One person’s freedom cannot mean the suppression of another
This is the aspiration I hold.
Yet within this statement lives the tangle of understanding that freedom that doesn’t take away the freedom of others is never about taking. It is always about partnering. Collaboration. Working together.
This is messy, difficult, relational work.
This includes simple things like wearing a mask if you are sick to prevent your sickness from spreading to others – an act of generosity and thoughtfulness that we gift to others.
Or inviting those who lost their freedom a few hundred years ago to have a voice at the table where responses to their current circumstances are decided. Such a simple and respectful gesture, the very least we can do.
In any world where a person, community, race, tribe or state believes their freedom is more rightfully owed to them than another’s, we will get breakdown and violence. It is inevitable.
And the weapons to maintain this position are to promote fear and scarcity about the other as if they are lesser than or even inhuman. When we see our fellow humans as non-human we have descended into a form of evil.
The suppression of others is rife, globally. It lives within sexism, ageism, racism, colonisation, religious freedom, disability, medical care, education, sports and finance.
It must be named for what it is.
Photo Taken December 9th 2023
