What is freedom? Can we say that we are really free people?
In this day and age, the word freedom is a distinguished topic in our society; either because of the number of protests which are held everyday worldwide, or because of the number of freedoms that have been
achieved over the years. This word has its origin in an Indo-European root whose meaning is “to love”. This root is used as an antonym of “freedom”, placing the prefix a- in front. The concept of “freedom” could be defined as the ability of the human being to act through his own will, that is, his freedom. Although this act of “freedom” must be limited, in my opinion, the freedom of the other. In other words, freedom is doing what everyone wants without harming another person or groups of people.
Having defined this and having read one of the last works that we have dealt with in the subject, we can relate freedom to the work of the French writer, Jules Verne, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1869). This novel belongs to a collection of books based on adventures and travels, “Extraordinary Travels”. In this work we can locate several moments in which the characters try to put an end to their self-consciousness.
For example, in the beginning of chapter eleven of the play,
“The Sargasso Sea”, in which the character in the first person, tries again to find the end of his stay in that place where they are now “Nor had we
any means of opposing Captain Nemo’s will. Our only course was to submit “”would he not consent to restore our liberty, under an oath never to reveal his existence?”. This occurs when Captain Nemo and his men take Ned Land, Professor Aronnax and Conseil as prisoners. The reason is because these three have discovered the Nautilus so they cannotreturn, not to tell what they have seen.
Another example, we can see in chapter twelve, “Cachalots and Whales”, in which we can see an intervention by Conseil, one of the three characters imprisoned in the play. He introduces an observation speaking in honor of his friend Ned Land, saying that he needs to go home as he longs for everything he had, “Poor Ned is longing for everything that he can not have. His past life is always present to him; everything that we are forbidden he regrets. His head is full of old recollections. And we must understand him. What has he to do here? Nothing; he is not learned like you, sir; and has not the same taste for the beauties of the sea that we have. He would risk everything to be able to go once more into a tavern in his own country.” These three finally put their lives at risk trying to escape since they prefer to die instead of being in that boat trapped.
What’s more, there are a large number of symbols known worldwide, whose purpose is to claim freedom in some way. Statues for this purpose are scattered around the world, but the one that stands out the most is undoubtedly The Statue of Liberty in New York. The French nation gave this monument to the American in 1886 on the occasion of the centenary of the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America with respect to the British Empire. It should be pointed out that the monument was designed by Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, the same engineer who designed the great and famous Eiffel Tower in Paris.
Another symbol that has been very successful, especially today, has been the rainbow, which froms the gay pride flag. This has its origin much longer than we imagine. In 1978 it was used for the first time on the occasion of the San Francisco LGTB+ Pride march. The creator was Gilbert Baker.From then on the rainbow has been associated with sexual diversity. It was initially made up of eight Qcolors, after that there were seven and finally ended in six.
Even though the concept of freedom that we use at present has evolved over many years ofstruggle to become what we know today, we cannot say that we live in a totally “free” world. The reason is that day after day things continue to happen that make us see that we are not free. Currently, there are not a few
cases of physical and mental harassment and aggression against LGBT people or people of another race or ethnicity.This does not have to be a stranger, since even some relatives are part of this. Without going any further, last Christmas, a gay friend suffered a situation that no one would like to experience. His way of dressing is somewhat extravagant, so he came to the family dinner and before sitting at the table, he began to receive insults from his own father regarding his
wardrobe and sexual orientation. He only replied that he is free to dress and date whoever he wants. Following this, he left.
Another point is the thousands of cases of disappearances of both men and women. This is something that, although we may not believe it, continues to happen every day, people with a completely normal life who are suddenly kidnapped, obviously against their will and therefore their freedom. As it happens, in my town, which is located in the South of Spain, which has 36,000 inhabitants, a few years ago a man with a van was dedicated to kidnapping children and teenagers. This obviously ended up being reported to the security forces and that person got the consequences for him.
After having reflected on the issue, on the whole, freedom is in my view something very relative that depends on each human being, their race and their culture. Compared to the old days its situation has improved. Around fifty years ago, LGTBI was a taboo topic; now we have managed to quell the aggression against this one with the help of demonstrations, as well as, events in support of them. Therefore, we will be able to act the way we really want, without being held back by anything or anyone, as in Jules Verne’s work, where the three characters are held back.
Likewise, in everyday life, a society will be achieved in which
there will be no fear of going alone on the street, of being attacked or kidnapped. In addition to putting an end to the murders and suicides that this entails. This will require a lot of global support, protection and work, as has been done so far.
REFERENCES:
2021. [online] Available at:
<https://symbolsage.com/es/12-simbolos-de-la-libertad-y-sus-origenes/#top_ankor> [Accessed 24 November 2021].
Imdb.com. 2021. [online] Available at<https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11166512/> [Accessed 24 November 2021].
Fernández, P., 2021. Discriminación grave, falta de libertad y protección internacional. [online] Mujeres Refugiadas. Available at:
<https://mujeresrefugiadas.accem.es/discriminacion-grave-falta-de-libertad-y-proteccion-internacional /> [Accessed 24 November 2021].
freedom?, W., Natividad, T. and Wainwright, S., 2021. What is the etymology of the word freedom?. [online] English Language & Usage Stack Exchange. Available at: <https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/422103/what-is-the-etymology-of-thewordfreedom#:~:text=%22Freedom%20comes%20from%20the%20Indo-European%20root%20which%20means,thought%20it%20might%20be%20interesting%20for%20your%20discussion.>
[Accessed 24 November 2021].
El Orden Mundial – EOM. 2021. LGTB: logros y retos en el siglo XXI. [online] Available at:
<https://elordenmundial.com/lgtb-logros-y-retos-en-el-siglo-xxi/> [Accessed 24 November 2021].
Significados. 2021. Significado de Libertad. [online] Available at:
<https://www.significados.com/libertad/> [Accessed 24 November 2021].
Gutenberg.org. 2021. The Project Gutenberg E-text of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (slightly abridged), by Jules Verne. [online] Available at:<https://www.gutenberg.org/files/164/164-h/164-h.htm> [Accessed 24 November 2021].
LOS40. 2021. ¿Qué significan los colores de la bandera LGBT? ¡Te lo contamos!. [online] Available
at: <https://los40.com/los40/2017/06/26/love40/1498496045_643065.html> [Accessed 24 November
2021]