I SPEAK FOR DEMOCRACY

I speak for democracy. I speak for the right to act, think, feel. I speak for the right to speak in my
own chosen church. I speak for the right to live. When people deny me these rights, I am transgressed,
trampled upon, oppressed - I the common man.

In a non-democratic country, one usually hears of a man mowed down by bullets in a lonely rice
field a man who is snatched from his loved ones and a son who is tortured to death. Obviously, these
men died violent death. But does the world know what prompted the violence? When a man is riddled
by bullets because he dared defy certain armed might, when a son in turn is tortured in to renouncing
his convictions, when the death of these men becomes violent and there is real encroachment on
personal liberties-it is time for the youth to wake up. All these men died and suffered because their
rights as freemen have been taken away from them. They have been forced to accept ideas which are
repugnant to them. So that when they are made to choose, they would rather die and bear pain than
embrace such a way of life. That way of life is communism. It is disguised by many enticing forms which
are all encroaching because the leaders seek to suppress liberties. Communism is oppression of man by
man, of class by class, of nation by another nation. There are no economic resources in the hands of
men because all these belong to the state.

In a communist country, men have to work down to the level of a common beast of burden.
Instead of being liberated for the pursuit of arts and sciences, he will find his life planned, ordered,
regulated and controlled so as to kill all hope, all spirit, and all fire. Churches are closed and in place of a
supreme being. Blind obedience of men is forced upon other men. In place of a cross to rally around the
hammer and sickle become the symbol of worship. In place of the sanctity of marriage and family ties,
there is a quicker divorce procedure that will terminate the marriage ties. Schools are regimented. Men
are forced to work at jobs plotted for men whose aptitude may be for some other lines. The freedom
long fought for is now forfeited. If this happen in my country, I will die.

So, I speak for democracy. I speak for the right to act, think, feel. I speak for the right to worship in
my own chosen church. I speak for the right to live.

As I raise my voice and lift my face to the sun, I lift up the hopes of the freemen. My hope soars to
the sky and I am willing to wait for the day when no single act. No words that I will say that will exist in
splendid and result less isolation. For this reason, I ask the youth to unite and make the democratic faith
a positive and vital thing. We need a new assertion of dynamic democracy. We need to explore its
height and its depth. We need to bring its meaning to the people. We all have the resources of the
world. Of what avail are they if we do not use them to build a greater and deeper fellowship among
ourselves? We need to make democracy the doctrine of this greater fellowship. If we have the wisdom
and courage to do this, we shall have built the ramparts of democracy against all the forces of
communism.

For freedom is an adventure that asks us to grow up and it rewards us with the chance to go on and
on forever and ever.