Fighting for Freedom: What will be your driving factor?
The struggle of bringing consolidation to freedom rights is seen happening in our contemporary society for a long while and the history dates back to times during the life of political figures such as Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr, Frederick Douglass and Bhutto, who are evident for standing up strong and solid for laying out the pathway to freedom for all people. But who is standing up now? Are we finding our ways to contribute to freedom yet? Are we only relishing the freedom?
We have been fighting for freedom for a long time.
But the question does not stop at the struggles, but what are we coming from and how does religion and our ethics relate to it? As we saw in the life of Dr. King, who was the head of Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and often criticized the white religious leaders for not accepting African-Americans for holding the spot of being a leader like them. He spread his words for freedom through his service of the church and always told the people that discrimination towards skin color and originality was never rationalized in the Bible. He would justify their movement being peaceful because the negro community were relying on each other for support and if religion weren’t relieving them, they would have resorted to violence long ago. He always talked with dismay of how the white supremacist were neglecting the rights of the African-American people. Without his way of working it out with the then president, we probably would have never seen the voting rights act put in the legislation and the diverse community that our society has transformed into in the twentieth century, probably would not have transformed.
In the contemporary society that we live in now, white supremacy and extremism go hand in hand as they fuel each other. The story of Benazir Bhutto explains a lot of stances she took in while she was alive. During the period of time she spent as an influence to Pakistan’s government, she overlooked her duty which was only towards her country and spoke against what was happening to the image of Islam in all countries with Islamic constitutions. As we read her story, she bring a lot of points to show Islam states equality for everyone and she based her arguments to the constitution of her country as a proof and goes on to state that the government has been overlooking it for a long time, declining justice and equality. She was seen fighting for equality and freedom against her own country. She exposed the West for fueling extremism and living off of it like a leech as it provokes other countries to think of Islam and all Islamic countries as extremist and treat them like one. The evidence lies in most of what she said because the society that we live in is still very discriminating based on religion. There were a lot of cases of anti-Semitic and anti-Islamic attacks seen throughout the country after the presidential election of 2016. Is it hard to figure it out who is profiting off of it and could we have done some thing to prevent it?
One of the best figures known for his fight for getting equal rights was Madiba–known widely as Nelson Mandela. He was jailed because with his supporters, he tried to bring down the government but never with violence. His only intention at the beginning was to put an end to apartheid but after spending eighteen years and more in prison, he realized even the brain-washed white wardens in prisons had never tasted freedom. They started off with non-violent protests of walking slow which despite being non-fruitful, paved way for more protests in the jail. They shared messages, supported each other to not lose themselves is what we need at this point of time. We need to support each other so we can all do small parts on our own so we can make room for more changes to come.
Freedom is still lost in parts of the world and we as people are more lost than ever. I am only pulling religion here because in our thousands of years worth of history, many people like Dr. King supported people from resorting to violence by keeping them hang in their through religion and people like Douglass and Mandela stuck to their beliefs of getting fair and equal rights. Like we have read Gandhi’s story in “Soul of a Citizen’ and how getting hands-on experience in the desert made him fight for desegregation, religion and self-respect were the driving factor in Dr. King’s and Mandela’s life to fight for their freedom. Due to Dr. King, we saw the voting rights act in legislation and years later today we need to see some more changes in our society. We need fuel to drive us towards a society where freedom is for all. We need to educate people, be it through religion or self-love, there should be respect and equal rights for everyone.
As quoted by Gandhi, “The spirit of democracy is not a mechanical thing to be adjusted by abolition of forms. It requires change of heart”.
We have been fighting for freedom for a long time.
But the question does not stop at the struggles, but what are we coming from and how does religion and our ethics relate to it? As we saw in the life of Dr. King, who was the head of Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and often criticized the white religious leaders for not accepting African-Americans for holding the spot of being a leader like them. He spread his words for freedom through his service of the church and always told the people that discrimination towards skin color and originality was never rationalized in the Bible. He would justify their movement being peaceful because the negro community were relying on each other for support and if religion weren’t relieving them, they would have resorted to violence long ago. He always talked with dismay of how the white supremacist were neglecting the rights of the African-American people. Without his way of working it out with the then president, we probably would have never seen the voting rights act put in the legislation and the diverse community that our society has transformed into in the twentieth century, probably would not have transformed.
In the contemporary society that we live in now, white supremacy and extremism go hand in hand as they fuel each other. The story of Benazir Bhutto explains a lot of stances she took in while she was alive. During the period of time she spent as an influence to Pakistan’s government, she overlooked her duty which was only towards her country and spoke against what was happening to the image of Islam in all countries with Islamic constitutions. As we read her story, she bring a lot of points to show Islam states equality for everyone and she based her arguments to the constitution of her country as a proof and goes on to state that the government has been overlooking it for a long time, declining justice and equality. She was seen fighting for equality and freedom against her own country. She exposed the West for fueling extremism and living off of it like a leech as it provokes other countries to think of Islam and all Islamic countries as extremist and treat them like one. The evidence lies in most of what she said because the society that we live in is still very discriminating based on religion. There were a lot of cases of anti-Semitic and anti-Islamic attacks seen throughout the country after the presidential election of 2016. Is it hard to figure it out who is profiting off of it and could we have done some thing to prevent it?
One of the best figures known for his fight for getting equal rights was Madiba–known widely as Nelson Mandela. He was jailed because with his supporters, he tried to bring down the government but never with violence. His only intention at the beginning was to put an end to apartheid but after spending eighteen years and more in prison, he realized even the brain-washed white wardens in prisons had never tasted freedom. They started off with non-violent protests of walking slow which despite being non-fruitful, paved way for more protests in the jail. They shared messages, supported each other to not lose themselves is what we need at this point of time. We need to support each other so we can all do small parts on our own so we can make room for more changes to come.
Freedom is still lost in parts of the world and we as people are more lost than ever. I am only pulling religion here because in our thousands of years worth of history, many people like Dr. King supported people from resorting to violence by keeping them hang in their through religion and people like Douglass and Mandela stuck to their beliefs of getting fair and equal rights. Like we have read Gandhi’s story in “Soul of a Citizen’ and how getting hands-on experience in the desert made him fight for desegregation, religion and self-respect were the driving factor in Dr. King’s and Mandela’s life to fight for their freedom. Due to Dr. King, we saw the voting rights act in legislation and years later today we need to see some more changes in our society. We need fuel to drive us towards a society where freedom is for all. We need to educate people, be it through religion or self-love, there should be respect and equal rights for everyone.
As quoted by Gandhi, “The spirit of democracy is not a mechanical thing to be adjusted by abolition of forms. It requires change of heart”.