{"id":115488,"date":"2018-07-30T12:00:54","date_gmt":"2018-07-30T11:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=115488"},"modified":"2018-07-27T13:41:40","modified_gmt":"2018-07-27T12:41:40","slug":"four-freedoms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2018\/07\/four-freedoms\/","title":{"rendered":"Four Freedoms"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n
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\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Freedom from Fear: Still an Unmet Goal<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

27 Jul 2018 – <\/em>When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd President of the United States (1933-1945) in his January 6, 1941 State of the Union address to Congress presented the \u201cFour Freedoms\u201d, much of the world was at war: German troops were advancing in Europe as were the Japanese armies in China. As Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) said then<\/p>\n

\u201cI suppose that every realist knows that the democratic way of life is at this moment being directly assailed in every part of the world \u2013 assailed either by arms or by secret spreading of poisonous propaganda by those who seek to destroy unity and promote discords in nations that are still at peace…And the assailants are still on the march, threatening other nations, great and small.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Territorial conquest and resistance against occupation was the focus of attention of much of the world\u2019s population.<\/p>\n

The United States was not yet at war and defined its position as neutral. Many Americans hoped to be able to stay out of the war, having been disillusioned by the continuation of \u201cpower politics\u201d in Europe and Asia after the end of the First World War despite the creation of the League of Nations.<\/p>\n

In 1941, FDR was in the process of changing his own focus of attention from a \u201cNew Deal\u201d President primarily concerned with the domestic consequences of the world-wide economic depression to becoming a world leader articulating liberal values for all the world\u2019s population, and playing a major role in the founding of the United Nations. Thus, in his presentation to Congress, he stressed world themes and called upon people to lift their eyes above the current aggression and control of land to focus upon the broader themes of a positive way of life.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The \u201cFour Freedoms\u201d presented to Congress were the essential need and right of every citizen of the world. As FDR put it,<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the future days which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00b7 The first<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0is freedom of speech and expression \u2013 everywhere in the world.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00b7 The second<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way \u2013 everywhere in the world.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00b7 The third<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understanding which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants \u2013everywhere in the world.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00b7 The fourth<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor \u2013 anywhere in the world. <\/em><\/p>\n

That is no vision of a distant millenium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Earlier in the address, FDR had outlined some of the steps needed to build the socio-economic framework for freedom from want:<\/p>\n

\u00b7 Equality of opportunity;
\n\u00b7 Jobs;
\n\u00b7 Security;
\n\u00b7 The ending of special privilege for the few;
\n\u00b7 The employment of the fruits of scientific progress in a wider and constantly rising standard of living.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Many of those who would lead the struggle against colonialism in Asia and Africa heard in the Four Freedoms \u201ceverywhere in the world\u201d the moral basis of their fight for equality and freedom. The address also inspired those in Latin America who felt the domination of US economic power and who knew that political independence was only part of the story.<\/p>\n

FDR held forth the possibility that the Four Freedoms would be attainable \u201cin our own time and generation\u201d. Thus FDR calls us \u2013 especially those of us who were alive if not always politically active in 1941 \u2013 to analyse where we are today.<\/p>\n

Freedom of expression and freedom of thought, conscience and religion were relatively easy to incorporate into articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights \u2013 a Declaration which owes much to Eleanor Roosevelt, the first Chairperson of the UN Commission on Human Rights during its drafting stage (1946-1948).<\/p>\n

Today, the UN Human Rights Council has Special Rapporteurs on freedom of expression and freedom of conscience which, each year, studies accusations of violations. They enter into discussions with governments so that government practice meets international standards. There are effective non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which monitor the situation and who provide detailed information to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.<\/p>\n

Likewise, there are problems concerning government limitations on freedom of expression and concern with the degree of concentration of power in a few private world communication empires, but no government today openly questions the right to freedom of expression.<\/p>\n

Freedom from want has been difficult to translate into reality, although in the speeches of government, NGO and business representatives, there is wide agreement that poverty is a bad thing. Nevertheless, a haunting fear for many in the world \u2013 probably about one third of the world\u2019s population \u2013 is daily survival: finding food, clean water, reasonable shelter, adequate protection against illness. Much of the work of the United Nations and its Specialized Agencies as well as numerous NGOs is devoted to the effort to provide \u201cfreedom from want\u201d. Yet more needs to be done if we are to shoulder the responsibility of ridding the world of the constant fear of want.<\/p>\n

Freedom from fear has been even more difficult to translate into daily reality, in part because fear has an individual character linked to self-alienation and its accompanying anxiety.<\/p>\n

In FDR\u2019s original presentation freedom from fear was directly linked to disarmament and measures against aggression. Unfortunately, there has been little \u201cdisarmament dividend\u201d since the end of the Cold War in 1990 symbolized by the signing in November 1990 of the \u201cCharter of Paris on the New Europe\u201d. While there is no longer a reason to fear a war between the USA and Russia which could have led to a nuclear exchange, world politics is still largely determined by the nuclear-weapon States: the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel. Military budgets remain high \u2013 that of the USA reaches amounts that are difficult to justify even if one believes that arms provide \u201csecurity\u201d.<\/p>\n

There are many armed conflicts within a State. Trans-frontier arms trade remains high and increasingly involves private as well as government buyers and sellers. The tasks which FDR set out for us in 1941 are still with us. The United Nations, national governments and NGOs all have a role to play in establishing the Four Freedoms at the heart of daily life. Thus, we must direct our thoughts along the lines of cooperation and creativeness.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Ren\u00e9 Wadlow is a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation\u2019s Task Force on the Middle East, president and U.N. representative (Geneva) of the Association of\u00a0World\u00a0Citizens, and <\/em>editor of <\/em>Transnational Perspectives. He is a member of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/a><\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Freedom from Fear: Still an Unmet Goal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":115490,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}