Kam Zarrabi
October 2023

When we think of or talk about the concept of freedom we are casting a huge net.

Perhaps the most cherished universal aspiration for humanity as a whole is the seemingly simple, yet extremely complex, concept of freedom. But, what do we mean exactly by the word freedom? It is certainly not being able to do whatever the hell we want to do, whenever, wherever and to whomever as we please. Even animals in the wild face restrictions and challenges in nature while pursuing their desired objectives, such as hunting, feeding, mating, etc.

In human societies we also have restrictions and limitations that establish boundaries on how broadly we are allowed to exercise our freedoms to pursue our hearts' desires. These boundaries are encoded through various legislative bodies, whether by a democratically elected group, a theocratic bureaucracy, by an authoritarian dictator, or by a combination of all the above in different proportions. We have examples of all these around the world today.

The fact is that the world is not a global village, a utopian paradise where people of all colors, ethnicities, languages, religious beliefs and cultural backgrounds live harmoniously together as would a close-knit family or community, and share in all their values and preferences.

Among the species of life on earth, other than the illustrious species called humans, unhindered natural evolutionary forces set and enforce the rules governing the interactions among the various groups. It is actually the same among human societies, although well-camouflaged underneath our elaborate cultural embellishments. When you boil it all down to its rudimentary ingredients you'll find that it is invariably the strong or the dominant, politically, economically and militarily, which sets and enforces the rules of the game for everyone else to abide by.

A perfect case that exemplifies the point is the so-called freedom of expression, here in the United States encoded in our First Amendment to the Constitution. The concept seems quite simple and elegant: you have the freedom to express yourself in whatever fashion as long as you do not, deliberately or inadvertently, harm anyone else, like crying Fire in a crowded theater, for example. While the primary concept seems clear enough, what has remained troublingly ambiguous to me, at least, is the definition of harm: Do we mean harm only in a physical sense, or any emotional and psychological or financial sense, which could be quantified in its physical equivalence? In such cases the potential or actual damages caused by such expressions can be calculated and compensated for, and often is, in monetary terms in dollars and cents!

But that is not the only harm that unregulated free expressions might cause; there are cases where the harm caused is so emotionally deep and intolerable that it could lead to long-term, widespread violent reactions. A good case in point is the restrictions put into law in several European countries where the denial of the Holocaust or any form of research in, or even questioning of, its established narrative, is punishable by jail terms. This, of course, is understandable considering the historical background of WWII and the atrocities committed against minority Jews, Gypsies and many Muslims and Catholic Christians by the Nazi Germany. However, the same societies that forbid even any academic investigation or research in the accounts of the Holocaust, seem to have no problem allowing, for example, the desecration and public torching of the holiest symbol to billions in the Islamic world, the Ghur'an, in the guise of freedom of expression!!

While burning of a holy book is simply a symbolic gesture in some Western countries, it is not regarded as a hate crime to be punishable by law. In most Islamic countries, by contrast, burning of their Holy Book, or insulting the Prophet, is punishable by death. So, here we have the prevailing mindset of billions of people on the one side, against the opinion of several million on the other. This brings to mind the sad story of the British writer, Salman Rushdie, and his controversial book, Satanic Verses, in which the former Muslim/Indian writer bravely insults the house and the family of the Prophet Mohammad while enjoying the freedom of expression provided for him in the sanctuary of Great Britain, the former colonial power that ruled over his native India.

Here, in the Western world, Rushdie's recent assailant who nearly killed the writer is rightfully regarded as guilty of having committed a hate crime, punishable according to our prevailing legal system. On the other side, Rushdie is similarly regarded as a criminal whose insults against billions of people's belief system could never be washed away by any apology or material form of reparations. And, just as we take pride in emphasizing that the long arm of our justice can reach across continents and cross all geographic boundaries, as we ably proved by terminating the likes of Osama Bin Laden; those "others" also claim the right to exact retribution and revenge against what they consider as worthy of punishment, no matter how far away the target might be.

Back to the main subject of freedom; as I have elaborated above, we are truly casting a very large net. When we refer to our global adversaries who confront us in our efforts to promote "freedom" and democracy around the globe, we often portray them as people who do not understand and appreciate the concept of democracy and simply hate freedom, particularly our cherished liberties.

We could, of course, argue ad-infinitum whether "democracy" is or is not only the versions of governance practiced here or among Western European regimes. We often call India the largest (because of the size of its population) democracy on earth. We also call Israel the only democracy in the Middle East. Indonesia is also called a democracy "of sorts." And we often trace our Western democracy to its roots in ancient city state of Athens in Greece. C'mon, man! In the Athenian version of democracy only the land barons and affluent slave owners had the right to vote and to govern, while the general populace was regarded and treated like beasts of burden! Most socialist or communist regimes around the world call themselves Democratic Republic of this or that. So, what does democracy truly mean, pray tell?!

When it comes to freedom, we are right: those who hate us do actually hate our freedoms. But what they object to is not our freedom to choose hard-boiled in preference to scrambled eggs, or the right to decide what shows to watch on television. Yes, in some countries there are imposed restrictions on what kind of entertainment people can watch on TV, or what books they are allowed to read, or even how they should dress in public, etc. It might be of interest to reflect on our own more modern progressive societies where people, especially women, are not allowed to walk around in public in a scorching hot and muggy summer afternoon topless or naked to stay cool, as it would violate our sense of public decency! In some other societies around the world their cultural sense of "public decency" may require different kinds of dress-codes.

So, could the "freedom" our detractors object to be the freedom the dominant colonial powers of the old and the new have granted and are granting themselves as their natural right to overpower, overrule and exploit the less powerful? One look at the Great Game being played in the African Continent, and the carnage and suffering of millions of innocent human beings in that ongoing process, should be enough in making my point.