The right to Write is a Human right

If my wife and I had brought our four-month-old daughter with us as we had originally planned to do she would have been the youngest mem ber of this very timely symposium on the Freedom of Expression. Her participation would have been very appropriate for a number of reasons. She is only four months, she belongs to the twenty-first century, and we worry about the kind of century she will inherit from our twentieth century.

Her name Mũmbi means the one who creates or the one who brings into being. And currently she is bringing joy into our lives by her very struggle to express herself. She is teaching us that the power of expression is not only functional but it is a value, an end in itself. As she learns how to use her hands or legs you can also see the joy . in her eyes at the discovery of her new power. When, for instance, she learns how to use her hands to control what goes into her mouth, she fights to be able to do it all on her own without help. By that act alone you can see that she is craving for Freedom and Independence.

She has recently discovered the power of sounds. The big sound in her life just now is the word mami, she has found out that whenever she says the word mami, her mother invariably turns up. Power of words! I am sure that as she grows up she will discover the immensity of that power to destroy or to create; to wound or to heal. So as she grows into her twenty-first century she will find herself engaged in a struggle to make words support rather than diminish her struggle for freedom and independence.

There are a few other issues around her being. As we watch her and her struggles, we realize only too painfully that, because of the way we humans have organized our environmental, economic and political space, there are thousands of other children for whom it is now impossible even to experiment with their limbs or sounds. There is Rwanda and Bosnia to remind us of that fact lest we forget.