A Bang or a Whimper
“Leven zonder vrijheid ist geen leven,” is a Dutch, proverb-like sentence Duo-lingo includes as a learning sample. Life without freedom is no life at all, is easily memorized ... in either language. Another jingle springs to mind: “Free to be, you and me.” which in Dutch would be, “Vrij om te sijn, jij en ik.” (I don’t know much Dutch, but my interest in it is routinely whetted by Agnes’ practising of the language ... plus Google Translator in this case, of course.)
I think we
can agree that it’s freedom and not license that’s being
referenced here. And although freedom is more easily defined if we limit
ourselves to movement—as in incarceration—in a democracy like Canada,
defining freedom of speech, for example, isn’t simple at all.
In WWII,
Londoners were required by government decree to shutter their windows so no
light would show that might aid German bombers in locating bombing targets.
During the COVID outbreak, truckers weren’t allowed to cross the US/Canada
border unless they’d been vaccinated. Also in WWII conscription meant that
Canadian men were “called up” to do compulsory military service. Protests that
these actions infringed on personal freedoms varied of course: in the first
case, it would have been that individual
living conditions made it impossible to be consistent, in the second that
“nobody tells me what to put into my body,” and in the third, an appeal to
freedom of conscience, faith. Every case raised conflict between individual
freedom and collective safety, and the question of which takes
precedence was inevitable.
The number
of dilemmas arising during the COVID pandemic escalated. Some churches went
on-line (collective safety) while others defied the health recommendations
(individual freedom). A funeral in a church stipulated that masks be worn
(collective safety) by attendees, but one “anti-mask” person wore a mask until
seated, then took it off (individual freedom). Some small businesses put up a
sign saying “Masks are Mandatory,” having concluded that they would lose fewer
customers if they did than if they didn’t. And then, of course, truckers
occupied parliament hill in protest (individual freedom) and a duly elected
government dispersed them (collective safety).
Hurling
invective from side to side became centrepiece of the news, but the net result
followed the pattern of the poem, The Hollow Men by T.S. Eliot[i]:
“This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.” Unless
something substantial changes in our worldview given this radically changing
age, we are bound to repeat our futile stone-throwing whenever we’re threatened.
What is
freedom to you?
I feel
free. I don’t feel restrained in anything that matters. I guess my church
taught me that tolerance, kindness, forgiveness underpin freedom, and that
neither exploitation nor retribution nor aggression nor retaliation-in-kind can
achieve that. To grasp this, and labour to live it, is, I think, the entire
gist of the Gospel. So many of us have need for our conscious minds to experience
a rebirth; and no birth happens without labour pain.
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