Last month, Norwegians awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to María Corina Sosa Machado, a native of ill-fated Venezuela. She was hiding in her country, fleeing the regime of Nicolas Maduro, who would like to silence her permanently, as Vladimir Putin did with Alexeï Navalny. Thus, his Nobel Prize acceptance speech was delivered by his daughter on December 10.
If you can read it without crying, you are not a liberal. María Corina and the ordinary Venezuelans she inspires embody the Four Great Liberations. Since 1776, they have shaped the modern world. Smaller liberations were also important, such as the liberation of science from religious dogma, as in Galileo and Darwin, or the liberation of religion itself from religious dogma, as in the Second Vatican Council. The liberation of homosexuals from Protestant criminalization, of adolescents from domineering parents, of the mentally ill from asylums and even of French painters from the Academy of Fine Arts, all this is part of it.
But the Four Great Liberations affected large swaths of the population and, by analogy, led to many smaller liberations. The first was the liberation of the bourgeoisie, a bourgeois revaluation. In the 18th century, aristocratic and official contempt for commerce began to be broken. This has led to an explosion of innovation and our enrichment.
The second was freedom from work. In the past, workers were systematically forced into submission. In England, a “farm servant” could sell his work once a year at a job fair. But if in the middle of this period he decided to abandon the plow, the sheriff would arrest him and his master would whip his back. This was the case for “free” workers, such as trade apprentices, who were beaten in the same way as sailors, soldiers, women, children and horses. The liberation of labor led to the liberation of completely unfree slaves or serfs, in the English Final Act of 1780, in 1807 in Prussia, in 1833 in the British Empire, in 1861 in Russia, in 1865 in the United States, and, as you know, in the Golden Act of 1888.
The third, which concerned half the population, was the liberation of women. Women had been liberal in the fight against slavery and asked: “Why not us?” As with all liberations, the reactionaries fought and generally had the laws of the state on their side. As in all other areas, ethics and ideology have long supported the suppression of women.
Romantic composers Clara Wieck Schumann, Emilie Mayer and Fanny Mendelssohn faced dismissive reactions from most men because a woman, in addition to playing the piano, composed for him, which was a man’s job. Under English law, until the 1870s, women transferred all their property, including their children, to their husbands. Your grandmother and my mother couldn’t have their own bank accounts. It was only in the 1970s that this situation changed. Believe it or not, Venezuela’s liberal recovery of freedom is led by a woman.
But the fourth, final and greatest liberation is still hotly contested: the liberation of citizens from their state masters. The liberation of Latin America from its state masters is near. Venezuela, Colombia?
Brazilians, look north.
PRESENT LINK: Did you like this text? Subscribers can access seven free accesses from any link per day. Just click on the blue F below.
About The Author
