As I posted here, last Thursday I attended a pair of lectures at Harvard University featuring former Soviet dissident and current Israeli Minister for Diaspora Affairs, Natan Sharansky. For those not in the know, Sharansky is a moral giant who has personally fought the battles for liberty he advocates having spent years in Soviet prisons and having undergone numerous deprivations and hunger strikes. His book, Fear No Evil, has a permanent place on my sidebar and is a real inspiration. He is touring now promoting his new book, The Case For Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror, which I have not read, so bear that in mind. When I talk about Sharansky's views below, I'm only going by what I heard and took away from what he said, not from what he's written.

The first talk was in Emerson Hall in Harvard Yard - the same place I saw Dore Gold speak recently. Here's the event description:

Attendance was very light - I'd estimate no more than about 40 people probably due to poor publicity. There were a small group of nuts in attendance, including one guy with a video camera who was already arguing with people as they came in the door and had to be warned to cool it, and someone else with him who was handing out fliers inside the hall as if they were the sponsors of the event. Mighty nice of Harvard to let them do it.

My first impression of Sharansky is purely physical, of course. He's short. He speaks quietly, with a strong accent. Think of a sort of mush-mouth Jackie Mason. You really have to be very attentive to what he says or you miss it. He speaks without notes, and he spoke for I think a solid 45 minutes, and what he says is very much worth attending to. These are pearls he's casting.

He spoke of life in the Soviet Union, and about what it meant to be free there. He spoke about the real power that brought down the Soviet system - the word of truth. When people began to speak the truth, when they began to become truly free - that's the day the system was doomed.

Sharansky explains that there are three types of citizens in a "Fear Society." On one side there are the True Believers, and on the other are the Dissidents - people who speak out and decide to be free regardless of the consequences. The vast majority, however, are the Double Thinkers - the people who may think something privately, but do not allow themselves to express those views openly. Sometimes even they themselves are not aware of their Double-Thinking and the enormous cognitive dissonance this builds up inside. He explained that the day one becomes truly free is the day a weight, an enormous burden, is literally lifted off one's shoulders.

He says he was lucky, because he could actually remember the day he became a Double-Thinker. He was five years old, and it was the day Stalin died.

How do you escape this burden? One way is to escape into a career in the sciences - by seeking paths that relieve one of being involved in activities that involve any sort of political double-think. By losing oneself in the world of "eternal values" - the world of Galileo and Einstein.

Into this world came Sakharov. And he began warning them that because the creativity of the people was stifled, the Soviet Union would never be able to compete with the Free World. He wrote. Against the warnings he wrote about the things he was realizing and he distributed those writings.

Imagine the impact of such a statement by such a man on a younger man like Sharansky was at the time. Here is Sharansky, a young physicist, just starting out, hoping to escape to freedom by pursuing this path up the wrungs of the sciences within the Soviet system. Along comes Sakharov. He's at the very pinacle of success in the system. He has it all. He's a national hero, the father of the Soviet Bomb - "the very champion of the scientists." He is what the young scientist aspires to and he looks down and he says, "No." No, there is no chance to achieve Freedom, inner Freedom this way - by ignoring and trying to hide from the eternal questions - the questions of Justice and Human Rights and respect for the rights of the people to speak and to say and to think.

A powerful message to an entire young generation.

He showed that even those completely dependent on the system can speak out against it. And in that way he began to turn innumerable True-Believers into Double-Thinkers in the hope that some day they might become Dissidents.

An illustration: Sharansky describes taking a cab ride out to Sakharov's home in the suburbs. An enormous sum is negotiated for the half hour ride. Sharansky has no choice. He agrees. On the way out the driver has no idea to who's home they are going and he's a typical talkative cabbie - laughing, joking. The radio is full of denunciations of Sakharov. He is an official enemy now. Officially, everyone is against him. While the driver is waiting for Sharansky outside while he has his meeting with Sakharov, the driver discovers where he is. The ride back is taken in silence.

Here is this plain man - a regular citizen - who's touched this world of which he can only be afraid. They reach their destination. Still the driver says nothing. Sharansky pays the agreed-upon price and walks away.

Suddenly, the driver comes running and puts the money back in Sharansky's hand, saying, "I don't want to take money from you. I wish to you and to your friend all the success. Be well." Whereupon he jumps back in the car as if he's afraid he'll be arrested at any moment and drives away.

Sharansky:

This was the time of detente. Sharansky described how numerous Western leaders would come to Sakharov and tell him not to push too hard. "Let us have detente and good relations - then things will slowly get better for you."

But Sakharov said no. Don't worry about us as individuals. Use us instead as a litmus test. Don't trust a system that doesn't trust its own people. Worry about the questions of Human Rights - do this for YOUR OWN security. This system must change or detente will buy you nothing.

Soon came the Jackson Amendment. Senator Jackson sought to link the freedom of Soviet citizens to immigrate out of the country with trade agreements with the West. Why such a specific thing? Why not all the freedoms? And what right have we to make such demands?

1) You must begin to establish the difference between Free nations where Human Rights may sometimes suffer, and nations in which Human Rights simply do not exist - as in the Soviet Union.

2) Why not all the Freedoms? Because choices are limited. War with the Soviet Union is impossible. So we go for something, one thing the Soviets might agree to - freedom of immigration. Once people are free to immigrate, they begin to lose their dependency on the system, they become less afraid and more free, and once they have one freedom, they will begin to demand more and the system in this way begins to break down.

3) What right have we to impose our system on them? This misses the point. It's not a matter of imposing our system. It's a matter of not helping them to impose dictatorship on the people by doing such things as granting Most Favored Nation status. Once we stop helping support the system, and the people begin to get a taste of freedom, the people will do the rest. That is how you encourage change from the inside.

That was Sakharov's philosophy. Make people less dependent on the system. Give them some simple freedom. They'll do the rest.

Again and again we need to learn these lessons says Sharansky. It's so easy to find and leave in place our "sons of the bitch," but in so many of the places we've done this, so many times, over and over, we come to regret this decision.

The Minister spoke for about 45 minutes and then it was question time. Here's a quick run-down on a few of them:

- A gentleman asked if he was familiar with Mahmood Abbas's doctoral thesis earned at a Moscow University in which he says that the Holocaust didn't really happen, and if it did it wasn't as bad as they say and was really cooked up by the Zionists in league with the Nazis anyway.

Sharansky said he was familiar with it and had read it. It's basically a compilation of all sorts of Communist anti-Semitic theories. Nothing original. But don't mistake this for what's happening now. He said a few weeks ago President Bush asked him what he thought of Abbas. Was peace possible with this man? Yes, said Sharansky, he could say many bad things about him, in part because of his PhD thesis, and he could say some good things, too, due to his earlier dealings during some of the peace negotiations - but none of that really matters. What matters now is that the Free World follow the lessons of Sakharov and is serious and committed about holding Abbas accountable for continuing democratic reforms and for seeing to the betterment of the lives of his own people. Only then do we have a chance.

- He was asked about the down side of the changes toward freedom - the "anarchy" in Russia, the fact that China is doing a reasonable job of staying stable.

He explained that sure, there were problems, but millions of people were now not living as slaves and in fear. Millions of people are no longer working for the KGB. Millions of people are no longer living in the gulag. People are no longer afraid that if their children say something wrong in the school that will be the end of their career. The world as a whole is much more free because there is no more Soviet Empire. Yes, there are still problems, but let's keep things in historical proportion. When he hears people saying that people in Russia would rather go back to the Soviet days, he relates it to the idea that Black People in America, due to problems with narcotics and crime and many other problems that they'd rather go back to slavery. It's absurd.

Look at Saudi Arabia. Everyone used to be sure that the stability of the Saudi regime was important for our stability - keeping the flow of oil going. So we've supported them. The trouble is that dictatorial regimes always need external enemies to help keep the people in line, so these tribal leaders of Saudi Arabia have been supporting the Wahhabis and the result is that the stability of the Saudi regime has resulted in instability throughout the world, and that is the price that America has paid for this "bargain."

Sharansky proposed years ago to American leaders that they institute some sort of Jackson Amendment for the Saudis. If we had done this years ago - insisted on some small freedom reforms in return for all our support - we would not be facing the problems we're facing today.

As for China, says Sharansky, he believes the great superpower conflict of the future will be between America and China, and then you'll see how the level of security for the United States will be in direct proportion to the level of Liberty for Chinese people in their own country.

- The nut who was filming and passing out literature at the entrance got to ask his question about then. Let me give a helpful reminder to all those folks out there who worry about this type of guy showing up at these events. He was annoying, yes, but he was not disruptive of the event - he did not heckle. The effect of his presence and his question did two things. One, it showed what a doofus he was, and two, it was a softball Sharansky could handle easily. Thus, he got a good response out there and the guy ended up being shown for what he was - a loser. Natan Sharansky spent years in the gulag eating grass soup. He can handle a hostile question and handle it well.

The question was some nonsense about Israel and Zionist ethnic particularity and "routine violations of human rights." You can hear it in the audio below on the third section, starting at about 4:45. Sharansky began his answer, the guy tried to argue back, Sharansky handled it well, "I listened to you attentively, now let me answer and if you want to give your own lecture..." I won't transcribe the answer. Go ahead and listen to the audio. Very good stuff.

- A student asked about the problems on college campuses and bias.

Sharansky said he's been on many campuses and is familiar with the problems that do exist. At one place "I even had a taste of some pie, but later someone told me it was kosher, so it's OK."

The questions and conflicts are natural and OK. Only when it crosses over into what is becoming the new anti-Semitism is it not OK. Criticism within the democratic state of Israel is fine and encouraged. What he looks for is to see when the old canards of the anti-Semites begin to be used against Israel. His basic test is the "3-D" principle. The D's being: Demonization - the TV productions showing Israelis making matzo from Christian blood, the relating of modern Israel with a Nazi state and comparing the status of refugee camps to modern Auschwitz, meaning you either don't know what Auschwitz was or you know very well but want to demonize Israel, when the best cartoon in England is Sharon eating a Palestinian baby with blood dripping from his mouth, or the top cartoon in Italy shows a young baby Jesus with the caption "Oh, so you want to crucify me again?" - this is classical demonization of Israel and that represents the modern anti-Semitism and he sees it on many campuses: The second is the Double-Standard - The use of one standard for all others, and another for Jews. It's possible to do the same to Israel, such as the abuse of the Geneva Convention and Israel bizarrely being the only country in the past 50 years to be condemned for its treatment of prisoners under it, or the fact that Israel's Red Star of David (their Red Cross) is the only group excluded from the International Committee of the Red Cross because it's said their presence would insult other members, or the fact that Israel is condemned internationally more than all the dictatorships of the world put together means that Israel is measured by a different yardstick. These are double-standards and they mean anti-Semitism. The third D is Delegitimization - that Israel has no right to exist and that it's the last colony and must be destroyed. That is anti-Semtism. In the past it was delegitimization of Jews as a people, today it manifests itself as delegitimization of the right of Israel to exist as a state. It's all over the campuses.

He also says that "Thank God," he's seen more and more people in the last year or two fighting against it.

- Finally, a woman asked about the "horrific torture" in Guantanamo, Iraq and the "renditions" we've been hearing about and what dangers these things might represent to us.

Sharansky reminded us that we were in the middle of a war, and rights always suffer in a war - that after 9/11 President Bush had the option of pursuing just the perpetrators as a police matter, or considering the issue as a wider war and that Sharansky agrees with the strategic decision that he made. If he (Bush) wanted to destroy terror, he had to deal with Iraq eventually.

When a democracy is at war, it is always a difficult balancing act. Yes, there have been some terrible things that have happened, but never forget that after the events surfaced, there was an investigation, there was a debate in Congress, there were media reports, some people went to prison, others left the Army...imagine for a moment that it happened in the Iraqi Army, or the Soviet Army, or even the Chinese Army - the world would never even know about it. That's the difference between a democratic country which may violate Human Rights, and a society in which Human Rights simply don't exist. Remember that Americans can use the tools of democracy to protect Human Rights. The events in Abu Ghraib (for instance) IN NO WAY creates any similarity between a democracy like America and a regime like Saddam Hussein's.

This first talk ended at about 6:00. Here is the audio of the talk (Right Click...Save As...):

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

The next talk started at 6:30 at the Kennedy School itself, so it was a quick walk across Harvard Square in the snow to get there. The subject of that talk was to be a bit more general:

This time the place was packed and I barely got a seat in the very back of the room. A lot of recognizable faces were on hand, like Alan Dershowitz and Jeff Jacoby with David Gergen moderating the question and answer session.

I'm going to refrain from a lengthy and detailed description because much of the material overlapped from the earlier talk and frankly, I'm getting bleary-eyed from writing this without a break. I also have a feeling that the professional-level video of the event will surface on this site very shortly [Update: The video is now up!]. In the mean-time, here is the audio (Right Click...Save As...):

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

I'll hit a few interesting talking points along with some commentary that came to mind as the evening went on: On the question of whether freedom is really for everyone he said that people used to say the Russians weren't ready for it. Likewise the Germans and the Japanese. Now look what happened. This point is basically well-taken, and is the most frequently mentioned refutation for the idea (in the case of Japan and Germany) that democracy cannot be imposed by force of arms. I do wonder, however, how much totalitarian systems function as a sort of lid over the underlying society, and that what removing that lid really does is allow the true nature of the culture it sits on to express itself.

Maybe the fact that I'm currently reading Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations is leaving a few impressions, but it does seem worrisome that bringing freedoms to certain countries prematurely may, in some cases, merely have the effect of taking the lid off something that should have been left to stew a little longer. Japan and Germany had underlying totalitarian systems that were utterly destroyed by force of arms. Japan particularly was staring over the precipice of starvation and nuclear annihilation and their entire system was re-constructed. Russia and Eastern Europe were in a state of proximity pollination with the West for decades that began preparing them long before the wall came down.

We see shades of the problem with immigration to Europe of large numbers of people coming straight in from societies where the concepts of individual freedom and Human Rights are stunted by comparison, and witness even long-standing democracies difficulty with dealing with this influx and protecting their standards even when they decide to set their minds to it.

I suppose Sharansky might answer that there's no need to fear - remove the Western-style dictator and the Islamist-type emerges...so what? Below that is a universal human character that values freedom and will eventually emerge sometimes with a little help. Just keep at it. Witness Afghanistan...so far. Once the people have instituted a Free society in place of a Fear society, war will always be nothing more than a remote possibility.

In the talk, Sharansky mentions Saudi Arabia as another place people say freedom will not work. But look, he says, take a flight from Riyadh to London and watch how people run to change their clothing - even their entire mode of behavior as they begin to throw off some of the burdens of Double-Think and their true selves show.

On true freedom: He tells of going in to be interrogated by the KGB while he was in prison. He tells a joke about Brezhnev which has the guys from the KGB simultaneously laughing, trying to keep themselves from laughing and yelling at him that he should not tell such disrespectful jokes and he asks, Are you the free man who cannot even laugh when you want to laugh? Now which of is free, and which of us is a prisoner?

On the nature of a Fear society: One of the dangers of the Fear Society is the need to constantly find enemies. All the energy of the Soviet Union was being used in the battles against enemies at home and abroad, and when there were none, they would need to invent them. It's a great waste of energy for a nation, and it's a big reason why Fear Societies can never be trusted. They may be your friend today, but tomorrow they may need you as an enemy. People ask why it is that Egypt, in spite of being officially at peace with Israel - why is it that Egypt is one of the main producers of anti-Semitic propaganda in the form of television programming and print-material. In fact, its production of such material has only increased since the signing of the peace treaty. This in spite of billions of dollars in US aid and "good" relations and many concessions from Israel. The answer is simple and is in the nature of a totalitarian Fear Society. When they lost Israel as an enemy, they lost this glue for their society. They lost Israel as a political enemy and that political enemy needed to be replaced. And there is no better enemy, no easier enemy to find than the traditional enemy...the enemy of convenience always close at hand for anyone the world over...the Jews.

Again, he brings up the subject of Saudi Arabia, and how he was rebuffed in his suggestions ten years ago to tie some sort of democratic reform to the aid that country gets, and how he was told that Saudi Arabia was not about reform, Saudi Arabia is about stability. Ten years later you see what kind of stability we've bought. But people don't understand the mechanism. Saudi Arabia is a fear society. They are a tribal dictatorship who have a lot of people to keep under control, including their own Double-Thinkers and they need an enemy. Thus they turn to supporting the Wahhabis.

That's the price of stability for Saudi Arabia - instability everywhere else. So, says Sharansky, it is always better to deal with a democracy which hates you than a dictatorship which loves you.

It's not about imposing democracy. You don't need to. Dictatorships are externally aggressive and dangerous, but they are often brittle on the inside due to the amount of energy they have to exert to keep freedom in check. Dictatorships are like a man holding a heavy gun on someone. Eventually, the arm gets tired, the gun goes down and he is overcome. You don't need to impose democracy - simply stop giving energy to the support of the dictator. Stop supporting them!

So, dictatorial regimes need the Free World as an enemy to keep their own people under control, and they need the Free World as a friend in order to get the energy they need to continue to do so. How do they get it? Agreements like detente where the dictator gets us both as enemy and friend, or the Middle East "Peace Process" where Arafat was given all manner of favor with no conditions, and all he did was use it to spread more hatred to protect himself and his control.

Interesting snippet on Iran: He said a friend who recently traveled there came back saying the atmosphere was just like it was in the final days of the Soviet Union. The entire country has gone from a nation of True Believers to a nation of Double-Thinkers in a single generation, and where the leadership is very anti-American but the people are very pro-American. He also said that there does come a time when a democracy must go to war to deal with immediate threats. That's always true. But something else is true. When you go to war against a dictator, it always, always, always means that preceding that war was a long period of appeasement during which time you were helping to support that dictator.

If Iran gets the bomb, it will be because others gave it to them. They produce nothing.

It is critical to encourage dissent. They are ripe for change from the inside. Why aren't we giving more money to Iranian dissidents to broadcast into their country?

Sharansky does not believe, like Fareed Zakariah, that poverty tends to preclude democracy. He believes that if you bring democratic reform, the people will be able to push for the changes that bring more prosperity.

On the "Occuptaion": He wants to give the Palestinians all the rights in the world except the right to "destroy me." Therefore it is necessary that the state that emerges be a democratic one, not a terrorist one. The depth of our concessions should directly mirror the depth of democratic reform on the other side. He's made this point in the past, but there's one politician now who seems to understand it. That man is George W. Bush.

On the UN: "I'm very skeptical on the United Nations. Most people voting in the United Nations are not representative of their people." He prefers a substitute for the UN that includes only democratic countries.

Let me wrap up quickly before I keel over. Sharansky is an inspiration and his words are a high-protein diet full of crunchy-goodness whether you agree with every word or not. There is a depth there that no one who wants to have an opinion on the world today can afford not to be familiar with. I hope the reader has gotten something out of this post. I encourage you to give the audio I've provided a try. Hopefully the video will be up soon. [Update: It's up.]

One final word. A point Sharansky made several times: Never ever confuse the relatively small, solvable problems and imperfections that exist in real democracies with what goes on in a Fear Society. The scale is completely different. Appreciate what you have. More on this point another time.

Update: Here is the article in the Harvard Crimson on the event. Sadly, the article gives far too much attention to the two hostile questioners (one at each event) in my opinion, and sanitizes the first saying:

In fact, he was the only one who did so, not audience members, and he went far beyond just questioning the rights of Palestinians. He compared the Zionists to Nazis.