|
|
 |
 |
 |
| Friday, 4 February 2005 |
 |
|
 |
Features | |
| News Business Features Editorial Security Politics World Letters Sports Obituaries
|
Freedom - its real meaning Two score and seventeen years ago we rejoiced on securing our freedom from the foreign yoke. "Bliss was in that dawn to be alive And to be young were very heaven" However, ever since then we have been engaged in unprecedented murder, mayhem, political division, revenge and injustice, nepotism, stoogism, sycophantism, vice, corruption, exploitation, sheer plunder and even desecration; in short a host of anti-social activities that day by day has escalated, culminating in social disunity, disintegration and rampant indiscipline manifest even among the highest and in sacred enclaves. The consequence has been absolute loss of a sense of values and the society being deprived of Sweet Reasonableness, which two qualities are supposed to be the chief characteristics of civilization, according to Clive Bell who wrote a book on the subject of civilization. We have dragged ourselves into a spiritual stupor and miasma from which no escape seems possible, despite the shouting and posturing. Power-hunger and mindless consumerism appears to have seeped even into the Collective Unconscious of the community. Sit by the waters of Mahaweli And weep No arguments are necessary to substantiate the truth that so far no one, either great or obscure, or leader or follower has dared define what freedom is, and explain its uses to the masses. Indeed much use has been made of the deep, resonant, inspiring connotation of the word; that often with fanfare! It need not be said that no universal intellectual, writer, poet or thinker has stressed the freedom is for violence, vice or viciousness. Hence, now more than ever seems it rich to realize that, as the intellectuals point out, freedom is a blessing which leads our minds to nobility of thought and action, if not to perfection. Rabindranath Tagore's poem inevitably comes to mind. Where the mind is without fear And the head is held high Where knowledge is free Where the World has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls Where words come out from the depth of truth; Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection, Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit; Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake. Therefore, in terms of practical achievement, let this idea of freedom be taught, for ever, in schools, universities, in all the training institutions; and let it be inculcated into the minds of the masses through all the available media, through ennobling, inspiring examples that freedom is a means to nobility of thought and action, to peace and prosperity. And pray, let it not be done mechanically, perfunctorily, indifferently for a day or two, but as an endless continuing process executed with unique dedication and devotion. On the other hand, it has been argued that civilization proliferates into the masses from a nucleus - not necessarily living together-of highly civilized persons artists, thinkers, intellectuals - whose sense of values and Sweet Reasonableness colour and make meaningful the lives of the masses. May the nucleus that we possess honour real freedom and lead our country to true freedom, lead the masses away from puny, putrid, parochialism and power-crazy consumerism, and educate the community! Ben R. |
|
News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security
Produced by Lake House |
