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Message: <br /><br /> If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/38000/full/38000/former-dissident-sharansky-extols-virtues-of-democracy-and-identity/ <br /><br /> <b>Former dissident Sharansky extols virtues of democracy and identity</b> <br /> Thursday, May 7, 2009 | by dan pine <br /><br /><p>The last time Natan Sharansky came to speak in the Bay Area, he didn’t speak.</p> <p>A dispute over whether he could bring an armed bodyguard onto the San Francisco State University campus derailed the 2004 lecture. </p> <p>But on May 5, all sailed smoothly as Sharansky addressed a supportive crowd of about 200 people at U.C. Berkeley. No protesters, no booing, no anti-Israel invective.</p> <p>The talk was co-sponsored by the Jewish National Fund, Caravan for Democracy and Tikvah, a U.C. Berkeley pro-Israel student group.</p> <p>The best-selling author, former Soviet refusnik and Israeli politician has been in the news lately: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants him to become the next leader of the Jewish Agency for Israel.</p> <div class="capDivLeft" style="width: 216px;"><img alt="BAsharansky" class="left" height="279" src="/images/uploads/z_photos_2009/zf05_08_09/BAsharansky.jpg" title="Natan Sharansky" width="216" /> <div class="caption">Natan Sharansky. photo/danielle bass<br /></div> </div> That topic barely came up during Sharansky’s 45-minute address, however. Also not mentioned: the Iranian threat, Israel’s Gaza disengagement (which Sharansky opposed, and which led him to resign from the government), or any current events. <p>Instead, the one-time physicist expounded philosophically on the balance between freedom and identity.</p> <p>Sharansky, 61, opened his remarks quoting John Lennon’s song “Imagine,” which he says he knew and admired even from behind the Iron Curtain. He cited in particular the lyric “Nothing to kill or die for” as an anthem for the post-national movement he once championed.</p> <p>Recounting his biography, Sharansky found out as he rose through the ranks of Soviet science circles, then fell from grace  as an outspoken dissident, that one had moral obligations to nurture one’s identity.</p> <p>“Being a loyal Soviet Jew meant I knew nothing about being Jewish,” he said. “To be free, I must have roots.”</p> <p>Yet he warned against self-identity transforming into fundamentalism, just as he cautioned against freedom devolving into decadence and irresponsibility.</p> <p>Moving from individual struggles to national issues, Sharansky described the battles Israel faces today on three fronts: as the Middle East’s sole democracy against a sea of totalitarian Arab regimes; its struggle against fundamentalism, including terror groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas; and Israel’s fight to remain a Jewish state in a world that selectively decries nationalism.</p> <p>Sharansky concluded his remarks with a surprising defense of dissidents held in jails across the Muslim world. As a former political prisoner himself, Sharansky said he felt kinship with them, and found them to possess remarkably similar attitudes to his regarding free expression, but with one key distinction.</p> <p>“They know when they go to prison,” he said, “the free world will not be with them.”</p> <p>Pressed for time, Sharansky answered only two post-lecture questions from the audience, one of them about his possible Jewish Agency appointment. He said it is still early in the process, but he spoke highly of the agency’s traditional role of bringing diaspora Jews to Israel and strengthening Jewish identity.</p> <p>As he left the Berkeley stage, Sharansky received a standing ovation.</p>

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