The Liberty English Camp(Lithuania)
by Stephen Browne
AT the end of this year's Liberty English Camp in Lithuania, three of the students display Russian and Baltic cookies they baked, spelling out the word LIBERTY.
This summer we held the sixth annual Liberty English camp in Lithuania with the largest number of participants yet, thanks to generous support from ISIL, ISI, The Lithuanian College of Democracy and individuals such as Rodger Cosgrove and Richard Venable. As always we owe thanks to Virgis Daukas and his wife Ilona for making the arrangements for the use of the camp facilities. Thanks also to Kevin Bjornson for his formidable organizing talents in getting funding and recruiting students – and to Judith Hatton, Ken Schoolland, his wife Li and my wife Monika – the teachers of the seminar. Special thanks to John Clark who took over the management of the classes of the second camp when I was away in Saudi Arabia and who has contributed greatly to the success of subsequent camps. Regrettably he could not attend this year, but we hope he'll be back in the future.
The genesis of the idea of the camp and the Language of Liberty courses came from my early experiences teaching in Eastern Europe.
Early in my career in Poland, I had a student who owned a law firm. We were supposed to be studying Business English, but he was obviously bored by the materials, so I gave him an old University of Chicago political-science text and invited him to pick something that interested him. To my surprise he picked selections from Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. Though I warned him that the dialect was a bit archaic, he replied, "The dialect is a bit archaic, but it's much easier to understand than modern writing because the reasoning is so clear!" From this chance remark came the idea of an English course that would use classical texts important to the history of liberty in lessons.
Later when I was teaching in Bulgaria, a young lady who had attended a few liberty seminars hosted by American foundations, remarked to me that most of the young participants from Eastern Europe were having a lot of difficulty following the presentations and were simply nodding politely as the speakers went on, blissfully unaware that much of their audience was understanding what they had to say only in a very general way. It was her suggestion that such seminars should be preceded by a week of English preparation.
Soon afterwards, I was teaching in Serbia during the time of the massive street demonstrations. I had a chance to use some of the prototype material in lessons with local dissidents and students – a delightful experience! I also noticed that everywhere I went there was a huge market for Business English courses and that nobody was happy with the material available on the market. There is obviously a market for Business English courses with a practical free-market orientation.
I suggested the idea of an English camp at the ISIL conference in Rome. The idea met with an underwhelming response – except from Lithuanian Virgis Daukas and ISIL Director Ken Schoolland, who alone showed enthusiasm for the idea. I pointed out that it would be very cheap to hold the camp in an Eastern European location, and Virgis immediately suggested that we could get a very cheap place on the Baltic coast in Lithuania.
The first camp was held immediately before the 1998 ISIL conference in Germany for the benefit of non-English speakers who were attending the conference (to brush up their English and prepare them for a week of lectures and discussions in English). We hoped that the camp might be held on a regular basis for conference attendees and students of liberty in general.
The first camp was held in a former Young Pioneers camp on the Baltic – which added a delicious feeling of irony to the fun. And it was fun, in spite of the dreadful toilet facilities and a bit of cold rain. The participants had a great time in spite of a few problems. At the fourth camp, we moved to a nicer location on the seacoast with more comfortable facilities. The fifth camp was held in another location closer to the beach, and for the first time we had some donated money from ISIL to sponsor students from Belarus and Ukraine. We also had students who came from as far away as Romania.
The broader, long-range purpose of the camp was to create and test English-language course materials. Materials we have used include: Jonathan Gullible by Ken Schoolland,
The Law by Frédéric Bastiat and The Language of Liberty, an advanced course I created from the writings of Anglo-American political history from the seventeenth century to the present.
It would be difficult to over-emphasize the importance of fluency in English for people in the former Soviet bloc and other
developing countries, particularly for people from the smaller linguistic communities. Almost every mid to high-level job in Europe (and a great many lower-level jobs) require at least some knowledge of English. This is especially true in academia,
business and politics – the fields in which libertarians have a strong interest in helping promote the personal success of our friends and allies.
English is the language of academic and political discourse all over the world.
We have a unique opportunity at this point in history. The market for English-language instruction in the lands of the former Soviet Empire is tremendous, and shows no sign of decreasing in the immediate future. And as more
people are exposed to beginning-level English, the market for intermediate/advanced instruction grows. By creating such courses, we have the opportunity to introduce into these societies the ideas of the greatest thinkers and actors in the history of Classical
Liberalism and Libertarianism of the English-speaking world.
If anyone should ask whether language instruction is an appropriate vehicle for spreading political ideas, I assure you that it is already being done – and not always by our friends. However the primary purpose of
the course material is not to get people into a room so that we can make speeches at them. The world does not need another libertarian organization whose purpose is to "preach to the choir". The primary purpose of the course is to teach English!
In the courses we offer, the ideas are introduced and the students are taught how to discuss them. Agreement or disagreement is irrelevant, the ideas are presented for consideration – and indeed the students do not always
agree. The problems of building, maintaining and preserving a free society have inspired a number of different opinions among friends of liberty throughout history. What we do is make available the thoughts and experience of those who have actually worked
in building, maintaining and preserving free states.
By making these courses available to the friends of liberty around the world, we can provide them with an essential tool necessary for their professional success and influence in their countries. We can make available the kind
of instruction that is usually extremely expensive, and at the same time provide Western teachers with the kind of in-country experience they could never get as tourists.
In addition, a native-speaking English teacher can offer what would otherwise be expensive services to friends of liberty, such as manuscript proofreading and editing, and assistance to translators of English-language
works into local languages. For years I have worked as the English editor for the Polish Academy of Science Annual Review. I've been a consultant on many translating projects, and at present am editing the English text of the reform proposals for the
Belarusian Institute for Privatization and Management on behalf of Elena Rakova and Jaroslav Romanchuk, whom those of you who attended the ISIL conference this year had the pleasure of
meeting.
The benefits to the teachers are also considerable. Many of us have long been troubled by the feeling that the libertarian movement is all too often, "theory-heavy and experience-light". Being here in the middle of these profound changes in the former Soviet Bloc since 1991 has profoundly affected my opinions on almost every aspect of politics and culture. The movement can only be enriched by the seasoning of Anglophone libertarians, and the enduring contacts created with our friends and allies in the East.
There are also other, more tangible rewards. It was here that I met my wife and here that my son was born. My life is now bound forever to this part of the world, and there is not a day that goes by that I do not bless
the fate that brought me here.
The Liberty English Camp is now a permanent, ongoing institution and is starting to attract interest from a number of places. This year Barun Mitra organized a camp for young people in India, which had a hundred and twenty
students! We've had interest from as far away as Turkey – and we've been discussing taking the camp to Russia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Serbia or Romania in the future.
What we dream about is someday having a permanent full-time organization that would work to create a network of libertarian English teachers throughout the ex-communist countries who would go "on the road" for camps in several
locations during the summer.
For that, we need funding, and we are well aware that funds are hard to come by these days. But more than money, we need people. We need young – or young at heart teachers with a sense of adventure and a desire for meaningful,
rewarding work advancing liberty. We've come very far in the past six years, and have far to go. It has been a lot of fun, and in the end, that's what counts the most.
International Society for Individual Liberty
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Liberty English Camp: Lithuania
