Foreword

When you think of a superhero, you may not imagine a five-foot-two-inch woman with a pen in her hand. But today, journalists operating in authoritarian countries need superpowers.

They face daily threats to their reputation, their freedom, and—in some places—their life. And Maria Ressa is one of them.

To say that Maria fights against the odds is an understatement. In an autocracy, a journalist’s opponent is the state—which makes policy, controls the police, hires the prosecutors, and readies the prisons. It has an army of bots active online to vilify and undermine anyone deemed an opponent. It has the power to take down broadcasters and online sites. Most important: it has a need to control the message in order to survive. Its existence depends on ensuring that there is only one side to every story.

As a famous philosopher once said, there is no greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of the law and in the name of justice. Yet under President Duterte, the Philippine government did not hesitate to use legal tools to try to intimidate perceived opponents. The authorities revoked Maria’s media license and filed civil suits that threaten to bankrupt her. She faces a barrage of bogus prosecutions that threaten her to life behind bars.

Not because she has committed any crime—but because the leaders in her country do not want to hear criticism. So she has a choice: toe the government line and be safe, or risk everything to do her job. She has not hesitated to choose the latter. And I know she will never give up.

Throughout history some of the most important voices in society have been persecuted. Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King, Jr., were all prosecuted because they criticized the government of the day. At his criminal sedition trial in India, Gandhi told the judge that he did not want mercy for standing up to a government that was trampling on human rights: “I am here . . . to invite and cheerfully submit to the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me” because “non-co-operation with evil is as much a duty as is co-operation with good.” He spent two years in prison as a result of his words. But he made India a more just society.Mandela was arrested when his views displeased the government: the charge was high treason, and he spent twenty-seven years in prison as a result. But he brought down the evil of apartheid.

Maria’s struggle is one that defines our times. Data gathered in the last few years shows that more journalists all over the world are being imprisoned and killed than at any time since records began. And there are, today, more autocracies in the world than there are democracies.

This is why Maria refuses to leave the country, and is determined to defend the charges against her. She knows that an independent voice like hers is always valuable, but becomes essential when others are silent. She is holding up the ceiling for anyone else who dares to speak. Because if Maria, a US citizen and a Nobel Peace laureate, can be locked up for doing her work, what chance is there for others?

It is ironic that autocratic leaders are often called “strongmen” when in fact they cannot tolerate dissent or even allow a level playing field. It is those who stand up to them whose strength should be celebrated—and some of them are only five foot two.

Elie Wiesel warned us that there may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest. Maria’s legacy will be felt for generations—because she never failed to protest, to try to bend the arc of history toward justice. And when young Filipino students study history, they will find that the first Filipino person ever to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize was a courageous journalist determined to tell the truth. I hope that, for the sake of future generations, they will be inspired by her example.

—Amal Clooney

Topics