2008 Woodie Awards
'We forgot how to fight for freedom.'
Ken Pitts
Issue date: 12/5/08 Section: News
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Some 200 spectators gathered in the Grand Ballroom at Stamp Student Union to listen to Sharansky's life story, from his captivity in Soviet prison to his career in the Israeli government, and now to the writing of his latest book on democracy and identity, Defending Identity.
Sharansky became famous in the 1970s as a figure among "refuseniks," or Jews who were refused emigration from the Soviet Union.
After applying for a visa to Israel, he was convicted of treason as a spy for the United States and spent almost a decade in Russian captivity, becoming an international symbol for human rights.
"My real alma mater was Soviet prison," he said, "which gave me many lessons."
It was in his isolated cell that he realized people must rise from fearing for their lives to defending their identities.
He criticized the post-World War II mentality that all differences between people should be erased and that nationality is politically incorrect, a mindset he said has left Western countries vulnerable to terrorists.
"When we learned over the last two generations to love freedom," Sharansky said, "we forgot how to fight for freedom."
Sharansky was freed and became a citizen of Israel in 1986, and he has forged a long career in politics. He founded the Yisrael b'Aliyah party in the Israeli parliament to help with the absorption of Soviet Jews into Israel and held several government offices, including that of deputy prime minister and minister for Jerusalem and for Diaspora affairs. He resigned from the government in 2005 in protest of then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to pull Israeli settlers and soldiers out of Egypt's occupied Gaza Strip.
Using the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians as an example, he suggested that the only way to end conflict between countries is for people to find strength in nationality and respect it in others.
"The best allies that you have are people who, like you, believe in freedom, but also have identity," he said, "something they are willing to die for."
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