What a Summer in Timor-Leste Taught Me About Agency and Self-Government

250 years ago last month, the American Declaration of Independence was signed—boldly proclaiming that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; and that governments secure those rights, but do not create them. Such a bold assertion required an armed conflict to prove it, and through that struggle the American people emerged with freedom, independence, and the right to govern themselves. Some have called this the American story, but a broader reading of history suggests it is more accurately the human story. America may have been the first to put it in ink, but the struggle for freedom, basic rights, and self-government is intrinsic to the human soul, and has played out in nation after nation since 1776.

I spent this summer in Timor-Leste —a country in Southeast Asia and one of the world's newest democracies—just twenty-four years removed from its own battle for independence. I worked with the Office of the Ombudsman, the constitutionally established institution charged with protecting the human rights for which that struggle was fought. Some of my colleagues were revolutionaries—members of Timor-Leste's founding generation who had been imprisoned for organizing, resisting, writing, and fighting in the struggle for independence from Indonesia. Between assignments, I sometimes found myself sitting beneath the shade of a banyan tree on boulders worn smooth with use, listening to my colleagues share their stories and their hopes and worries for the nation's future. They are learning what every revolutionary eventually learns, expressed best by Lin-Manuel Miranda's Washington to his Hamilton: "Winning was easy, young man. Governing's harder."¹

Working inside a democracy still in its nascent years has caused me to think more deeply about the fundamentals of society and democratic government. Why is self-government so difficult? And if preserving freedom requires so much effort, is it even worth the struggle? Latter-day Saint theology offers perspective to these questions. As President Dallin H. Oaks has taught, “God has given His children moral agency—the power to decide and to act. The most desirable condition for the exercise of that agency is maximum freedom for men and women to act according to their individual choices.”²

Contemplating agency and my experiences in Timor-Leste this summer has caused me to consider the responsibility I have to contribute to good governance and the preservation of human rights—both as someone privileged to be receiving legal training, and as a son of the Covenant. Reflecting on this has given me greater motivation to approach my legal education with diligence and purpose, knowing that the better I get at understanding legal frameworks and improving them, the greater my capacity to help preserve the freedoms that allow us to exercise our agency.

Visiting with these revolutionaries has also made clear how inadequate the law is, by itself, to secure fundamental rights. Just as good government depends upon a virtuous society, the security of human rights depends upon citizens who practice the self-restraint, generosity, and charity that no legal framework can compel. I have come to realize that my greatest contribution to democracy will likely not be anything I do with my law degree, but rather what I do as a father, a neighbor, and a contributing member of my community.

As I return from Timor-Leste, the thing I will miss most is my interactions with the children. 

Every day on my walk home from work, a group of them would call out to me until we had all exchanged high-fives. Their laughter brightened my day. As I continued home, I often found myself wondering what kind of Timor-Leste these children would inherit twenty or thirty years from now because of the work their parents and grandparents were doing today. It caused me to think about my own country, and what kind of nation my children and grandchildren will inherit because of the work my generation chooses to do now. 

My summer in Timor-Leste has given me a deeper resolve to do my part, as a legal professional and as a citizen, to help ensure that our governments secure basic human rights, and provide an opportunity for us to practice the eternal gift of agency. 

Alex Lambert is a second-year law student at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University where he serves as a fellow for the Center for Law & Global Affairs and on the board of the International Law Society. 

¹Lin-Manuel Miranda, "Cabinet Battle #1," on Hamilton: An American Musical (Original Broadway Cast Recording), recorded December 18, 2015, Atlantic Recording Corporation, 2015, streaming audio.

²Dallin H. Oaks, "Defending Our Divinely Inspired Constitution" (Ensign or Liahona, May 2021), 103, Church of Jesus Christ.