“Everyone is equal, no-one is more equal than anyone else.”
No truer words have been misquoted in the entire history of humanity, and Animal Farm is definitely a cautionary tale of what happens when this idea gets misappropriated. In the entirety of human history the one continuous impulse has been for liberation, personal freedom; which in turn gets into the whole ‘I want my rights, give them to me now’ issue that arises when the oppressed shout as one. With rights come responsibilities, and this is the part that often gets missed in the whole equal rights equation. If you have rights then you need to understand that they come with responsibilities.
In all societies that have given it’s citizens rights it is usually the ones which have emancipated the most of it’s people that flourish and continue to grow holistically. No society in history has grown structurally by diminishing the rights of it’s people. Even when a society looks totalitarian, such as present day China, it only starts to grow and develop when the restraints on society are loosened. It is only be unleashing the more random elements in society that the wild ideas can flourish, and it is these ideas that spark the true growth in humanity at large.
A good case study is Germany in the 1920′s and 1930′s. In the 20′s Germany has a flourishing culture, both liberal and conservative. The industry conservative heart found the liberal culture difficult to handle, and when the crunch came in the 1930′s the industrial elite chose the hard lines of the Nazi regime over the softer lines of the liberal politics. In turn the general population accepted the curtailing of rights for various minority groups in the country, which in turn caused many of the best and brightest to flee to safer climes – such as Einstein to America. This in turn meant that the allies had a well spring of intellectual talent for the war effort, and they made effective use of it on the Manhattan project. In the end Germany paid heavily for it’s revocation of rights to certain groups, and the cost to the society as a whole took several generations to undo.
Ah, I hear you say, but what about my country? The place I call home. Surely I have all the rights and responsibilities any person could wish for? Well all I will say is look again. If there is one person who is disenfranchised unfairly (excluding prisoners etc), is unable to marry the person they are in love with (relations and children excluded), is unable to hold their own personal faith (or lack their of), or is unduly tarnished by the state for their point of view then there is still room to fight. Of course there are going to be cases where the rights of a single person are outweighed by the needs of the many, such as pedeophilia, but these occasions should be used as a balwalk against tyranny, not to induce it.
In the end only be having equality for all, with the rights and responsibilities that entails can a society loose the shackles that burden it’s roots. Freedom for all enables everyone to have a voice, to allow others to decent from that voice, and to be free to change that voice if they so wish. No-one is more or less entitled to their opinion than the next person, though there is right and wrong which can be proven. If you hold a view, the person next to you has the right to challenge it, but the responsibility to do it in such a way that you do not feel threatened or bullied into holding their’s. This is not equal opportunities, this is simple equality of everyone. No matter your skin colour, gender, sexuality, creed, political persuasion, or ethnic background you are still an equal to me and the rest of the human race. That I may think you are wrong or an idiot is merely the window dressing that makes the world go round.
In the end the only way to stop the abject suffering of gays in Muslim countries, ethnic minorities the world over, women in many parts of the world, indeed anyone who is repressed is to recognise them as equal, in both rights and responsibilities. Stop the hate, stop the unjust slander of those you don’t understand, and accept them as equals in this world. Only then can firm foundations be laid of the betterment of all mankind. Equality is not for the minority, but for everyone, so no-one is more equal than anyone else.
