Daily Times

I am not a progressive, a lapsed socialist or a populist; just an old fashioned liberal. A liberal is usually defined as somebody who believes in individual liberty or freedom. But then liberalism is much more than just that, and over time has expanded to include often divergent political and economic ideas.
What I am writing today is far from being a universally acceptable description of liberalism. It is essentially a personal point of view. But before I try and explain what I mean when I say that I am a liberal, I do want to dispel the notion many have of what a liberal is.
The word ‘liberal’ is often associated with freedom from all forms of restraint, both social and moral. Many religiously inclined or socially conservative people think that liberals are by the very nature of their belief in freedom an immoral and licentious bunch given to unbridled expression of their ‘baser’ impulses. That is not true at all. Liberals can well be practicing Christians, Jews or even Muslims. Or for that matter belong to almost any system of religious belief.
The basis of liberal ideas is an abiding sense that most people are decent and, if given a chance, will adhere to accepted norms of morality and righteousness. As such most liberals insist that personal freedom must triumph over all forms of coercion. The evil in society for them is not an excess of freedom but rather coercion and restriction of individual freedom whether it comes from the state or any other authority, including organised religion.
Liberalism from my perspective is divided into three major parts, political, economic and social. As a political liberal I believe that individuals must be governed by their consent. Yes, democracy is such a system but its major drawback is what is referred to as ‘tyranny of the majority’. However, as a liberal I also believe that since most people are decent and will if given the chance do the right thing, I am not very worried about this tyranny of the majority.
But to prevent the aforementioned tyranny of the majority, within any governing democratic system, there must be protections of individual rights that cannot be overruled by any simple majority. This is best exemplified by the ‘Bill of Rights’, or the first ten amendments to the US Constitution.
From the economic perspective, I strongly believe that individuals have the right to own property and indulge in business practices that make them as much money as possible within existing laws. However, as a liberal I also believe that free enterprise has a limit. A hundred years ago, this discussion would have had a different undertone but today this is mostly about the role of government in the economic environment within a country.
The government has an important and a positive role to play. The presumption, of course, being that the ‘government’ represents the people and transmits the aspirations as well as the needs of the majority of the people. I am not an economist but I do strongly subscribe to the idea that unbridled capitalism is detrimental to the interests of a majority of ordinary people. This was well proven by the recent economic turmoil in most capitalist countries and its effects on ordinary people.
It is however in the social realm that liberalism becomes a contentious issue, especially in a conservative and religiously oriented country like Pakistan. Here I want to assert that I am not a ‘secularist’ and do not maintain that religion has no place in public life. However I am a ‘pluralist’ and do believe that there is more than one road to ‘salvation’; and that individuals have the right pursue whatever they believe is for them the right way to live in this world and prepare for the life hereafter.
I also believe that it is the obligation of society through elected representatives to protect and defend the right of all individuals to live the way they wish as long they do not impinge on or interfere with the rights of others. As a Muslim majority country, we in Pakistan therefore have the obligation to defend and to protect the rights of all minorities within and outside Islam to pursue their beliefs as they want to within the constraints I have mentioned above.
As a Muslim in America I never wanted to be just tolerated but rather wanted to be accepted as an equal, and I was. Similarly, as a Muslim in Pakistan I want all citizens to be accepted as equals irrespective of what they believe in or not believe in.
One of the more important points of view that I adhere to as a social liberal is my support for the right of women to live as equals of men in any society including ours. In most modern societies, gender equality is an accepted fact of life but in Pakistan women still have a long way to go before they are accepted as equals and treated as such.
A much touchier subject is that of what are euphemistically called ‘alternate lifestyles’. Without supporting or opposing any of them, I do wish to say that my idea of individual freedom extends to all relationships between people that do no harm to others within society.
Of course, I support things like free speech, freedom of the press, freedom of political and social association, but then these are not just liberal values and are now accepted universally by most people in modern and democratic societies all over the world.
Finally, as a liberal, even though I support all sorts of freedom I do also realise that freedom without responsibility can lead to anarchy. Paradoxically then, to protect freedom it is often necessary to exercise freedom with restraint.

Syed Mansoor Hussain has practised and taught medicine in the US. He can be reached at smhmbbs70@yahoo.com