Freedom: Not Just Another Word
By Dr. Jackson Janes

Within a week of taking office, Chancellor Merkel has already been confronted with her first transatlantic challenge, even before she makes her first official trip to Washington. It has to do with the the notion of freedom.

President Bush and Chancellor Merkel championed the cause of freedom on the same day this week. On November 30, President Bush lectured the nation on the need to understand how staying the course in Iraq meant staying the course toward freedom throughout the greater Middle East because, as he put it, "freedom is the destiny of every man, woman and child on this earth" (1).

In her inaugural speech as Chancellor on November 30, Angela Merkel was more focused on her own country. She approached the subject of freedom by exhorting Germans to dare to have more freedom in their own society, noting that "the biggest surprise of my lifetime is freedom" (2), referring to the unification of Germany in 1990. Merkel was concerned about enhancing the concept of freedom among her fellow citizens whereas President Bush was talking about everyone on the globe.

Both leaders were convinced of the need to advance freedom in their respective speeches. Both would also agree that freedom is a value cherished equally on both sides of the Atlantic and elsewhere throughout the world. Chancellor Merkel was referring to individual freedom and the choices and responsibilities that come with it. President Bush was talking about the relationship between the freedom of Iraqi society as it relates to the world around it. In essence he was arguing that Iraqi freedom is a prerequisite for world peace.

This coincidence of emphasis in the two speeches suggests that the Chancellor and the President will have some common denominators when they meet again in January. However, there remain some problems in working out together just what it requires to ensure that freedom is maintained and respected in the battle against terrorism.

During the next few weeks, there will be a good deal of debate over the alleged movement of prisoners by American intelligence services through European airports on the way to suspected prisons in which torture might be used. Allegations that the CIA was operating covert prisons or "black sites" in Europe and secretly using its airports to fly terrorist suspects to selected countries allegedly practicing torture have surfaced on both sides of the Atlantic during the past weeks. The outcry in Europe and in particular in Germany, where reports of CIA landings in German airports have filled the news in the last few days, resulted in the need for Chancellor Merkel to reference it in her inaugural speech to the Bundestag on Wednesday. "I believe we can trust that the American government is taking European concerns seriously and in the near future will clear up the recent reports on apparent CIA prisons" (3). The issues will also arise in talks with Secretary Rice when she travels to Germany next week.

The outcry and concerns revolve around standards, laws and treaties dealing with the treatment of prisoners and whether any of them were violated by American actions in Europe. But they also revolve around the questions concerning how the war against terror can and should be waged. If freedom is inextricably related to responsibility , who bears responsibility when freedom, an individual's or a state's, is violated? Who is accountable to whom for what actions? The war on terror seems to have made finding answers to these questions more complicated but also more important.

These are questions that challenge states as well as the global community. Achieving a code of conduct within and across borders to regulate these matters is an enormous accomplishment. It is therefore of serious consequence when those codes are violated. Europeans are suspicious that exactly such violations have happened, which is why they need to be addressed clearly and promptly.

Among the many things that underline the ability to maintain those codes, trust is at the core. We need to trust in those codes of conduct if they are to with stand the claims of opportunism and exceptionalism. We also need to trust in those in whom we have placed the responsibility for enforcing those codes. That is why Chancellor Merkel mentioned the word in her speech.

During the past several years since 9/11, the debate in the United States has raged around these questions of what constitutes the limits and the protection of freedom as we face threats of a new order. There is an unending debate over everything from the Patriot Act to Guantanamo, and now over the allegations of special prisons for special prisoners elsewhere around the globe. In the United States, the administration has been arguing that there needs to be trust in the decisions it is taking in the wake of the exceptional situation we face. But what freedoms and whose freedoms are we willing to curtail to protect ourselves? How do we know how to curtail what? And who decides that? The need for laws, accountability, and upholding freedoms lies at the heart of maintaining a stable society in which everyone has a stake. It is this to which Thomas More's debate with Roper in A Man for All Seasons, refers:

"And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you - where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast - man's laws, not God's - and if you cut them down - and you're just the man to do it - do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?" (4)

This emphasis on the need to stand up laws against the winds relates directly to the present debate led by Senator John McCain in Washington concerning the treatment of detainees by the military and forbidding torture. Senator McCain's aim is unambiguous: to clear up any doubt that could possibly exist about America's standards by standing up a clear code.

At the moment there is a great deal of transatlantic distrust and doubt over these standards. We may agree on the need to protect our freedom, but we also need to agree on what measures we will accept to accomplish that protection. That cannot happen selectively. This is a debate over these issues within our societies as well as among them and we need to pursue it openly and honestly. As President Reagan once reminded us, trust, but verify. There is no side of this debate that carries a moral advantage, as we are all challenged to admit our own shortcomings.

The basis for trust has to be found in our shared commitment to freedom. It should not be a burden on each other to help each verify how we best fulfill that commitment. It will require that we speak plainly and openly with each other about human rights wherever they are violated, and where others need to be named and shamed.

Freedom is not just another word. It represents everything we have to gain. As Timothy Garton Ash put in his latest book, Free World:

"More people are free than ever before. Our possibilities of helping others out of unfreedom are also larger than ever. If Europeans, Americans and free people everywhere don't work together toward this goal, instead of remaining sunk in a narcissism of minor differences, it will be impossible to achieve" (5).

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Sources:
(1) President George W. Bush, Speech at the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland, November 30, 2005.
(2) "Die größte Überraschung meines Lebens ist die Freiheit." Chancellor Angela Merkel, Government Declaration, November 30, 2005.
(3)"Ich glaube, dass wir in diesem Zusammenhang auch darauf vertrauen können [...] dass die amerikanische Regierung die Besorgnis in Europa ernst nimmt und jüngste Berichte zu angeblichen CIA-Gefängnissen und illegalen Flügen[...] kurzfristig aufklären wird." Chancellor Angela Merkel, Government Declaration, November 30, 2005.
(4) Thomas More, A Man for All Seasons
(5) Timothy Garton Ash, Free World
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This essay appeared in the December 2, 2005 AICGS Advisor.

Please direct comments to: jjanes@aicgs.org
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Want to know more? Check out these links:

"Merkel Wants to be an Honest Broker." By Gunther Hellman, December 2, 2005

"Folterstaat Amerika." By Michael Naumann, Die Zeit, November 29, 2005. German Only

"Washington Urged to Come Clean on Secret Prisons." By Daniel Dombey, The Financial Times Online, December 1, 2005.

"U.S. Tries to Reassure Europe on CIA Flights." By Steven Weisman, International Herald Tribune, November 29, 2005.