When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, the words of Simeon went through my head:

I had long known that Communism was doomed. I knew on what wretched intellectual foundations it lay, and how it had created and was maintained by the most tyrannical systems of government that ever existed. Even so, its collapse left me stunned. I had expected at best a slow decline - never the joyous, and largely peaceful, repeat all through Eastern Europe of the 1848 revolutions. It really was one of those times for putting aside any sceptical doubts and falling back on Scriptural quotation.

But that was two years ago. Today, the triumph is over and we must put the flags away. There are certain pleasurable duties still to be performed. There is, for example, the great witchunt of traitors and fellow travellers. The KGB archives in Moscow have been opened to the public, and I look forward to seeing what they contain. But while Communism may be smashed, and its apologists crying out that they were never Stalinists - as if there were a difference here of more than sound - we have not won

all the arguments. History from now on will not be the story of automatic progress. The other enemies of freedom remain; and they have grown more formidable than ever.

There are the authoritarian conservatives. These have often been our allies in the past, and may be again in the future. But such alliances can only ever be negative - a joint resistance to some change that neither desires. In all positive matters, we disagree. We are already arguing over drugs, pornography, immigration, and the direction of scientific research. These arguments can only widen and grow louder in the coming years.

There are the health fascists. These are socialists in all but economic doctrine. They do not tell us that unregulated capitalism can only make us poor, because hardly anyone now believes that. Instead, they tell us that it can only make us ill; that, without their supervision, we shall eat too much sugar or fat, or smoke or drink ourselves into an early grave. This may actually be true. But, as a libertarian, I ask - so what? Freedom means the right to do what others consider to be foolish. Until the public can be brought to tell these people to mind their own business, they are a threat; and we must do our best to slow their advance.

Above all, there are the greens. These are a threat not only to liberal democratic civilisation, but to all civilisation, and perhaps even to the continued existence of mankind. What else can we say of people who value trees and elephants above human beings, who openly call for a two thirds reduction in human numbers, and who greet AIDS as a means to that end? There have always been people like this, eaten up with hatred and apocalyptic longings. But it is only once in three or four centuries that they stumble across a doctrine that is also taken up by and allows them power over an entire society.

Their specific claims are false. The Earth is not about to die on us. Even if there were something wrong, there is still no reason why, given given proper regard for life, liberty and property, we should not still expand without limit through the universe. But, until we are clear in our own minds why the green claims are false, and can counter them with repeated overwhelming

refutations of the kind that wore down the academic socialists, we shall all remain under threat from this most bizarre of suicide cults.

This is, then, an exciting time in which to revive Free Life. The great battle of the 20th century may be over. Those of the 21st are only just beginning. It is my wish that Free Life shall take an increasingly prominent place in these battles on the side of right, truth and justice.

Sean Gabb