"Pursuit of Happiness" in Kazakhstan
The question has been raised something to the effect, “Is there a Kazakh law in place to remember the victims of the evilness of the Soviet empire?” This was printed in the “Metalis” No. 22(387) newspaper published out of Karaganda dated June 9, 2008. It was an article about the Soviet government imposed famines in Kazakhstan in the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s. A week earlier in another publication was an earlier article Metalis No. 21(386) reporting similar facts. My husband regularly reads through Russian newspapers and he came across this article which I’ll bring to my Russian reading colleagues and ask more about what the author, Serik Maleev, was reviewing of current literature concerning the famines in Kazakhstan.
One of our American founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson, believed in a Creator God and Jefferson thereby also believed in life and liberty. That is why our Fourth of July celebration is so very important to TRUE Americans in order to remember what these brave men, who were forming a nation, believed. Jefferson wrote to Monroe in 1782 “The Giver of life gave it for happiness and not for wretchedness.” Unfortunately, there has been a LOT of wretched things that have happened in this land of Kazakhstan that has so much beauty, so much hope, so much potential.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable rights; that among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.” –Declaration of Independence as originally written by Thomas Jefferson, 1776.
Thomas Jefferson also wrote the following to Thaddeus Kasciusko in 1810 “The freedom and happiness of men [are] the sole objects of all legitimate government.” I pray for the future leaders of Kazakhstan in not only their “pursuit of happiness” but also of life and liberty. I pray that the leaders would not become future oppressers, recognizing what the earlier Kazakh citizens suffered under the tsars of Russia and later under the communist system. Education about this terrible era and also laws in place to remember those who just wanted to live and be free in this beautiful country would stop such evil leaders short of doing more damage.
