forces the man to live in the world, that is indefiniteness. For some people it means availability of several options of answer and behaviour, for these people freedom is a freedom of choice, imagination and self-expression. For the other people indefiniteness is uncertainty, hence dangerousness. Such a freedom becomes a punishment and burden. People try to avoid the first thing and to get rid of the latter. A politician, leader or head at the office readily agrees to put the weight of freedom on his powerful shoulders. How can people not give him freedom, as he (a politician, leader, head) is such a strong man with resolute face and a voice of a commander. Basing on all these facts, Sartr announced: �The man is damned to be free, damned twice to search for freedom and damned triple not to find it.�
To be free means to be at one�s own disposal. Thus one more companion of freedom, loneliness appears, which involves its sister, boredom. That is why in France the students shouted in 60-s: �It is better to die from hunger, than from boredom.� They did not knew exactly what hunger was. Rich and poor people� You should agree that their freedoms are of different colours. You should agree wealth or its absence influence the shadows of freedom. Some people consider it more pleasant to be free having one million in the right pocket and two millions � in the left one. For some people extra money means extra troubles and lost of valuable freedom. It is pleasant to talk about freedom of spirit sitting in Paris cafe, but try to do it in Kolyma reformatory colony.
Ways of freedom are twisting and difficult. People go along them, somebody is led, some people go themselves and lead other people. Despite everything, everyone makes his own choice, let him be lucky, especially those who have chosen freedom.
Freedom is measurable, at least �Freedom House� states this. There is a marks scale, by which people determine whether they live in a free country. In 1997 only three countries of the former USSR were free: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. All the rest were not free or were partially free.
We may talk much about the cultural context of understanding of freedom. We may say also interpretation of freedom of �Freedom House� is freedom of an individualised Western person. It is also possible to construct paradoxes: freedom of a man is possible due to dependence of the others, or vice versa � slavery of one man costs freedom of many people. Let the politologists discuss what complies with the idea of freedom more: voting by common or qualified majority. All these things are speculative and theoretical. In real life any man after his imprisonment (if that is his fate) having made his first breathe will understand what freedom is. It is freedom without any words, explanations and joyful shouts.
Zinetulla INSEPOV, Doctor of Physics and Mathematics,
Professor of Kyoto University,
Kyoto, Japan (Specially for THE GLOBE)
From the editorial staff: we present for your attention a series of articles about Japan. The author is a Kazakhstani professor who has worked for several years at one of the leading Japan universities. For most of its history, the country of the rising sun had been isolated from the whole world, until it was discovered by chance by a Spanish corsair. Though for many Kazakhstan citizens Japan is still a mystery and is associated with yakudza and �Sony�. At the same time, the culture of Japan and the traditional life of its people are fraught with many interesting things and contribute to one�s understanding of the nation�s rapid economic growth. As the author, we hope that this series will promote the strengthening of friendly links between Kazakhstan and Japan.
All Over the Globe is published by IPA House.
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