Opinion | Lighting Lanterns of Liberty in Dark Corners

She offers a telling analogy. “Once the Berlin Wall fell, Communism was finished. Once this wall of black cloth is removed, the Islamic Republic and its discredited political ideology will be gone.”

That’s easier said than done. From Havana to Tehran (and Caracas to Pyongyang), tyrannies have been able to survive decades of isolation and self-inflicted catastrophe with an adroit mix of ideology, corruption, an exit option for the discontented, and ferocious repression of those demanding change.

It also helps that both regimes have prominent apologists abroad — the people who think Cuba’s health care makes up for 60 years of tyranny, or that Iran’s sham elections are an adequate substitute for genuine democracy — along with the much greater number of people who are simply indifferent to what they do.

But tyrannies also have a fatal vulnerability in the face of moral conscience. It’s what gives dissidents their unique, if fragile, power. “I have no fear of being imprisoned,” Ali told his sister in a stunningly powerful video he recorded shortly before his arrest. “The moment I’m arrested, speak out. … Be strong and do your work. You are doing the right thing.”

Those are words that Ferrer would instantly recognize as coming from a kindred spirit. Andrei Sakharov, Liu Xiaobo, and Nelson Mandela would have recognized them, too. The struggle for freedom is a single struggle. The plight of a dissident in a Cuban dungeon matters not only to Cubans. The fight for women’s rights in Iran matters to anyone who cares for human rights.

As for the U.S., championing dissidents once played a unifying role in a bipartisan foreign policy. Donald Trump’s reluctant but correct decision this week to sign a bill to support Hong Kong’s protesters suggests the tradition isn’t dead. Dissidents deserve that support not just because of who they are, or what they have suffered, or the cause they embody. It’s also because they are, potentially, our most potent weapon in undermining our enemies.

Their cause isn’t, and must never be, lost. On this long weekend, thank Ferrer, the Alinejads, and everyone else lighting lanterns of liberty in the world’s dark corners.

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