J'accuse: The Democrat's Business

It is said that Louis XVI, upon ascending the scaffold, tried to give one of his guards a message for the queen, but was met with the following reply: "I am not here to run your errands but to lead you to the guillotine." With that, the shots fired at Lexington in 1775 found their consummation in France's last words to a tyrant in 1793. In each, the commitment to securing the rights, freedoms, and privileges that separate civilization from barbarism entailed acts of unspeakable brutality that, though far from enviable, exist as permanent and profound beacons of light for all who continue to live in the darkness of oppression.

On Thursday, December 27, Benazir Bhutto, twice Prime Minister of Pakistan, was struck down by an assassin's bullet amidst the cries of agony, disbelief, and vengeance from her supporters. For to them, Bhutto was, quite literally, the personification of their hopes for a democratically controlled government in Pakistan; and before their very eyes, both she and their collective vision, were murdered. Their assassins, pusillanimous to the very end, have demonstrated the poverty and deplorability of their aims to the world, and stand for even less after Pakistan was plunged into an abyss whose depths their character was too impoverished to measure.

The people of Pakistan (and all who wish to call themselves Democrats) are now faced with a choice: capitulation or resistance. The latter will necessitate the blood of patriots and tyrants for weeks, months, and years to come; the former will entail the denial of liberty in perpetuity. These are, as Paine reminds us, the times that try men (and women's) souls; and though their place of origin is half-way around the world, the birth pangs of democracy are universal in their plea for solidarity. Their existence depends on the same unwavering commitment to freedom for others that we insist on for ourselves.

Yet, despite the universality of Pakistan's cause, there are those in the United States who insist on widening the gulf that separates the two nation's commitment to democracy. "The problems of Pakistan are of no concern to the United States," they argue. Perhaps, but how might their lives be different had their ancestors not decided to fight and die for freedoms to be enjoyed not by them, but by generations yet unborn? Was the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's William Lloyd Garrison's business? Was the trial of Calas Voltaire's business? Was the condemnation of Dreyfus Zola's business? No, but at stake was the possibility for the defense of universal values and the very existence of the socio-political freedoms charged with their preservation.

It troubles me that others are troubled by just how pervasive the fight for popular participation in politics can, and indeed should, be. With freedom comes responsibility, and with responsibility comes obligation. Supposedly inalienable rights are not secured by ceasing and desisting; nor will they magically appear for others when we ourselves have turned our backs in indifference; they are fought for and won by ordinary citizens with an unwavering commitment to liberty, preserved by perpetual struggle, and, perhaps most ominously, lost even where thought most secure when the trials and tribulations requisite for their existence are forgotten. The tree of liberty in Pakistan has been christened with the blood of patriots; now it must be refreshed with the blood of a tyrant.

Blessed with the very freedoms for which Pakistan is fighting, and with history as our guide, we are not here to run his errands or support his government; we are here to lead him to the guillotine. That is the Democrat's business.