In pursuit of justice, Iowa City Public Library, September 15, 2006, Video, 700k |
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In pursuit of justice, Iowa City Public Library, September 15, 2006, Video, 700k
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| Title | In pursuit of justice, Iowa City Public Library, September 15, 2006 |
| Creator |
Thāmir, Fāḍil Bugul, Ken Djusubalieva, Jamby Sa'adeh, Mazen |
| Creator - Nationality |
Iraqi Senegalese Kyrgyz Palestinian |
| Contributor | Ferrer, Hugh |
| Date Original | 2006-09-15 |
| Description | Fadhil Thamir considers justice "part of our aspiration to discover truth and freedom" tackling the panel topic by asking whether we can "make a dream true?" Ken Bugul also considers justice to be an idea better fit for imagination than reality, highlighting key challenges to pursuing a more just world today. Jamby Djusubalieva reaches conclusions about justice by first exploring injustices he has witnessed. Mazen Sa’adeh grounds his ideas of justice in respect for dignity and the human soul, having personally witnessed ongoing catastrophes in the Israel/Palestine region. |
| Venue |
Iowa City Public Library |
| Geographic Subject | United States -- Iowa -- Iowa City |
| Chronological Subject | 2000-2010 |
| Transcription | Fadhil Thamir (Iraq) In Pursuit of Justice: Can We Make a Dream True? For me, and perhaps for most genuine writers, justice is not merely a legal or the political term related to achieving righteousness or equity in social life and international relations. More broadly, it is also a sort of human dream, fascinating and ethereal, that always slips away and escapes before being touched or achieved. All through the ages, men sought to accomplish justice in their lives by various means and ways. Simple men, philosophers, prophets, men of religion, reformers, poets, artists, revolutionaries and thinkers tried to personify justice in order to be able to grasp it or see it as a concrete thing rather than as an abstract idea. This fact amply illustrates that justice is changeable and relative and could be represented in different forms and aspects. Thus, each person may have his own concept or version for justice. But this subjective and deconstructive hypothesis does not imply that the notion of justice can not be formulated objectively. For Plato, justice is one of the four main virtues, along with wisdom courage, and moderation. In his Republic Plato tries to apply the idea of justice theoretically and philosophically. On the other hand, Aristotle believes that justice implies the respect of all the rules that govern and organize the relationships between individuals. Both Plato and Aristotle assume that reason and thinking can distinguish justice from injustice. All religions claimed to accomplish and maintain justice whether on earth or in heaven .The Islamic philosopher Al-Farabi, in the Middle Ages wrote of a Virtuous City, in which justice prevails. The English thinker Sir Thomas More created his Utopia as a symbol for justice on earth. Artists devised iconography for justice, a steady balance with parallel and equal scales. Sometimes, literary critics and moralists defend the concept of what is called poetic justice in literature, where proper distribution of reward and punishment is performed by a literary work. Whether justice can be achieved and implemented peacefully or rather by force is a controversial problem. Some believe that justice can be achieved legally, by applying laws fairly. Others believe that justice ought to be sought by means of revolutions, or even dictatorship. It is also widely believed that democracy, human rights, policy of non-interference, and full respect of national and ethnic identities of different nations and minorities are guarantees for erecting the kingdom of justice all over the world. In my country, the ancient Mesopotamia, Hammurabi founded the first legislation in history to lay rules that maintain justice. Nowadays, my people in Iraq have succeeded, in spite of all the challenges, to write down its permanent constitution which tries to lay legal rules for achieving justice through respecting human rights. 1 Some socialist thinkers support the idea that real justice cannot be maintained without socialism and radical social reforms, whereas democrats, and liberals, such as Francis Fukuyama, propose what is called the end of history where the flourishing of justice cannot be accomplished without free-market systems of capitalism and globalization. So, justice seems for most people a glimmering dream that cannot be captured or grasped. It is part of our aspiration to discover truth and freedom. Can justice then confront all types of challenges in our modern world, i.e. challenges of narrows-mindedness, extremism, terrorism, chauvinism, exploitation, racism and aggression? We hope so, otherwise, we will all be slaves to the forces of tyranny, violence and barbarism. We must pray to make justice prevail for us as individuals and for people of the world, in particular those who suffer from poverty, disease, tyranny, and dictatorship. And our responsibility as writers and intellectuals is not just to pray, but also to work and act to defend values of justice everywhere. 2 Ken Bugul (Senegal) In Pursuit of Justice I am unwilling to talk about justice itself because for the time being I can no longer believe in justice. I would like to talk about a topic linked with writing with which I can discuss justice as something that can occur within writing: I can create a world of justice in my dreams. Anyway I’ll try to say something even though, for me and for all those victims of injustice, the word no longer has significance. What are the key challenges for achieving a more just world today? The challenges are many—very many. But for me the key ones are the following: Obtaining Correct Information I have noticed that the correct information is not provided to people for helping them understand what has happened, what is happening, what will happen. The process of providing the correct information about the historical is very helpful for understanding the present and to foresee the future. It allows human beings—in whom I still try to believe—to make up their minds. That is why the correct and appropriate information is capital. Information is always falsely oriented. The media’s and the politicians’ speeches deliver an aspect of the information, and occult the rest. And most of the people believe in what they see, what they hear and what they read. Many people do not have the opportunity to look for truth due to many factors such as one’s level of education, and ignorance, and selfishness. In Africa, particularly in Sub Saharan Africa, we are suffering from the information internationally delivered about us. Africa is seen as the continent of poverty and misery. I have rarely seen in the media or in any speeches, or in remarks and questions about Africa, the right information given, with few exceptions. Africa is always described as the continent with only the worst images. I am very fed up with the remarks of people asking whether I am living in a hut or on a tree; whether I have AIDS or tuberculosis; whether I am eating every day; how I flew from a continent of wars, genocide, masses of refugees, and whether that is all there is in Africa. All the achievements, all we have gone through, the energy of its people—particularly women— are just disregarded. We are facing problems of poverty, but everywhere else there is poverty, AIDS, tuberculosis, nervous depression, maniacs, (Fortunately we are very concerned by nervous depression and maniacs), particularly where we are not expecting them. The so called developed world sent us information on their countries which only shows their best aspects, never the bad aspects. There is no justice if people do not have the right information, and do not know the truth. The second challenge is irresponsibility We must be aware of our responsibility of bringing about justice. Our responsibilities include a deep and honest analysis of situations and how we are responsible for them. Our responsibility for justice concerns each of us. Responsibility means recognition and involvement in responsibility’s implementation. In Africa we see how the rest of the world does not care about the reasons for civil wars or what and who is responsible; or why it is always in countries with diamonds, oil, cobalt, colton, uranium, bauxite, industrial diamond, 3 and retile, that there are wars. The arms industry, the economic interests, the biased political interests, and corruption are flourishing. We know all the reasons. We have historians, sociologists, economists, and sometimes we feel very bad when the rest of world is occulting the reasons of our dramas and the dramas of other people. When we know that many people are dying from mines and we are not ready to stop them from spreading, that is not justice to the innocent children, young people, and old people who are everyday harmed by mines throughout the world. We know how our environment is destroyed, how resources are savagely exploited, reducing people to poverty and dependency; how dictators are supported by the developed world because of the resources of their countries. In a country like Equatorial Guinea it is only fifty people, members of the family and entourage of the president, who are taking profit from the oil revenues. We know how the right leaders who are fighting for justice are killed or put down through coup d’etats, etc. Disrespect is the third challenge for justice to occur. We must respect differences. We cannot impose on others what is unsuitable for them. Nobody knows better than those concerned what is best for them. We must respect the socio-cultural environment of the people. We must respect the environment—look at the destruction of the Amazon forests and its populations. We must respect the resolutions and decisions of the institutions we have set up. The resolutions of Kyoto on pollution, resolution 242 and others for Palestinian borders, the resolutions on antipersonnel mines, etc. are not applied because of selfish or skewed interests. Why is discrimination going on? We must respect the rules of the game. The World Trade Organization exists with nice buildings for offices in Geneva, a well paid staff, with beautiful cars and nice houses, while that organization cannot make any decision that has application. If we consider the cotton market, how can the agricultures of Burkina Faso, Benin, Mali, Senegal, etc., survive when they cannot sell their cotton on the market at an appropriate price? It is because some countries like the USA dump their agriculture. The Commodities Stock Exchange defines the prices of goods according to the western economy. Why in the Ivory Coast, which used to be the first producer of cocoa, are there children who do not have hot chocolate for breakfast? Why in Sierra Leone do the women not wear their diamonds that they mine in their own country? Why does the colton and the retile of Democratic republic of Congo, instead of profiting the welfare of its people, contribute to civil wars by exchanging these resources for guns and mines to fight their own people? Why in Congo do people pay much more for a gallon of oil than the developed world, when they are producing oil? The oil companies do not care about that. Economic interests, profit, Wall Street, the London Exchange, the apartments for the mistresses, are the only things they know about. Why is Gabon while producing the main medical plants unable to heal their children from diseases? How can we struggle against those who have vetoes when our interest—our international equality—is contrary to their interests? We must respect the indigenous people instead of destroying them with the bad alcohol and manufactured products which are killing them. We must be aware that no one can be happy alone for a long time. The gap between the rich and the poor is growing very quickly, and this leads to frustration; and from frustration it is easy to jump to reaction. Developed countries are spoiling food while children are dying of malnutrition. And they send to them 4 expired milk and meal, through humanitarian aid, which is unfair. More and more, humanitarianism serves the interest of the provider’s countries. Humanitarian organizations are no longer welcome in many places in Africa. We must let a people profit from its own resources. A more just world would mean that the rest of the world has to go through deep changes, and many countries are not ready for that. They do not want to complicate their interests. They do not want to loose their comfort. They do not want to loose the privileges gained from the exploitation of others. They do not want to share. All the religions have recommended generosity. A just world is a dream. And this cannot go like that. Injustice will lead definitely to a world without peace. No justice; no peace. In Africa and elsewhere, we know how the world is functioning and we do not want to be fooled anymore. The new generations have started complaining. If the world does not look for justice for everybody through respect, through freedom, through recognition, through correct information, I will say that all of us are moving towards an inevitable global conflict. It is no longer time for words. It is time for action. Senegal also wants to develop, to live, to care for our families, and to be free. And nobody has the right to impose anything on us whatever. We have the right for justice; if not, we have the right to look for it, by any means necessary. We have to get up stand up for our rights, for justice. 5 Jamby Djusubalieva (Kyrgyzstan) Pathways It was in a remote village in the Kyrgyz Pamir Mountains. I remember vividly the beauty of that night. It was a beautiful night with a bright and generous moon. The firmament of stars suspended so low. In the bright light of the moon the mountains were mighty, gorgeous and friendly. The night was silent. And the whole world seemed to be living in harmony and justice. No TV, no Internet, not even a telephone line in that house—so there no apocalyptic and other discomfiting news from this crazy world. The illusion would be complete if not for a bitter sadness and mourning for my mother who left this world recently—the world to which the beautiful night belonged. It was for me the greatest injustice. I remembered her life as an eternal struggle between the “empire” and “the artist.” This made me choose this theme for the “Pursuit of Justice” panel. I was talking with my father that evening, and he told me, “If you choose this topic, then I hope you will tell the truth, that justice does not exist in this world.” Justice—it is so elusive—is but a passionate and utopian notion. “In Pursuit of Justice” sounds very resolute, but don’t you think we pursue or chase something which doesn’t exist at all or at least here and now—something that escapes us thoroughly. In order to consider justice, I think it is probably best to discuss injustice, as it seems we are more familiar with it. *** I decided to start from the top��from the life of Jesus Christ—more precisely, from his crucifixion. It would be very easy—in a sense, obvious—to talk about justice through the Passion of Christ. Taking the version in Mikhail Bulgakov’s “Master and Margarita,” I would start, for example: “Let’s imagine that Pontius Pilate didn’t have a headache that day, and the Pharisees would finally have pity and free Jesus, and not Barrabas. Jesus would be spared. What an accomplished act of justice it would have been; but it turned in a more sophisticated way. This is what the Crucifixion and the Redemption are about. A flagrant, awful and unjust fact of his crucifixion is the foundation and the force of the Redemption of Jesus, and namely, the acceptance of his death; for this belief made his life of high reverence. His preaching brought to humanity a type of ethic or justice that was yet to be seen: action and response based on love, and not on vengeance. And it opened a different inner dimension of justice and moral action based on love for humanity. The Soviet Union proved for the seventy years of its dreary existence that their application of that ideal justice doesn’t work. But indeed the October Revolution was driven in the name of justice and all the meanings that hide within it: equality, fraternity, and land for farmers, factories and workers. And I think one of the reasons for that terrible failure is that the human being was forgotten behind all this monumental construction of paradise for “the people,” as well as the absence of a human dimension in Marxist theory in general. *** In the Kirghiz language, the word akyikat (Акыйкат) has two meanings, justice and truth. Maybe the answer is here?! And there is a proverb that says, “One can find akyikat in the skies, but there are no stairs to get there.” I am also thinking about this pure image of a lady with a pair of scales and a sword, her eyes blindfolded. The Roman goddess of law, Justitia, is, in effect, a wonderful allegory of impartiality in rendering justice. But, paradoxically, when it comes to reality, the scales are not always wellbalanced. *** 6 Poverty, segregation, political repression, genocide, slavery, torture, and exploitation: here are some of the forms of injustice, which are still the reality in our world. We are still unable to respond to it. We created a non-punitive body of protection of human rights within the United Nations: the high commissioner for human rights, situated in Geneva, along with other international organisations designed to preserve human rights, to help refugees and migrants, and to manage emergency aid in cases of human catastrophes. They all do wonderful work. OHRHR has done tremendous work defending human rights through the system of non-binding covenants and procedures between states, by stressing and international moral responsibility of states. But today the whole system is in crisis. The highest body, the Commission for Human Rights, became a toy in the hands of politics. They have a system of personalities of integrity and respect that monitor the situation of human rights in the world. When I look only through their mandates, it makes me tremble. They talk of “Women and children trafficking and other forms of contemporary slavery,” or “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatments.” *** Some of the larger countries are proud of their level of democracy and system of justice. Founded on the Bill of Rights, and a strong system of federal laws and apparatuses of surveillance, the United States of America seemed to fulfil the ideal of state of law. As one cleric noticed, without such a legal system, ‘“America the beautiful” would be a nation in anarchy, a country uncommonly unfree.” By the way, we have here an excellent recent local scoop demonstrating this—how perfectly lustice works in the States. Yesterday at 2:25 pm, sharp, our dear colleague, showman and poet of dreams, Jose Eugenio Sanchez, from Monterrey, Mexico, was crossing the Clinton street of Iowa City on a red light and immediately was caught by two vigilant policemen, and given a penalty ticket. The impact was tremendous. The scene happened in front of hundreds of students of the University of Iowa. They will apply this lesson, I think. The poet, as usual, suffered. But justice was rendered: Jose Eugenio has to pay twenty dollars of penalty to the United States, plus the pedagogic impact both for the witnesses and Jose. In response to his non-explicit and discrete justifications, the policeman decisively answered: “Don’t forget that you live in a country where you shouldn’t break the law.” Just as an anecdote I tell you that in a few hours it seems that the whole city learned about it. Jose was recognised in the Java House by a sympathizing waitress. Here I have deliberately escaped from talking about pursuing justice in American foreign policy. I thought, at the very least, I wanted to avoid talking about justice from the perspective of politics in general. Politics is so corrupted in our day that sometimes it seems to be a great companion of injustice. I started to go through all those different philosophical theories of wise men we had to study in university: Aristotle, Confucius, Augustine, Kant, Marx, etc. Then suddenly it came to my mind: Pythagoras! His wisdom is so archaic and so fresh at the same time! He used to teach his students, “If putting on your shoes, first you lace a right shoe, be sure that while taking them off, you will unlace first a left shoe.” What a wonderful piece about justice— the symmetry of justice! *** I remember, as well, a visit to our country by Madame Danielle Mitterand, a widow of the former president of France. She came as a leader of her charitable organisation, France-Liberte. And one of the visits was to the orphanage for paralysed children near Bichkek (the capital of Kyrgyzstan). We were very sad. The children had terrible disabilities, and were in poor condition, and obviously they missed attention and love. We were shown “the special case,” the small couple of so-called, “Siamese twins.” Their heads and one arm were coupled; they were totally dependant. We were helpless, sad and devastated. Madame Mitterand then said: “I cannot believe how nature sometimes 7 can be so unjust.” That reflection astonished me. I never thought that nature could ever procure justice or injustice. “To Each his Due” For Meister Eckhart, an outstanding middle-aged mystic philosopher, who made the connexion between justice and a just man, justice was in the just man, and the just man was in justice “For a just man there is no interest or even a goal for his just action. The only goal he has is justice itself. Justice is not affected neither by space or time, neither by size nor quality, neither by this side nor that side. Justice is something whose purpose lies in itself. And there is no multiplicity: Justice is one and the just man is one, even if there are many just men, in capacity of just men they are one, indeed, they are justice itself. The just man does not posses justice, but rather is justice. I liked this. His conception of unity is related to the idea of unity of man (any “rational form of life”) with the absolute. Of course, I am not here to talk on his paradigm (of unity), which is broader and quite unconventional and esoteric. But it leads me to the idea that it’s better to look for our answer in human nature. Justice—and moral action in general—cannot be explained from ones experience or from any ontology. It comes from our heart, from our inside. And justice is related to the fundamental process of samopoznaniethe self-knowledge, learning about our selves moved by self-consciousness, freedom and moral responsibility. What seems very important to me here is that justice is inherent to a just man and needs actions— good actions, as asking the lord from the great Bhagavad-Gita (famous Song of Lord from Mahabharata). *** I am sitting her in Iowa, looking from my window of the friendly Iowa House Hotel, at the nice scenery. The Iowa River moves slowly, autumn start tenderly to touch trees and three white geese— eternal friends of ours—are waiting for eventual crumbs. Everything seems so peaceful and in harmony. Only one thing troubles me. I am late with my paper. Roman is desperately waiting to check my poor English. I am a bit unjust to him. So I lace my shoes starting from the right side and run towards the Shambaugh House. On the way there I am thinking how to answer my father: I think: “stairs to the sky” exist; but it is another big story. 8 Mazen Sa’adeh (Palestinian Authority) In Pursuit of Justice Why did the news of Gaza and Jericho occupy a major space in the media, while Rwanda’s massacre, where more than a million people were killed, did not get the same attention? Why, during the Second World War, did the holocaust, where about six million people were killed, become a cornerstone of the world’s consciousness, when at the same time, no attention was given to the killing of more than twenty million in the country which used to be called the Soviet Union? I believe the Holocaust to be the basis of an entire system; not a system of complete understanding, but a system of a new global world, which has evolved from an interpretation of the aftermath of the Second World War. The Palestinians were the one’s most victimized as a result of the Second World War. And catastrophe after catastrophe, I think what Israel was and is doing against the Palestinians will remain a stigma in the history of the Jews, and in the history of those who were responsible for these catastrophes. The Palestinians have never been responsible for a catastrophe befallen on anyone; instead, they are paying for a crime committed by others. The Palestinians today, more than others, feel the injustice of this world. This may be because they, more than any others, are seeking any sort of justice that can protect them from the ongoing catastrophes in what is called the Holy Land. Personally, I do not wish for a single atom of the Palestinian land to be holy, for a simple reason: I do not wish to suffer the agony and destruction of colonialization, any colonialization. After some time, I presume, the world may be able to free itself from injustice and darkness in many parts of the world. I think the key to this discussion will be the posing of a different question: how did the catastrophe of the holocaust transform the victim into the executioner? The new world order will admit that justice was not a dream but an illusion, and that ideology was a beautiful ladder to climb to that dream, that illusion, that haunts us all—the illusion of justice on this earth in the details of everyday life. Because of this, we like to be filled with moral systems, to be covered with ideology that is made by others from a longtime ago. We will realize that the dream was not more than a wish, in the dark areas of our souls, that we carry every day. Early in my life, I had unusual questions that made me fly high in open spaces. I asked: why did god send more than thirteen hundred prophets and messenger to the people of the Middle East? You can add to this list of prophets: Confucius, Zaradasht and Buddha. I was puzzled over this question at that time, and I was unable to obtain an answer. I was unconvinced with what the schoolbooks were teaching that had been put in my mind and in the minds of others for centuries: that god sent his prophets to the Holy Land to spread light and faith to the world. Later, after many years, I understood that if justice spread among our people, and if our land was not full of corruption and injustice, god would not have sent his prophets and messengers to the people. This made me look deeply into the message of religions and holy books. Each of these 9 books claims the Holy Land as their own. Each claims to be the chosen nation. All those statements which I understood early in my life contain in them the seeds of colonialization, and they are a form of lies and not more than a bribe that god gives to a nation—a legal passport which carries the truth, only so to dominate and control the earth. I realized that the prophets and messengers failed to bring justice to the people on the earth, so they escaped upward, and promised people justice in heaven. I said to myself, I want justice on earth, not in heaven. I also realized that justice could not exist in the world while there is the presence of laws of inheritance. These laws of inheritance only repeat the production of injustice in life and in the role governments. In other words, while needs change from generation to generation, who will have the ability to fulfill their needs, unjustly, does not change. Regarding this, I realized that the revolutions will continue. For they only change who will practice injustice and with which new tools. Justice, in my view, cannot exist when man is still the dominant factor in the society: there is no justice when a woman has only half the rights of a man. In the above mentioned I have said, from the theoretical point, that which was not due to natural causes, but a result of unstable consciousness—death. From this prospective, justice, as a concept, was not detached in our contemporary history from the bourgeois revolution which was led by a dominant class, and which produced its interests and the interests of the whole society in unbalanced ways. This class, which was economically, as well as politically dominant, had established its stance with cultural and linguistic dominance. It also made sure that the whole society is homogeneous, both culturally and linguistically, and it has produced common morals between the rulers and the ruled. Reforms were made in those countries in which the bourgeois revolutions had occurred. What is the relationship between justice and revolution? This question asks another question: did revolutions produce the conditions of rationality that make justice a social phenomenon? The goal is for a political power to fight illiteracy and ensures the citizen��s right for education, providing the conditions which are necessary for justice: democracy, prosperity, and dealing with reality through plurality. This means looking at justice with plural perspectives that are protected by organizations and the majority of the people. The modern revolutions were not, in my view, productive, except for the beginnings of reducing the geographical boundaries, which attributed to globalization, and replacing the old revolutions with new ones. One of these revolutions we are living in today, which is the revolution of information. This revolution has dismantled those conditions of regional and national elements for the global. The talk about justice today is a talk about a global space that has become an open space reaching all the inhabitants of the earth. The concept of justice has become an internal element in both nationalism and globalization at the same time. This globalized space has produced, in a clear form, the need for creating international mechanisms which enable people, wherever they are, and irrespective of their color or ethnicity, to experience justice. Creating these mechanisms ensures the understanding of the value of justice, and 10 a society that accepts criticism and defends freedom and looks to the future. With such concepts, seeing the value of justice is an important factor for producing a common understanding for all people. This common understanding does not make a gap between justice and progress. The striking thing is that the concept of justice, to this day, carries to those who deal with it a number of perspectives. One of these perspectives is: no justice except in heavens—as if justice has no value in the conditions of the living—no forgiveness and peace. Another perspective says that justice is linked to the defeated person, while the victorious in being able to talk about justice, holds firmly to his superiority. Those two perspectives point to a human state full of contradiction and struggle. So that is why the concept of justice looks theoretically impossible or close to a dream or illusion—an idea of a person seeking higher values, who found and lost it or did not find it and never will. Others may take the questioning of the nature of justice, considering its various complexities, and find that justice is not more than a question, or something close to that. But this cannot avoid a common question: what is the meaning of justice? The question—the dream concerning the meaning of life and the nature of the social conditions that come out of it—raises three matters for consideration when considering justice. The first is the value of imagining that which looks to the living reality in terms of plurality, leaning on dynamic and changing reality, or reality that has yet to be changed. This will lead to rebuilding reality in a way that enables it to be free from its static state. In this present reality, which has come from a previous reality, there is a chance to create a new reality, capable of changing. A reality made by force can stop the power of a dream. The second matter to consider is the need for equality between people and their languages and their needs. Justice must come from humanity and see in its dreams a universal condition without segregation and discrimination. As I mentioned before, all the statements that are endorsed by many of the present rulers are nothing but repetition of divine statements. These allow them to rule their countries with the sword of god. The third matter for consideration, freedom, is essential for justice. A freedom is needed that cannot be separated from political power, censorship, and the nature of education. The main thing here is the possibility of having the individual functioning in a society, because the real meaning of freedom needs a social frame. This needs to have happen now—the present for us is the master of all times—if objective justice (if there is any) is to release all the powers of the individual, internally and externally. We can say that justice as a value does not care about ethnicity, races, nationalities and religions. No one is better than another. There are more questions I would like to ask: what is the role of literature in the struggle between the winners and losers? This question may seem to be without any meaning as long as the real literature looks to concepts of freedom, equality, and human dignity, looking to universal values, leaving the duality of winning and loosing to the fake literature. If one sees that a particular kind of literature is the best example for all of literature, it is a form of discrimination and a tool of racism. What is a justice that is shared by the victim and the victimizer? What is left from justice when the strong leader walks on simple and powerless people? 11 One again, I see that the dream of justice starts and ends by respecting the human soul, and the dream of justice will not be fulfilled until the human identity is established. The human identity is dignity. The way to get justice is by defending human dignity. It is no surprise that literature flourishes in places where the rights of citizens are protected, while it walks unbalanced in the places full of lies and corruption. I see that the force of literature comes by reaching the dream of justice, from the power of the imagination, which cannot be put in jail. 12 |
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| Type (AAT) |
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| Language | English |
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| Contributing Institution | Iowa City Public Library |
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| Title | In pursuit of justice, Iowa City Public Library, September 15, 2006, Video, 700k |
| Type (DCMIType) |
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| Type (IMT) |
mp4 |
| Duration | 01:21:43 |
| Digitization Specifications | Received as MPEG2 and converted to mp4 for streaming. |
| File Name | iwp-icpl_9-15-06.mp4 |
| Original File Name | iwp_9-15-06.mpg |
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