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Freedom how? What stands between today, with all its imperfections, and the triumph of evil? Only us. No god who will rescue. No benevolent demi-god leader. Only us. Some will lead, and inspire, and encourage. But they will only be people like us. We are responsible for our freedom. It only when we are free of lust for possessions that we will be willing to work for freedom. Freedom requires a love for people which reaches beyond ourselves and our friends. Freedom comes from a passion for justice, not a desire for self interest. Lust for possessions, or imprisonment by possessions or the debt they have incurred, is enslavement to self interest. In debt we cannot afford justice; we need things to favour us. If we do not love others- if we cannot empathise with them, self interest will have full reign in our being. This may favour us if we are among the power elite, or those whom their policies favour. But when we are not, and when our circumstances are not only unfavourable, but also unjust, we will have contributed to the ethos which not only tolerates injustice, but injustice toward us. Our protection from a good person who has gone astray is an appeal to justice and decency. Once shown their error, the good will repent and make amends. Not so those who are evil, or even simply greedy. They understand only self interest and economics. Our protection from them is reinforced by a strong legal system. But that system, and our final safety, is rooted and founded in compassionate hearts which recoil from injustice. Hearts which speak out against the wrong, and will in no way support it. Hearts which cannot see, or call, people "other". Hearts which can only see "us." Australia was scandalised, disgusted, and appalled by the imprisonment of one of us in the hell hole of Baxter. That hell hole only exists because we are not scandalised, disgusted, and appalled by the greater sin of making some people less human "others." There is no escaping this. If the treatment of Cornelia Rau was in-humane, and it was, then to accept the same treatment of others simply because they are "other," is to say they are less than human. We are not children. There is no parent who will intervene. There is no childishly imagined God who will save us, or even vindicate us at the end of time, and punish the wicked, making it all worthwhile. There is only us- living for good or living for ill. There is no middle ground. Apathy- not to act, is to agree with what is. Silence means assent. Part of me wants to be the child. I want everything to be alright. I want not to be responsible. It is frightening and it is too hard. But living for freedom is living for humanity. It is striving to enable all of us to become what we are meant to be. And it is living life to the full, being part of the greatness of life. It is the only way. One Man's Web > Politics and Ethics |
