Many of us have been so used to being able to attend a music concert, to hop onto a flight to our Mother City, or to have a spontaneous dinner out with good friends. Popping into the local mall for a cup of coffee with a girlfriend, or buying an outfit of choice.
Choice, and the freedom that comes with the ability to have choice, is often down to circumstance and privilege.
Let’s talk about freedom
The freedom to attend school. The freedom to go to school not hungry. The freedom to ask your teacher a question as she has the time to answer questions, which is not often the case in classrooms throughout the country of 60+ children in a classroom. The freedom to open a laptop to help with your homework.
The freedom to be able to turn a hot water tap on inside the warmth and security of your own home, or to safely and privately use a toilet, without having to go outside and battle with the elements and possible strangers, any time of the day or night.
The freedom of looking in your fridge and deciding on what meal to have that evening, and not having this choice. Or even a meal.
Freedom means different things to different people
So, let’s talk about freedom. Truly talk about it.
Freedom means different things to different people, and we cannot underestimate how much the majority of us reading this, take it for granted.
Naturally today we ponder on the freedoms disallowed to so many in our beloved country in the past. The freedom to get on a bus, or to use an entrance into a building. The freedom to have an interracial relationship or to vote at a polling station.
South Africa denotes a peculiar and unique take on ‘freedom’. She has this legacy unlike any other.
South Africa has come on in leaps and bounds from where she once was. She has spluttered and started through the years, streaming ahead on the world circuit one day, and then seemingly grinding to a halt in the very next breath, often due to circumstances not wholly in her control.
She is magnificent and all-consuming in her daily challenges and heartaches, her joys and successes. She denotes a peculiar and unique take on ‘freedom’. She has this legacy unlike any other.
What is your unique take on ‘freedom’?
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, our very own Madiba, experienced freedom on 11 February, 1990. He finally had physical freedom from a rectangular, cold cell after 27 years, but he came out with another freedom. The freedom of choice. He had the power to tear apart further, or to help start mending. He made the right choice for himself, and for our country. He came out forgiving. He came out walking and looking forwards, not backwards.
A positive to come out of the enforced lockdown in our land, would be to use it for some introspection and self-evaluation.
How will you use your new found freedom?
May it be a time to reprioritise and make big and steadfast, life and business- changing decisions, one being to grow one’s business to help others, not only one self.
Not being an absent daddy to your children. Offering assistance to your elderly neighbour.
Paying the car attendant more than you would usually, acknowledging, for the first time, how hard it must be for him to stand outside in the rain, wind or hot sun.
Giving an encouraging smile to the young and frazzled mum of a toddler, struggling to keep a brave look as she simultaneously combats with a trolley and a tricky toddler.
Let’s be kind. Let’s be true. Let’s be more aware of each other.
So, when we all have the freedom to roam and engage with one another again, let’s be kind. Let’s be true. Let’s be more aware of each other.
Let’s do South Africa proud and show the world how WE do freedom.
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Written by: Jennifer McQuillan
GOOD THOUGHTS • GOOD WORDS • GOOD DEEDS
