You Can't Handle The Truth

Claudia Rosett on the best way to topple tyrannies---tell the truth:

They are demanding, simply: "The Truth."

Why is this so important? Because the truth--however problematic or undiplomatic--is one of the most effective and underused weapons in the arsenal of democracy. The U.S. State Department, or for that matter the folks at the Quai D'Orsay, the Russian Foreign Ministry and the United Nations, could do worse than to procure and post on their own office walls some of those Lebanese signs that demand "The Truth."
It bears noting under despotic regimes anywhere, the most common reason for which democratic dissidents are jailed is simply that they have dared to tell the truth. Tyrants depend on fictions, on the lies that all their subjects support them, that they have a legitimate monopoly on power and that what they do is for the best. When that facade cracks, there is an opportunity for genuine liberation.

In Lebanon's case--as widely reported over the past few weeks-- the Lebanese want most immediately the truth about who was behind the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri, killed by a huge bomb in Beirut on Feb. 14. But that murder-mystery is linked to a much broader picture. Most Lebanese believe the culprit was the totalitarian regime of neighboring Syria, which for more than a generation, under the false banner of "stability," has gotten away with occupying and brutalizing Lebanon. With Hariri's murder, the Lebanese decided they had had enough of threats and cover-ups and lies. Their demand for the truth about Hariri's killers swelled last month into the biggest democratic uprising in the history of the modern Middle East, in which some one million Lebanese staged a protest last month in downtown Beirut to demand that Syrian forces leave their country, and make room for freedom--and truth.

Despots remain in power through a carefully-orchestrated web of lies. As soon as the Nazi High Command figured out that Hitler wasn't sane and wasn't invulnerable, they hatched the plot that didn't kill him but drove him into a hole in the ground nonetheless. Once Baghdad Bob was off the air, Saddam Hussein was powerless. Tyrants around the world fear the truth getting out---they are paper tigers, unable to count upon even the support of their people to enforce their monstrous will.

Rosett is right---the truth shall set us free.