Fear And The Word

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These dilemmas are only likely to deepen in the coming years, as humanity tries to figure out how to preserve the many forms of freedom -- and not only of expression -- that it has taken us millennia to conceive, legislate, and defend.

This is a critical moment for those of us who, having been given the enormous responsibility and privilege of using words to try to understand our current predicament, live in lands more fortunate than my Chile used to be. This may be precisely a time when we need to remind ourselves of the struggle carried out by those brothers and sisters of ours who, in some nearby or faraway nation, know they are risking their lives every time they write the truth. Maybe we need to tell ourselves that, if we do not speak out now when we can, we may soon, all too soon, find ourselves sharing the quandary and quest of those writers and journalists who, in countries that may not be so distant after all, are facing the possibility that they could die because they refused to remain silent.

Ariel Dorfman, a poet and novelist, lives with his family in North Carolina and teaches at Duke University. He is the author of Desert Memories (National Geographic) and Other Septembers, Many Americans, forthcoming from Seven Stories. Adapted from Autodafe (#3/4), a cultural journal based in France and published in several languages by the International Parliament of Writers. This double issue, titled "A Manual for Intellectual Survival," features writers from around the world commenting on the social and political changes since 9/11. The English edition first appeared in 2003 and is available for $17.95 from Seven Stories Press, 140 Watts St., New York, NY 10013.

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