What is Freedom After All?

Freedom is about doing one`s wishes without being rundown by others, of course, keeping legality in mind! When I think of freedom, it somehow rings a bell personally than professionallly. Freedom can be watching one`s fav serial [perhaps;-)) overriding other`s wishes], it can be shopping for what one likes to wear, going out for dinner, watching a movie, etc. More than `doing` these things, it is that which makes you `choose` these things at your own will.

Well let me try some character analysis of freedom here (on the points that came randomly to me as i was typing):
Come to think of it, i have married a person of my choice - so i was free to decide that, well he gets to watch his fav serials more than i do!!! But then, it is not because there is a clash between our preferences. As for dinner and movies, he is a stronger decision factor than me, though we do go out occasionally. Well, he likes eating food that i cook than going out.

Not very good, right!! But then, it does not hurt me because both of us are `home` people than moving around people.

We all have degrees of freedom. Some freedoms are not necessarily good; in India one may (at least men) have the freedom to urinate, spit and throw garbage wherever they want but nobody would claim this to be a ``good`` freedom.
Yes, women have greater freedom in the west than in India. But we are living in a dynamic world. A modern Indian woman has probably as much freedom today as a western woman had before the 60s revolution.
...As far as the greater freedom won by women in the west, I think it is too early to know what the long-term effects are going to be. Let`s wait a generation or two. Some career women are now leaving their successful careers to be homemakers. But as you say, it is the freedom to make one`s own choices that counts.

Here is one way of looking at it.

Freedom is the degree to which an individual can exercise her free will within the context of her belief system. An individual belief system is build upon a combination of complex factors, such as: religious, cultural, social, philosophical, and scientific, among a litany of others. Since no two individual are alike, the experience of free will is intrinsically unique to each individual. This implies that freedom is a fuzzy concept. It slides up and down on a scale of zero to hundred. In terms of degrees, it can be twenty – thirty – and very rarely a hundred. But, it is always there, even at zero degrees.

Man as a social animal cannot be free in true sense unless he becomes a Satan or Iblees to defy even God. Hadees says, ``The world is a prison for a Momin``. But strnge isn`t it that Kashmiries are fighting for freedom (Aazadi) when they have the only Aazad Government in the world and they can mix up political struggle for `freedom` with terrorism. These are the same Kasmiries which were once called `Haatos` and were sold by the British like cattle to one, Gulab Singh and about whom a very derogatory couplet attributed to Sheikh Sahdi is commonly quoted. Kashmiries are, nevertheless, great freedom fighters historically. In recent history we see Pundit Nehru, Allama Iqbal, Sheikh Abdullah, etc., without whom even freedom of India would not have been thinkable. Today Asghar Khan and Amanullah Khan are keeping up that struggle. So freedom without Kashmiries is unthinkable today even.

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If you want to define freedom there are two ways of doing it:

One is as per the American Constitution: Life, Liberty & Pursuit of Happiness.

The second one:
Break Freedom down into multiple parts.....and in my case there are 4 types of freedoms.

The Freedom From Fear, as rightly pointed out.
The Freedom to Fail
The Freedom From Chaos

and most important which somehow desi culture doesn`t pay heed to much:
The Freedom to BE

``HOW MANY OF US ARE OURSELVES?`

The problem is that what we perceive and/or conceive of as our self is a product of a collective. So the question of being free or unfree hinges not solely on an individual`s will and aspiration, but also, and more so on woh hai kaun, hai kin mein sai?

No man is an island and every man tries to be one.

Us homosapiens are a social species, organise ourselves in collectives. When we do so, the collective by its inherent nature impinges upon the individual. Freedom, it would seem, flows from striking a harmonius balance between individual will and perceived collective good.

This conflict, also pointed to by Kaursach in post #1, constitutes the basic parameter when we set out to define freedom.

Farzana raises an interesting question in post #2. Dependency CAN become so very comforting. The psychologists call it internalising the external. An extreme example is that of Patty Hearst joining the Symbionese Liberation Army.

Malik99 refers to Iqbal, self-abnegatiion and a belief in the hereafter . . . a ``freedom`` achieved through escape from freedom!




Siddiqua Haqnawaa

as subcontinentals -- we can only be Free relatively -- never completely free of our relatives.....

well freedom for me is doin wat i wanna!

waraich - you said, freedom is ``WHEN YOU ARE YOURSELF. How many of us are ourselves, that is the question? ``

but, i could be sitting in a jail too, being myself. this debate about `what is freedom` is an impossibly broad debate. freedom means so many different things to so many different people in so many different circumstances.

But there does exist a form of freedom, which perhaps transcends all circumstances - and that is freedom from fear. this is the ultimate freedom. fear arises when one is in the possession of something that he feels he would lose. it arises from the love of things and people around you that you think you could lose. it arises from the attachments and relationships you create. it arises from the hierarchy of humans - where the ones at the low end fear from the ones above.

it is in this context that religion, faith in God, and belief in the judgment in the hereafter plays an important role in lowering these fears. Was it Iqbal who said:

yeh aik sajda jisay too garaN samajhta hay
deta hay hazaar sajdoN say admee ko najaat

[this one prostration (to God) that you think is hard, gives you freedom from a thousand prostrations (to humans) ]

Hi:

Sometimes I feel we do not even know what to do when we are free, that is if we know we are free. Dependency does get too comforting...and results in complacency. Family, society, even ideology force us into stereotypes. And when we free ourselves, we beocme another stereotype -- the rebel...

Regards,
Farzana

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