Not really an ode to freedom
Published on
Translation by:
Adele Benlahouar
While we’re living the authoritarianism or the dictatorship we don’t ask ourselves what’s freedom but we strive for it with all our forces. Otherwise when we live in a democratic country the “what’s freedom” question becomes a basic debate.
Freedom is one of the basis of the Italian country, of the European Union and generally of all the countries called Western countries. This is the result of a long historical path which has been characterized also by horrible events which stand out for their brutality and that led the occidental sensitivity and mentality to consider freedom as an inviolable right of the human being.
But this isn’t about indiscrimate freedom, donated just because “it’s right”. It’ about responsible freedom, a kind of freedom that finds its basis and its logic in consciousness. This consciousness has to be guranteed through education. School must, at least should, give to the citizen of the future (because an individual who lives in a society has the duty and the right to be citizen) the way of maturing an incisive counsciousness which allows him or her to express a real freedom a freedom with the capital “F”.
Otherwise is it freedom that of the individual who even if expresses it autonomously , isn’t able to understand reality in a discriminating way? The reality that is around him and to which he has to make his contribution…
Is it freedom choosing your own politc representatives, without not even knowing the electoral system which is in force?
It’s true, freedom and democracy are the basis of our occidental culture we must not allow anyone to take them away from us but we also must not allow ourselves to weaken these values from the inside, not giving them to others.
Freedom is not a game and moreover it’s not something we’re entitled to. We have to conque and earn it day by day, not only using it but also allowing those who are near us to benefit from it.
Freedom is knowing what’s happening in the world and understanding it through the instruments we have; freedom is saying “I don’t agree with you, but you’ve the right to express this idea”; freedom is confronting with other cultures without being clouded by prejudices because after all we’re all humans; freedom is understanding that we’re all the same, from the President of the United States of America to the last tramp of a metropolis.
That’s why I think that freedom is consciousness and responsability; that’s why I think that freedom is not a mechanism that we like to make use of, because it’s convenient; that’s why I think that freedom is something really complicated, demanding but beautiful because it consists also of being free to guarantee to the other the same freedom!
But in the end maybe freedom is a line too much fine and probably it is something in respect of which whatever we decide about it, we could be wrong; freedom is a polar star but without it we’d all be worst.
Translated from Non proprio un inno alla libertà