Liberation Does Not Bestow Happiness...

I'm re-reading what I consider the finest book on race relations in this country: Shelby Steele's "A Dream Deferred: The Second Betrayal of Black Freedom in America". Steele's premise is that segregation was our first betrayal of black freedom, and that racial preferences is our second.

I just came across this paragraph from his book that is comparing the situation of Jews after their liberation from the Nazis and the situation of black Americans after their liberation from segregation. It's a powerful analogy, and one I think applies to those in Iraq climbing out from under the rules of Saddam.

In thinking about all this, I am reminded of a passage by the Italian writer and Holocaust survivor, the late Primo Levi, in which he describes what it was like to be liberated from the concentration camps. He makes the point that there was not much happiness in liberation, that "almost always it coincided with a phase of anguish." He says of those liberated, "Just as they were again becoming men, that is, responsible, the sorrows of men returned." For our purpose here, the important idea is not the reference to sorrow but the equation of humanity with the word "responsible." Liberation did not bestow happiness...it bestows agency.

Freedom is a very heavy burden that is difficult to bare. Ultimately, it can provide a framework in which to achieve happiness, but it by no means provides it of itself.