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Freedom is as natural as breathing in America. We must remember this is not the case in most places on Earth.
I spent much of my youth in the USSR. Freedom was but a dream for us.
To leave the country without special permission was illegal. To live in Moscow without special permission is also illegal. Reading certain books, listening to certain radio stations, and watching certain movies was unlawful. Freedom of speech was non-existence. Fear of the state was ever present and permeated Soviet culture. I once asked a non-politically correct question during high school class. I got a nervous stare not only from the teacher but also from the students. Fear of the state was in their blood.
Incidentally, the term “politically correct” was invented by the Soviets. It meant compliance in thought and speech with what the state defined as proper and virtuous. A culture of conformity cannot create prosperity. An un-free people will not create, invent, or build a better future no matter how much the propaganda machine says they will. The USSR, one of the largest and most oppressive empires in history, was not destroyed from the outside; it simply went bankrupt.
I was there when it happened. Observing a global superpower fold like a house of cards was surreal. Just like that, it was over in a matter of a few months.
The year the USSR fell in 1991 was when I graduated with a master's degree in economics from Russia Friendship University, or RUDN.
The Alma Mater of opposition leader Alexey Navalny, who graduated a few years after I did, the University was initially established to train future Marxist leaders from all over the world. It produced a slew of heads of state like Mahmud Abbas in Palestine, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, Alpha Conde in Guinea, and many others. Among other notable figures, it also produced the infamous Anna Chapman - the Russian spy arrested in the US in 2010.
The institution was meant to produce leaders of the future. However, it still failed to convince the curious ones who recognized that freedom was essential to flourishing. I credit some of the professors who started to teach free-market economics not as a cautionary tale of the "rotting capitalist system" but as the best system for entrepreneurial opportunity.
When books, films, plays, and music are censored, freedom-loving people will find a way to get them. This hunger for free thought in the USSR gave birth to Samizdat - or self-publishing. The illegal underground copying and distribution of books, films, and music. The forbidden material would go viral, be consumed, and quietly discussed over tea and vodka in kitchens.
Short wave radios tuned into stations like Voice of America and the BBC delivered the latest events, new music, and ideas. The Soviets used jamming stations to disrupt the signal. They were mostly unsuccessful.
Going from Greyscale to Full Color
The most drastic visual representation of the difference between a free and oppressive society is a Cold War era Berlin divided by a wall. The wall was built to keep unfree people from going to the free side of the city. Guards would literally shoot those who attempted to cross over.
We had family in East Berlin and visited regularly. My sister and I had Chilean passports as well as Soviet passports. This allowed us to cross into West Berlin, while my non-dual citizen mom and the rest of my East German family could not. It was a surreal experience. East Berlin was a greyscale picture of mediocrity. West Berlin was a colorful city, bustling with well-dressed people, restaurants, entertainment, and shopping centers. As teenagers, we spent the little money we had on music albums, magazines, and clothes.
Germany is the home of great car brands. Mercedes Benz, BMW, Audi. In just a few decades of separation from freedom, East Germany could only produce an atrocious car called Trabant. Without freedom, the culture that produced some of the best driving machines in the world had descended into producing the worst car on the planet. East Germans had to wait years to get their hands on a Trabant. After the wall came down, thousands of Trabants were promptly abandoned as garbage in the streets of a reunited Berlin.
They have since become collectibles - a relic of an era of forced mediocrity.
Back Story
Berlin was divided into East and West Berlin after the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. Half was occupied by the Soviets and became part of the socialist bloc. The other half was occupied by Western allies and became part of the free West Germany. The wall was built by East Germany in 1961 to stop the mass exodus to the West, and it finally came down in 1989.
My grandfather, Grigory Levchenko, was born in Ukraine in 1912. A decorated artillery captain in the Soviet Army, he fought from 1939 to 1945, taking part in the defense of Moscow, the liberation of Riga and Warsaw, and the battle for Berlin. He took part in the attack on the iconic Reichstag - the national Parliament of Nazi Germany.
While the American-led coalition left behind free countries, the Soviet-led coalition expanded an oppressive empire. My Ukrainian grandfather was married to my Russian grandmother. They did not live to see February 24th, 2022, when Russian troops invaded a now-free Ukraine, attempting to recapture it for their empire.
We founded the Ascend Academy in Kyiv to help refugee children heal from trauma through art therapy. As we visited the devastated neighborhoods and villages around Kyiv and talked to the refugees who witnessed unspeakable cruelty, we were reminded of just how fragile freedom is.
Learn more and support our efforts here.
Freedom is Fragile
Freedom is deeply engrained in American society's cultural DNA but should not be taken for granted. We can clearly track how Western societies make compromises between individual liberties and the state's role that may seem acceptable and benevolent on the surface but also gradually and irreversibly remove the freedom of choice in vital areas.
We chose to homeschool two of our three daughters. We would not be free to do so in several European countries, where it is illegal for a parent to make that choice. This is how it starts: the state has more authority than a parent in the lives of children.
With the rise of Social Media, many will be surprised to know that thousands of people are detained or arrested each year for something they posted online, not just in authoritarian Russia but also in democratic Western Europe. Censorship is becoming the new normal. While these shifts are often driven by legitimate concerns over the potential harm of a world where anyone can communicate with everyone, the solution gives tremendous power over the many to a select few. Then, the solution does more harm than the problem it aims to solve; we must resist it.
Of all countries, I believe America has enough antibodies to repel attempts at diminishing the freedom that made it into what it is. A land of possibility.
As a teenager, I would come back to the USSR after visiting West Berlin with a treasure trove.
Cool clothes stood out in the bland uniformity of what I saw in the streets of Moscow. Western magazines opened a window into a world that seemed to only exist in a parallel reality. A world so rich with potential, nothing in my world compared. Hollywood movies showed thriving cities, stores full of merchandise, beautiful cars, and smiling people, free to create art, build a future, and travel the world. They also showed the struggle, messiness, and dysfunction of the free world.
I longed to be part of that world. Still, I existed in a greyscale world of mediocrity, lines for food, and limited opportunities. I lived in a country that boasted about no unemployment, free higher education, and low crime as a fair trade for freedom, opportunity, and prosperity. I disagreed then, and I disagree now.
I wanted to be an artist and obsessed over music albums, analyzing song structure, arrangements, and the beats that made people dance. I read anything I could find about show business. I practiced breakdancing, copying every move from terrible VHS copies of pirated American films. I recorded demos of my first songs on a primitive four-track cassette recorder. They were terrible.
Years later, in the only decade of freedom in Russia's history, I was fortunate to entertain millions across 15 countries of the former USSR. I met many of my music idols and shared the stage with some of them. Teenagers all over the former USSR were buying my albums, hanging my posters on their walls, and reading the latest news about me in magazines of a free press that did not last.
That spirit of freedom I had soaked in from a distance molded me into an artist who embodied a new generation that drank that freedom like water in a desert. I wrote a song about this called "Our Generation." It resonated with millions and was used by President Yeltsin's campaign to rally the youth against the Communists in the 1996 election.
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same." - Ronald Reagan
"In America, we have the freedom to express ourselves, to create art, and to challenge the status quo." - Lady Gaga
“Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves." - Abraham Lincoln
“The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender or submission." - John F. Kennedy
“For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others." - Nelson Mandela
"In America, we have the freedom to create, to innovate, and to change the world." - Steve Jobs
“Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." - George Orwell
“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed." - Martin Luther King Jr.
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Voltaire
“America is a country where freedom is in the air we breathe. It's a spirit that guides us." - Tom Hanks