One word of truth: why we need someone to say it aloud

Goya could have painted a handsome ceremonial portrait and lived in peace. Instead he painted the execution of unarmed people — and preserved for posterity what power would have preferred to forget. Two hundred years later the names of the executioners have faded, while his silent testimony hangs in one of the world’s finest museums. In this lies the whole power of one person who refused to stay silent.

Truth is uncomfortable to speak — and so it is spoken rarely

Silence is always safer. To say aloud that the king is naked is to make enemies, to risk your peace, and sometimes more. That is why every age has a thousand reasons to keep quiet and one single reason to speak: without spoken truth a society loses its sight. It ceases to see its own diseases — and the diseases one is forbidden to name do not vanish but grow in the dark. Whoever speaks an uncomfortable truth most often does it not even out of courage, but because they cannot do otherwise.

Free speech is not a luxury but a safety system

There is a temptation to think that the freedom to speak is a privilege of journalists and debaters, an ornament of a comfortable life. This is a dangerous delusion. The ability to name a problem aloud is what allows it to be solved before it is too late. A society where troubles are kept silent is like an airplane with all its warning sensors switched off: outside there is calm and quiet — right up until the crash. So whoever speaks the truth — even an unpleasant, even an untimely one — works not against society but for its survival.

“One word of truth outweighs the whole world.”
— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

My opinion: not everyone is given, and not everyone is obliged, to be a hero. But everyone can do the small thing: not to call black white for convenience, not to applaud a lie, not to look away. Truth rests not on lone brave souls but on thousands of ordinary people who simply refused to repeat an untruth. And if you have a choice — to stay silent out of caution or to speak by conscience — remember the artist at the wall: the executioners were forgotten, and the one who refused to shut his eyes is remembered still. The word outlives fear.

Cover: Francisco Goya, “The Third of May 1808” (1814).