Even as more and more people eschew the radio for the visual immediacy of television and the interactive, multimedia experience of the Internet, Tuesday, February 1, 2011 was quite an interesting day to be listening to the BBC World Service.
For whilst there was almost continuous reportage on the dramatic events unfolding in Egypt, there were also two programmes that seemed to reflect some of the sentiments underpinning the winds of change blowing across the Arab world.
In ‘World Have Your Say,’ an interview programme that allows audience participation, Aung San Suu Kyi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights in Burma and who was recently released from house arrest lasting 15 of the past 21 years, reflected with a certain serenity on her experiences, commitment and perspectives. When asked about the situation in Egypt, she expressed a deep interest but moved to a more general statement: “I sympathise with all those people who want freedom anywhere in the world. We want people to get the freedom that they deserve. I want them to succeed in what they are trying to achieve.”
Aung San Suu Kyi is, of course, well known for her 1990 ‘Freedom from Fear’ speech, in which, among other things she argues: “Within a system which denies the existence of basic human rights, fear tends to be the order of the day. Fear of imprisonment, fear of torture, fear of death, fear of losing friends, family, property or means of livelihood, fear of poverty, fear of isolation, fear of failure. A most insidious form of fear is that which masquerades as common sense or even wisdom, condemning as foolish, reckless, insignificant or futile the small, daily acts of courage which help to preserve man’s self-respect and inherent human dignity. It is not easy for a people conditioned by fear under the iron rule of the principle that might is right to free themselves from the enervating miasma of fear. Yet even under the most crushing state machinery courage rises up again and again, for fear is not the natural state of civilized man.”
Conversely, she had begun that speech stating, “It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.” In this respect, as the confrontation between a repressive regime and a people freeing themselves from fear takes its course in Cairo, the world witnessed on Wednesday the corrupting fear of those who stand to lose the most as pro-Mubarak goons brought bloody violence to the peaceful demonstrators in Tahrir Square.
On Tuesday, World Service listeners also heard an episode of ‘Witness,’ the history programme based on first-hand accounts of world events as told by those who lived through them. This one marked the 50th anniversary of the peaceful action taken by four young black men in Greensboro, North Carolina, on February 1, 1960, to protest the abhorrent system of segregation in the American South.
In his recollection, one of the Greensboro Four, Franklin McCain recounts how he and his friends asked to be served at a whites only lunch counter in a Woolworths store, and when they were refused service, stayed until closing time and returned day after day until they were finally served. As Mr McCain recalls it, the feeling he experienced when he first sat on the forbidden stool was “the most miraculous and the most wonderful feeling… the thought that… there’s a kind of freedom I have now that I’ve never had before… that’s the kind of liberation that I felt.”
As Mr McCain and his friends persevered in their non-violent demonstration, maintaining their humanity and dignity in the face of reactions ranging from astonishment and confusion to anger and physical abuse, a bigger crowd gathered every day. The protests then began to spread across town and across the state. Eventually, as national public opinion turned against them, the Greensboro store owners backed down. It was a small but significant victory in the whole civil rights campaign.
What we are now witnessing in Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan and Yemen are arguably the actions of people who, in their desire for democratic freedom, social justice, better economic conditions and, above all, a greater sense of dignity, no longer feel fear. As with Franklin McCain and Aung San Suu Kyi, this freedom from fear is the greatest weapon against injustice and authoritarian rule.
