Peter Espeut | Freedom is good, but …

This week we celebrate freedom; on Sunday, we celebrated Emancipation from chattel slavery 187 years ago (the so-called ‘full free’ followed four years later), and today we celebrate 59 years of freedom from colonialism.

Few are so naïve as to believe that those events have brought us to where we want to be as a nation and as a people. Freedom from rule by London placed us in the hands of local elites, who in some respects have not departed far from the colonial agenda: our education system remains elite for some and substandard for most; our good agricultural land remains in the hands of a few, or has been (or is being) converted into concrete; and our natural environment is being degraded for the benefit of mostly overseas interests.

Slave society was supported by state-sponsored violence, backed up by British troops and a local militia. To consolidate their power, the modern elites have used their political power to build and arm zones of political exclusion (we have come to call them ‘garrisons’), which largely experience an enforced internal peace, but which are hubs of extortion (tribute) and bases for warring gangs and criminality. Since political independence, we have one of the highest rates of homicide in the world, and one of the highest rates of police killings.

We who celebrate our freedom this week, do so largely from behind barred doors and windows, with dogs in our yards, or in gated communities. Independence for us has meant sustained devaluation of our currency, and the creeping transfer of the tax burden from the rich to the poor.

At the same time, despite the failures of the state apparatus, individual Jamaicans have made our little island loom larger on the world map than our size should warrant. The determination, self-discipline, and sheer grit required to beat the world in athletics show that there is real, quality humanity here.

Free though we may be to eat and drink what we want, athletes in training use their freedom to choose their diet carefully, to avoid banned substances, and spend hours disciplining their bodies.

REFLECT ON TRUE FREEDOM

And this should give us cause to reflect in this ‘Freedom Week’ on what true freedom really means.

If freedom means being able to do what we want, when and how we want, without anyone interfering or stopping us, then where does that take us as individuals or as a nation? Does that not justify crazy driving on the road to get ahead? If you see mangoes or ackees on someone else’s tree, shouldn’t you feel free to take them? Is freedom the absence of rules? Anarchy?

Using our gift of free will to choose to do what disadvantages others is a misuse of freedom.

A student comes home after school with assigned homework which is due tomorrow: is he or she free to play all afternoon and watch television all evening? In one sense, yes, and then get a cussing at school the next day. Isn’t a better use of the gift of free will to use it to choose to do what is right?

That is what we mean by duty and a sense of responsibility.

Governments have the power and the legal authority to chop down trees and mine the mountains, to fill in wetlands and dynamite coral reefs to build hotels, and to convert class A farmland into housing. Wouldn’t a better use of power and authority be to conserve natural forests – indeed, to expand forest cover by planting more trees? To conserve wetlands and coral reefs to expand fisheries? To plant economic crops on good farmland to strengthen food security?

This is what we mean by sustainable human development.

With freedom comes responsibility: if we are free to do what we want, then we are also responsible for what we do, and must face the consequences. Persons who use their free will to overeat will suffer the consequent disorders due to obesity. The whole society suffers when students use their free will to waste their time in school: the increased potential for gang membership and crime, poverty, pregnancy and lower GDP.

Yes, as individuals and nations, we are free to take decisions to do as we feel like; but this often impacts others, which should constrain us in how we exercise this freedom. This is where the idea of morality begins, not in obeying some abstract god, but in improving our health and in building up or breaking down human society.

Peter Espeut is a sociologist and is dean of studies at St Michael’s Theological College. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.