FREE TO WRITE

Over the years, one of the things that I have given an enormous amount of thought to is what my responsibilities are as a creative. Especially writing. 

Shane Brigg shares some
deep personal reflections

What I have resolved in myself is that the freedom I have in writing comes with sobering obligations. 

Several narratives have inspired this resolution.....

Consider the dystopian world of the movie “The Book of Eli” where the main character is the custodian of the last remaining copy of the Bible, or another which is represented in Fahrenheit 451 where society has outlawed books (they are burned along with the houses they are hidden in). Then there is the superlative work of Marcus Zusak’s “The Book Thief” which represents the book burnings of Nazi Germany during World War 2. The main character discovers a book and begins her adventure of stealing books from the burning piles. Throughout the novels and stories mentioned above the written word, writing, reading, and language are presented as metaphors of freedom, hope and justice. They provide identity and personal liberty to characters who gain "the true power of words" (Zusak). 

The real-life stories and writing of Dietrich Bonhoeffer reflect this perspective and have also been inspiration for me, as do the lives and stories of other writers and thinkers who laid their life on the line to deliver ideas, information, and ideologies through the written word.

The freedom to write comes under a myriad of forms. Along with the delivery of its creativity, prophetic elaborations and provocations have come long-standing threats against writers and the freedom to write. Writers are often influential voices that play a key role in inspiring activists, analyzing, and critiquing state and world affairs, imagining different realities and futures, and generally challenging the status quo so that justice is presented, proposed, produced, and protected. This has meant that through the ages writers have collided with other entities.  As new realities emerge in our world today, including local, regional, and potential world conflicts, the COVID-19 pandemic, other diseases, and repressive responses to sweeping protest movements writers are continuing to do what they do best..... 

Write. 

This often comes at a cost.

Throughout history writers have had their individual freedoms constrained by individuals, groups and authorities (in democratic and authoritarian countries alike). Writers and thinkers who attempt to question social or cultural norms, preserve ethno-linguistic traditions, or criticize policy, plans, perspectives of various structures and processes remain common targets for officials and leaders treating peaceful expression as a threat. Legal charges, detention, threats, and even death are all strategies utilized to silence writers’ voices and ideas from reaching and influencing a wider audience.

During 2020 alone, according to data collected for the Freedom to Write Index (Produced by PEN*), at least 273 writers, academics, and public intellectuals in 35 countries—in all geographic regions around the world—were in prison or unjustly held in detention in connection with their writing, their work, or related activism. *PEN exists as a support network to give writers a voice, to provide for intellectual exchange and to promote freedom of expression for all writers. The acronym originally stood for ‘poets, essayists, and novelists’ but now includes playwrights and editors among that number. Testimonials recounted by Christian ministries such as the Voice of the Martyrs, Open Doors, and  Asia Harvest (and others) speak of countless God-fearing souls who have been incarcerated and martyred for delivering faith-fuelled messages via their writing and lives.

When PEN was in its formative days it was threatened by the rise of Nazism in Germany. At its 1933 Congress in Dubrovnik, the Assembly of Delegates (led by PEN’s president of the time : H. G. Wells) reaffirmed the Galsworthy resolution as a response to events of the previous few months:  the Nazi Party had burned many thousands of books it deemed ‘impure’ (inconsistent with, or hostile to its ideology) in bonfires across Germany. The following day, the German delegation attempted to prevent Ernst Toller, an exiled Jewish-German playwright, from speaking. The German delegation walked out of the Congress – and, out of PEN, until after World War Two. An overwhelming majority rejected the German position and reaffirmed the principles on which they had just voted.

Interestingly a dedication inscribed on a PEN International memorial which sits in a simple grove of trees beside Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra says,

‘The spirit dies in all of us who keep silent in the face of tyranny.’

I have watched with interest the various ‘convoys of freedom’ occurring across the nations this year. These ‘pilgrimages’ (movements of people leading to transformation) have included Australian’s amassing in Canberra, Canadian truckies, families evacuating from the Ukraine, Myanmar refugees, Yemenis, minorities, majorities, millions worldwide in diaspora. Some are by choice, some are forced into exile, some are reactions to individual personal freedoms being limited, some are in fear, some are with a form of faith, some are all about themselves, some are about others, some are friends, some are strangers, some are simply because they want to survive, others because their comforts and securities and liberties have been curtailed. Some walk with limps, some drive their rigs, some must be carried. Some are sad. Some are mad. Some are angry. Some are hopeful. Some are dying. Some have died. 

I am moved with love and compassion with a fair bit of perlustration, sometimes frustration, and much deliberation, and a seeking of wisdom for action. 

Especially in caring for friends who are part of these flows of humanity. I recognized that I have an obligation in my relative freedom: it is a responsibility to do something, and I have discovered, for me, that something is to write.

                                           

Some see freedom as an inherent human right. This includes the right to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinion and expression, the right to work and education, and more.  Everyone is entitled to these rights, without discrimination.

Some see Freedom as an illusion. 

 “Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does,” 

wrote Jean-Paul Sartre. 

But humanity is not so much condemned to be free as condemned to bear the consequences of their choices and to take responsibility for their actions. Humanity has a free will, but that does not make them ultimately free. On the contrary, our choices are mainly driven by survival and default to self-orientation. Moreover, because people live with others, their freedom is limited by morals, laws, obligations and responsibilities – and that’s in countries where human rights are being respected. So, all the freedoms we experience or aspire to are relative: freedom of opinion, freedom of action, freedom to choose a career, residence, or partner. Every choice necessarily leads to a commitment, and thus to obligations and responsibilities. These in turn lead to limitations; but also, to meaning. 

The relative freedom to make a positive contribution to the world gives life meaning, and that is what we all ultimately seek.

In 1944 Justice Learned Hand, speaking to more than a million people in Central Park, New York defined one of the lessons of World War Two when he said:

“And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few – as we have learned to our sorrow.”

He then asked:

“What then is the spirit of liberty? I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interest alongside its own without bias...”

My thoughts are that we simply shouldn’t take Freedom for granted. We simply shouldn’t take liberties that Grace cannot afford. We simply need to discover a freedom that is beyond anything that serves self in a reality of mutuality of supporting and empowering and giving agency in relationship with each other. This supersedes agenda to the place of freedom journeys of a convoy of life that embraces one another not because we see the same but that we love and care and share and give and live in a unity beyond our own personal liberty and freedom. Writing can help do that.

All this makes me think about the words of the Apostle Peter (writing to the believers)

“Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honour everyone.  Love the family of believers. Fear God. Honour the emperor.”

1 Peter 2:16-17

The uncompromising position Dietrich Bonhoeffer took in his seminal work Ethics grapples with the premise that Peter espoused and is raised elsewhere throughout scripture. For Bonhoeffer it was directly reflected in his stance against Nazism. It was during this time grappling with the challenges of WWII, until his arrest in 1943 and death, that he worked on Ethics. 

Both in his thinking (his writing), and in his life, Bonhoeffer’s ethics were centered on the demand for action by responsible people in the face of evil. People should not rest on the laurels of their freedoms (real or perceived). He was sharply critical of ethical theory and of academic concerns with ethical systems precisely because of their failure to confront evil directly. Evil, he asserted, was concrete and specific, and it could be combated only by the specific actions of responsible people in the world. He did this through his writing and this inspires me to do the same.

I am free to write. I am free to write about whatever I will. But in my freedom to write, my personal narrative has become a pursuit of using my craft responsibly. 

For me, writing is a calling to not only do it well, but with a sense of mission, to help bring hope, justice, life and God’s love and freedom. 

Am I enjoying the process? Yes. Is it life bringing and not with a legalistic compulsion? Yes.  Provocative, and catalytic, fuel for thought? Yes. Inspiration to write? Amen.

Maybe it is for you too ?