By Farid Mirbagheri, Professor of International Relations and Senior Fellow at Strategy International
Freedom has been the linchpin of much that has driven humanity to move beyond the present and aspire for loftier goals. This has been particularly so in the past few centuries since the American and French Revolutions of 1776 and 1789 respectively, where vast groups of people laid bare their lives for the sake of ideas and ideals.
At present, more than two centuries since those historic landmarks, we seem to live in free societies, where we choose our governments in periodic elections, can be critical of our rulers, and even decide to launch new platforms in opposition to the status quo. Freedom appears the most celebrated precept in our political and economic affairs.
But how real is our sense of freedom? Are we really free in what we do, what we think, how we vote, or in general how we live our lives? The answer, in my view, is both yes and no. Yet despondently and increasingly we appear to be losing our power to determine the course of our lives and the ability to freely chart our social and political track. Where are we heading towards in our liberal democracies?
Three institutions in particular are responsible this dangerous trajectory. Namely, financial institutions, the press and the media, and governments. The first controls your pocket and determines the parameters of your financial living, how you can enjoy the fruits of progress in material world, and generally how you will manage your possessions. They do this partly by the indirect and illegal printing of money – credit system. Health, justice, education, entertainment, arts and sports, etc. will be available to you only according to the size of your pocket. The state will provide some of the basics for you, but they will be only the basics.
The press and the media will saturate you with information but will starve you of knowledge. Public opinion formers have a mastery in painting a confused picture, where you begin to doubt your own sanity. The good is shown to be bad and vice versa, and in a short period of time the same convoluted picture turns on its head conveying an opposite message. They treat people with unmitigated contempt, yet still they manage to keep, though in decreasing numbers, their critical mass audience.
Governments, holding the monopolies of allegiance, taxation, adjudication, possession and control over the means of violence, and representation, have forfeited their mandates in promoting and protecting human rights and are increasingly toeing the line of mega financial institutions. It would be hard if not impossible to name even one banker, anywhere in the world, who has faced criminal charges over their mishandling and misappropriating of peoples’ monies and has been incarcerated as a result. Gone are the days when politicians were armed with a set of principles that they passionately believed in. Now we have political masters, who are not leaders but followers of polling agencies and media ratings.
The causes of our decline are deep and broad. Horizontal solutions will not in themselves provide a durable remedy for our malaise. We need a profound restructuring of our system, where freedom is imbued with justice, where one will not be able to commit carnage in the name of freedom, and human dignity and human rights will stand tall, well above the maxim of profit. When wars will no longer be profitable even to few, and peace will generate security and prosperity for all. Doing so requires a serious probing within ourselves first to identify the root causes of discord, and only then try to change and adjust the external environment accordingly. Failure to do so can cost us our freedom and possibly even our very survival on this planet.
