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Title: Are You Free? Author: Murrough Munder Date: 2019 Language: en Topics: anti-authoritarianism
I was walking along the streets of Dublin recently and overheard a young
middle class man says this: âitâs great that we live in a country where
we are free.â
Now this article/essay isnât intended to belittle that man by saying
itâs easy to be free when in the middle class prism itâs intended to
prove that both him, myself and indeed everyone on that street that day
and indeed every day arenât free at all, despite how much we all say it
in a Europe that profited and built itself off colonialism and in an
America which would have never become the beacon of capitalist extremism
it is today if it wasnât for the slave trade. So the places which tend
to value freedom the most got what little freedom they have from
attaching millions to bondage, this is the first lie of freedom âyou are
born with it.â No your
ancestors stole it.
The second lie of freedom comes from thinking you are free. Why?
Why are we free and they usually say because we have democracy, but do
we? I would argue no, that the democracy we have is tame and doesnât
impact our lives much at all. Put it this way, I work 8-10 hour days in
a company where I have never voted or had any say in how itâs run, I
work an average of 8 hours a day there, I sleep for another 8 hours so
whatâs left is one last 8 hour section which I spend about 2 hours going
to and leaving work so really most of my conscious day is spent working
for a millionaire to make him richer in a job which doesnât really give
me or anyone else much happiness, all I use it for is to scrap through a
monthly rent and food, so basically I spend most of my time doing
something that gives me no happiness or fulfilment and doesnât even
improve my living situation so I can
keep living an unhappy and unfulfilled life in a perpetual depressing
motion that if anything verges on madness and is a complete affront to
the notions of democracy and freedom.
If I have never voted in the place where I spend most of my day then how
do I live in a democracy?
âohâ the naysayers would say âdemocracy is governmental, you vote in
elections, you live in a democracy.â
Again I donât agree voting once every few years for someone who is more
than likely going to put themselves above all citizens in order to gain
money, power, privilege isnât democracy as it was intended to be or
indeed as itâs most efficient form could be. We see in Switzerland a
form of direct democracy where votes on local issues and laws take place
in cantons with degrees of federalised independence between each canton.
This
affords each citizen a say in the laws that are chosen not the people
who choose them, this cuts out the unnecessary middle man known as the
politician.
And if freedom is democratic the greater democracy the greater the
freedom.
But letâs say democracy isnât linked to freedom, then what is freedom?
It should be the lack of tyranny then. And I agree that in the decadent
west tyranny isnât common at least in its first and most pervasive form,
this is the type everyone thinks of with tyranny, a strong leadership
with gangs of thugs sometimes called the army or police or secret
service whatever they are called all are essentially the same thing the
fist of the state, the group that will initiate the states violence when
needed usually against a scapegoated group who in all cases are pretty
harmless to the state as a whole but bullies never pick a strong victim
do they. However their is the second form of tyranny, itâs not a tyranny
where youâll be beaten for
being the âwrong typeâ of person but instead itâs what some call
workplace tyranny, where you are technically free but under the constant
gaze and supervision of the bosses most useful idiot whoâs there to tell
those in power if one person is cutting corners, not meeting targets or
god forbid trying to establish a union.
This tyranny of constant supervision is not just a workplace phenomenon,
on every street where I live thereâs cctv cameras, if I change jobs,
move house or even have a kid I have to tell the state and they have to
agree to it, big brother isnât just watching me Iâm chained to his
wrist. And we let this happen, why? Safety! Weâre we in that much danger
to begin with?
And if security cameras are in 90% of places then illegal activities
would obviously move to the 10% this then fits the narrative that we
need to be watched for our own safety so we have to put cameras there
too so then we get to be safe and the state can watch us from birth to
death ready to take us down if we suddenly realise how the status quo
works.
We often hear the phrase âif you have nothing to fear you have nothing
to hideâ well letâs not forget that the states eyes (cctv cameras) are
being manned by people who can change the laws, so even if I have
nothing to fear today when will that change? And how quickly?
And just for context, I realise that this article is going to countries
far away from mine, many of which are countries that have been colonised
in their past (so was mine I just had the fortune of being born in
Europe and am white (letâs be honest thatâs why my country is better
off)), these non European colonised countries are known as the
âdeveloping worldâ but developing into what? A corporate run semi
democracy run by a small gang of bankers who get to make all the
decisions, own all the property and decide the laws for the vast
majority like every âdeveloped nationâ. Is that what you want? Why?
Because youâll also get a washing machine and an iPhone, that is the
choice of our generation commodities or freedom and people arenât
queuing for hours for Appleâs new freedom pad.
So if Iâm not free in work, if my country is telling me that Iâd rather
be âsafeâ than free and if Iâm writing this on a device whose camera is
watching me and whoâs microphone is listening to me, if I am watched
listened to from when I wake up to when I sleep from birth to death, I
am not free no matter how much I call this a free country, which
incidentally I pay to live in eatin and sleep in. Really I am a slave to
corporate interests and kept in line by the state, I amowned, a
commodity, a prisoner of capitalism whoâs allowed to run around and buy
Things.