The Power of Freedom
By Natan Sharansky

As dissident in the Soviet Union 30 years ago, I was often asked skeptical questions about the value of democracy. I still get these questions today. They fall into three groups:

 

First: Who says democracy is good for everybody? The free world is used to it, but what makes us think democratic governance belongs in completely different cultures and mentalities?

 

Second: Even if all people were capable of living in democracy, mightn't it be bad for our own security? We should be fighting for our safety, not for the freedom of others. Maybe democracy will make the world less stable and allow unfriendly regimes to come to power in other countries.

 

Third: Who says we have any role to play? Even if democracy does work for everybody, and even if democracy does not endanger our own interests, can we really impose it on others?

 

What are the answers to those questions?

 

Let's begin with the idea that democracy might be good for America, but maybe not other places. Many times in the past we heard that Germany, Japan, Latin America, or Russia were not up for democracy. We dissidents in the Soviet Union used to hear it from Western leaders: Don't be naive--for a thousand years Russia was a dictatorship, and it will always be a dictatorship in one form or another. Let's not expend effort on the impossible. Let's find ways to appease Russian dictatorship, to live in peace with it.

 

Similarly, close advisers to President Truman believed in 1945 that democracy was not right for Japan. It's very important to fight against militarism in Japan, they said, but to think that the West can encourage such an ancient civilization built on hierarchy and discipline to entertain democracy is hopeless.

 

These people were all wrong. Democracy works for everybody. My conviction is based not on wishful thinking, but on my experiences living in a totalitarian regime.

 

The weakness of fear-based societies

 

Those of us who were dissidents in the Soviet Union were a varied lot. In one prison cell there would be a Russian monarchist, then a Ukrainian nationalist, and in another a Pentecostal who was not permitted to teach his children his religion. We all had very different views of the world, but we agreed on one thing: we wanted to live in a society that permits dissent.

 

I use what I call the "town square test." If you can go to the center of town and publicly express your views without being punished, you have a free society. That society may not be just; there may be many wrongdoings; but that society is free. People do not live in fear of being punished.

 

If you are punished for your views you live in a fear society. And in any fear society there are always three types of population: True believers, who accept the ideology of the society; dissidents, who take risks to speak publicly; and double-thinkers, who have doubts or disagreements about the official ideology but are afraid to express them publicly.

 

The level of dissidence is always a function of how tough the regime is. Some people say, "Look, there are no dissidents in some Arab countries, so where is the demand for democracy?" But in Stalin's Russia of the 1930s there were no dissidents either--they were simply killed immediately. If Gandhi had promoted his theories in Nazi Germany, he would never have developed a following of millions, because he would have been killed before he could collect any followers.

 

In the Soviet Union of the 1960s and '70s, the punishment for dissent was not immediate death, but imprisonment. So there were hundreds of dissidents. But dissidents are always the tip of the iceberg.

 

The overwhelming majority in any dictatorship are double-thinkers. I remember the moment I became a double-thinker. I was five years old and my father, making sure that the neighbors who lived in the same communal apartment with us didn't hear, explained to me and my seven-year-old brother that Stalin had just died, and that this was a great miracle because he had killed a lot of people. We Jews were probably saved by his disappearance. So he said, "Remember, a miracle happened. We are very lucky. But don't say that to anybody. Do what everybody does."

 

The next day I went to kindergarten and cried with everybody, with real tears, and sang songs about the great leader of all our people, Joseph Stalin. Yet inside I knew that a miracle had happened and that we Jews were very happy he died.

 

That was the beginning of a life of double-thinking. Dissidents from Iran, North Korea, or any other oppressed country describe exactly the same state of mind. To outside observers they look like societies of true believers--everybody says the same thing, everybody votes the same way, everybody speaks with passion. But these people live with self-censorship throughout their lives. Since the regime demands loyalty right from childhood, many don't even notice. They just automatically control how they express themselves.

 

But when a fear society disappears or becomes weak, people suddenly start saying what they feel. It's such a big relief. Only then do people realize how bad their lives were before. It's like when you go on a long hike with a weight on your shoulders, and you almost don't notice it after a while. But then you stop and take it off, and you feel so easy, so light, like a bird, it seems that you can fly. That is the feeling when people move from a life of constant fear to the life of a free person.

 

This feeling of relief is why Japanese and Germans and Russians and people in Latin America and many other places, when given the opportunity to be free of the life of fear, grabbed their opportunity. That is why freedom is for everybody.

 

Despots are dangerous

 

What about world stability? Can we afford to have people who are not ready for democracy, or who might misuse it, blundering about? Isn't it better to guarantee predictability through reliable dictators? As President Johnson once put it, to have our son of a bitch?

 

I debated this for 30 years. I remember how Andrei Sakharov tried to explain again and again to Western visitors that there is no such thing as a peaceful dictator. That you cannot rely on leaders who don't treat their own people well. I learned that dictatorships are always dangers to peace.

 

Every leader wants to stay in power as long as possible. That's human nature. But democratic leaders, in order to keep power, depend on their people. So they have to make serious efforts to improve the lives of their citizens. And because the majority in every society wants to avoid unnecessary wars, true democracies are rarely violent.

 

There may be democracies who hate us, but their main activities will necessarily be directed at improving life for their own people, not at destroying us. A democracy that hates you is better than a dictatorship that loves you.

 

The real challenge for dictators is how to keep their people under control. It becomes increasingly difficult to control the brains of people in today's open world. So in countries ranging from the Soviet Union to Syria there is brainwashing, punishment, a KGB, a gulag.

 

The most powerful weapon used by every dictator is the external enemy. Dictators constantly mobilize their people for struggle. They need wars. They need ideological enemies.

 

This causes dangers even when the dictatorship is a not-very-powerful state like Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia was saved by the U.S. in the first Gulf War. When I first started coming to America I asked opinion makers, "How come at this moment when Saudi Arabia's existence depends fully on the United States of America, you are not doing anything to encourage some change? I understand you can't just demand that Saudi Arabia become democratic. But why not link your assistance to some changes?" Over and over I heard from respectable political figures in America that because of its oil and so forth, Saudi Arabia is not a question of democracy for us. It is a question of stability.

 

So for generations, America built its security on support of the dictatorial regime in Saudi Arabia. Yet this regime, in order to be able to control its own people, financed and supported Wahabism--Islamic extremism--inside the country and all over the world. So the price of stability then turned out to be terror today.

 

Democracy wins

 

Does this mean we should send troops all over the world to fight dictators? Fortunately, troops are usually not required. Dictatorships can be very dangerous, ugly, and frightening, but inside they are extremely weak. The longer they exist, the more energy they must exert to keep their own people under control. Eventually they cannot compete with free societies.

 

Go back to the example of the Soviet Union, defeated without one shot fired. When Ronald Reagan said to the dictatorship I lived under, "We can't trust you, so we're going to build a missile defense," the Soviet leaders understood they simply could not keep up.

 

The great unconventional weapon which nobody except the free world possesses is the creative power of freedom and democracy. Democracy and security are not incompatible goals. They are inseparable.

 

Natan Sharansky was imprisoned in the Soviet Union for a decade before emigrating to Israel, where he serves today as Minister for Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs. His new book is The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror.