From Zorro to Voltaire!

“When the people are ready, the maser will come!” So says Anthony Hopkins in the Mask of Zorro. I wonder though when will people be ready for the absence of masters? When will they be their own masters?

Some will argue that the peoples of the Middle East are simply not ready for that. I agree. Giving the freedom to do what they want, most people in the Middle East might seek to simply create an alternative form of servitude, e.g. Iraq. Still, I see no other way for people to learn anything about self-governance but to muddle though, e.g. Iraq.

This is a very expensive learning process of course. But, shall I say that freedom is worth it?

If so, would I then opt to live, à la Voltaire, in a place like Iraq while it undergoes such baptismal rituals?

Are you crazy? I am a heretic. My life wouldn’t be worth two pennies there.

Yet heresy is really in the eyes of the beholder, and there are currently thousands of heretics living in Iraq today, for all, the dangers they have to face every day?

Well, then, I guess that I have to admit that I am a coward. Or, I am just a man who saw an opportunity to take himself and his family out harm’s way, before things got ugly.

And things are bound to get ugly sooner or later in the old country. Things always take a nasty turn whenever people end up having fools for masters, and whenever they themselves tend to behave like fools.