Desiring Freedom

The greatest violence is not achieved through blood, but through destroying what is most essentially human. I finished reading today The Quiet American by Graham Greene. Honestly, I picked it up because I find myself as the quiet American wandering the streets of New Zealand! It’s a novel set in Vietnam just before the United States was drawn into the war. That context provides all the necessary violence and crudeness of war, which Greene himself experienced as a correspondent there in the early 50s. 

Yet, in the midst of that storm of confused human wreckage, the reader’s attention is drawn to a story of love (though perhaps that’s a degradation of the term) that two men have for a Vietnamese woman named Phuong. Pyle with his ideological naïveté and Fowler swamped by cynicism awkwardly vie for the attention of this woman even as the bombs fall and grenades wreak havoc around them. Though I’m no literary critic, Phuong seems to be Vietnam itself: shelled by ideology and abused by the bloodlust of power. In the end, all she wants is freedom: for someone to take her to a place where she can walk the street without fearing for her life.

It makes me wonder about the effects of ideology; it makes me question my own temptations to cynicism and how it impacts those around me. If you have a bit of time, I might suggest watching this presentation from the New York Encounter, the event that began this time of sabbatical. You can find it here. It illustrates well how sincere dialogue can break through ideology and how a shared humanity can stand tall in the face of cynicism. It’s not just for us: it’s for those we love who are simply looking for someone to show them the face of freedom.