2007-07-15 23:07
by Vasil KolevResponsibility.
Is the mother of it.
I’m reading the comments/articles aroundwhat happened with Mishel Bozgunov and the comments around it, and I definitely need to write the lines that follow.
(the people that read me know how tangled and misty I write – write to me to tell me what needs clarifying, as my thoughts are as tangled as my writings :) )
Let’s start from the phrase that the journalists have more protection than the normal people when they’re writing about such events, unlike the normal people. Someone asked – can’t we all bloggers be journalists?
No.
I’m one of the people that’s ashamed of most Bulgarian journalists. The thing with the protections sounds like “if you’re a journalist, you’ll get away with it’ (because someone is paying you to write it and he’s protecting you, for example). Also, there are some more reasons that I don’t want any special protection to be able to tell my own opinion:
1) Constitution of Republic of Bulgaria, Article 6. (1) All people are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
2) again there, Article 39. (1) Everyone has the right to express opinion and to spread it through speech – written or oral, through sound, image or in another way.
3) I CARRY my own responsibility for what I say. I accept it fully knowing that someone will try using my words against me, will find something threatening in them and will attack me, that it will disturb someone’s sleep, that I’m talking about getting rid of the current government and changing the system.
Let me elaborate on 3. I’m also hosting savestrandja.ludost.net, fully knowing what’s on the site and what are the messages in it. I’ve done by my own free will, fully understanding what I’m doing. I’ve taken that responsibility.
This will be the first chapter on what I’ll be writing on the topic of civil disobedience – the Responsibility. Because that’s what’s missing from most people that obey the circumstances, orders, rules, laws, etc. without questioning or thinking – refusing to take the responsibility for their actions, pushing it upwards. But when you decide not to obey, you take the full responsibility for your actions and their consequences.
That might include being taken in by the militia, pardon, police, some people might try to scare you, to shoot you (although this is rare, it’s kept mostly for quarrels in the high-level mutras, and we’re not that “high”), etc. fun things, which are mostly a (very) light form of the stuff that was before 1989. Even so there’s also the chance of some “inconvenient” people getting fired from companies that work with the state administration, just of their “inconvenient-ness” (and those companies know very well why they can work with the administration, even the kids know how exactly can you work for the state and get paid).
The fact still remains that to have a citizens’ society, a democratic state, etc. there must be one responsibility taken by the citizens. Not only from the ordinary people, only from the state administration, not only by the politicians, but by EVERYONE TOGETHER. Everyone must be able to take responsibility for his actions and non-actions – and if he/she cant, the rest must take the responsibility for him and act accordingly.
This means watching politicians and not allowing them to become corrupt – to be put on trial like everyone else, To take the responsibility for what they’ve done.
For the state officials to take responsibility for what they’re doing. To remember who’s usefulness have they been hired.
For us to take it. Not to give bribes to support the current system.
Not to stay quiet.
Not to be scared.
Not to follow the phrase “A heat that’s bent is not cut” (which has always sounded weird to me, it should be easier that way, at least from the technical point-of-view).
To carry our own responsibility for out participation in the different societal actions (for example, for voting – and also for not voting. Some people thing that voting is the end of their responsibilities).
History is not really in favour of the people that have taken the responsibility. The ones that haven’t obeyed orders were shot, the one that did we put on trial later and got away with less. Those, who kept quiet, lived, those who didn’t, suffered.
But just think what the world would be without those people.
Maybe the biggest crime of all communist and related regimes is the murder of the idea of personal responsibility – it just piled up, and when it got inconvenient, a scapegoat was found.
(for example, case 4/1990 and the results of it (or the lack of such)).
(the same crime is being done also now, because nobody is teaching responsibility to the children.)
And to finish this somewhat messed up writing – it might sound weird, but The responsibility is important part of freedom. Truth, responsibility and struggle make freedom possible.