Promotion of Liberty
I saw a film a few days ago, which ended with these words:
“Please use your liberty, to help promote ours.” It’s a quote from Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the Burmese National Democratic Party and the film was, appropriately enough, a biography of a large part of her life. I went to see the movie for a number of different reasons, not least the presence of Michelle Yeoh who, as readers of this blog may recall, is one of my idols along with Grommit (of Wallace and Grommit fame). Without wanting to say much about the film, I can comfortably reveal that I wept buckets, which is not something I’m prone to do.
The quote at the end was as much a statement about the woman it originated from, as it was about the movie itself. My life is, for the large part, comfortable, safe, secure, and the state is ethically obliged and socially expected to be looking out for my interests, even if I sometimes believe the methods that the state deploys and the ideology that it uses to decide how to look out for my interests, are flawed. It’s very easy, under such circumstances, to sit back and say, ‘isn’t it terrible what happens in…’ and there the thought process ends. The events on the other side of the world are, to most people in a hurry at nine a.m., as to nothing compared to the agony of trying to get on a crowded bus, or the indignation at a parking ticket – it can be hard to think yourself into another person’s shoes, let alone shoes that have walked such distant soils. Yet if the twenty first century brings anything, it is the technology to learn of a world beyond your own, and arguably, the act of knowledge brings with it a degree of obligation.
Once you reject, and wisely so, the use of force to bring about change then you fairly quickly have to fall back on words and ideas, and in this regard, the making of a film is as much a political act as a piece of art. Nothing is black and white; there are no perfect saints and no absolute ideals, but there are a few ideas at least which come pretty damn close. The freedom to speech, the freedom to debate, to think, to criticise; the freedom to chose for yourself, to be judged for your deeds and not for your race, creed, colour, wealth, social status or political inclinations; the freedom to live a life without fear. I have respect for those peoples who say ‘your ideas are not my ideas, and should not be imposed’ but there are some ideas, I think, which are integral not to any one culture, or philosophy, but to the very nature of what humanity is. And if we can do nothing else, then at the very least, let us spread them.
