Part 2: The Great Arenas of Contention5

Chapter 5: Contention and Freedom: The First Human Value

On the value the book holds to be the first of all human values, this chapter gathers five stories: the Salt March, which shook the British Empire with salt and the spinning wheel rather than the cannon; stones raised against tanks, with a camera nobody had reckoned with; a square in Kyiv whose people refused to have their future chosen without them; the Algerian revolution and its terrible price; and the Syrian revolution, from the walls of Daraa to the fall of Damascus in December 2024. It then returns to the Quranic models: Moses and Pharaoh, the People of the Ditch, the people of the ship, the Companions of the Cave, and Dhul-Qarnayn. Its conclusion is that freedom is not granted but won, and that liberation from within is the condition of liberation from without.

The book is being prepared for publication, in Arabic. These pages offer glimpses of it, not its text.

Cases in this chapter

• 11

  Gandhi

  When the spirit is stronger than the cannon

  1919–1947Chapter 5Liberation from occupation
• 12

  The Intifada of the stones

  When stones are stronger than tanks

  1987Chapter 5Liberation from occupation
• 13

  Euromaidan

  When a people refuses to have its fate chosen without it

  2013–2014Chapter 5Popular uprisings
• 14

  The Algerian revolution

  A million and a half martyrs as the price of freedom

  1954–1962Chapter 5Liberation from occupation
• 15

  The Syrian revolution

  From the walls of Daraa to the fall of Damascus

  2011–2024Chapter 5Popular uprisings

The Cases