Freedom and the moon
A human statue. The woman with a beret and red eyes who, everyday, come rain or come shine, waits in front of the Portuguese Parliament artists’ entrance is waiting for what exactly? Whenever I pass by her, we exchange glances, but I don’t quite understand what’s behind those bloodshot eyes. Usually, she doesn’t turn, just keeps facing the entrance, whispering I don’t know what. A counter-speech, some kind of claim, a utopia-in-progress? Or is she praying to the state religion gods? Yes, there’s something about this beret woman that makes one think of Ancient Greece, old statues, a priestess of the Mysteries, a Democracy martyr. When she’s standing there, alone, whispering in the Parliament’s ear, it feels like Democracy deserves a capital letter. I don’t know. No. The woman is the woman, and she waits. Between hope and despair, she risks quietude. Is that it?
Today is April 25th, day of the Portuguese revolution that tore down four decades of dictatorship and established a democratic regime, and I think of an essay by Natalia Ginzburg I read some time ago. In the early seventies, the Italian novelist — who had been part of the Resistance and had seen her husband, Leone Ginzburg, being arrested and murdered by Mussolini’s totalitarian regime — writes about freedom. About how much that simple, immense word had changed. It felt, she said, like it was the word that had changed the most during her generation’s lifetime. Immediately after phrasing this thought, she interrupts herself: no, maybe the word “moon” had changed in the same proportion. Since a man had been up there and had walked on the surface of the moon, that word had also become very different.
It’s one of the greatest challenges we face today, I think. For all of us — whether we were born and raised in democracy, or helped built it from scratch —, freedom has become our ground. The minimum, indisputable, unassailable common ground on which we walk as citizens of a certain community (city, country, European Union). Indisputable, unassailable and, because of that, easily ignored. When, in a simultaneously gradual and sudden fashion (thanks to technology, social networking and the lack of rules in the virtual sphere), far-right movements are getting the support needed to sabotage Democracy and the Rule of Law, all democrats should take a moment to reconsider this common ground of freedom.
The tectonic plates of History are moving. The ground is fragile, it turns out. So we must take good care of it. Being atentive and imaginative, we have to find ways to illuminate the value of each democratic achievement. Never forgetting that, among those, is the exercise of hope. We must take that simple, immense word “freedom” and make it our flag. If the ones on the side of xenophobia, intolerance and greed are taking back the time to the dark ages, we must bring ourselves to believe again — with our ever-young hearts — in the power of freedom and fight for it. To have it as a lighthouse guiding us in each actual step and to protect it as a collective value. Because true freedom for each of us is only possible when there’s true freedom for all of us.
Some days ago, going down Rua Nova da Piedade, in Lisbon, I saw someone walking up with a big smile. No way, I thought. But, yes, it was her. We said hi and kept going our separate ways. Perhaps it was just my impression, but I could almost swear the city got a little quieter for a second. It sure was appropriate: Democracy was going up the street.