(This piece first appeared as a Halo & Noose newsletter. Free subscription to the monthly newsletter is at http://www.haloandnoose.com )
Goodbye freedom? A sad tale
Freedom Day in South Africa fell on April 27th this year.
We live in a beautiful country but lack many freedoms. The security industry is pretty big relative to our GDP - both private and corporate security – with about 10, 500 registered security businesses and 2.5 million registered security officers in play.
In an adjacent suburb to ours, Joe Slovo, two young men were stoned to death by a mob on Freedom Day. A video of them lying in their own blood did the rounds. Witnesses have avoided coming forward for fear of retribution. Similar stories are emerging more and more frequently. Anger seems to be moving from sporadic to pervasive.
Freedom - of life, thought, speech, association, movement, opportunity to become educated, work and earn, privacy - has been long valued as a fundamental human right. It is what confers on us our humanity, gives us our dignity, contributes to what makes us able to interact as equals and to care for our communities, environment and endeavours. Rumi, Jesus, Leroy Little Bear, Buddha would all agree. And they would agree that being set free also brings with it an existential responsibility to make moral, informed choices.
Smooth-talking President Ramaphosa pays lip service to the value of freedom for all, yet remains stuck in an ideological mindset that denies these freedoms to most of our citizens. (Incidentally, the Dalai Lama is still banned from and is not free to visit South Africa)
Around the World, Governments and Big Pharma have hijacked their citizens, using Covid-19 lockdowns and regulations and fear tactics under the thin veneer of “scientifically fighting the pandemic to save lives”, in order to institute Draconian command, control and wicked coercion aimed at removing people’s basic human right to freedom as a valued value.
Looking ahead, it seems that nothing is set to change nor improve in the foreseeable future.
An experienced and sound journalist reports, “This makes the recommendations of Fauci – and by implication every expert around the world – in favour of universal, state-mandated lockdowns in response to Covid-19 both flummoxing and dangerous…
By making recommendations for universal lockdowns, Fauci and many like him across the world have defiled science. They have tacitly lied, abusing the implication that, as scientists, they have considered all issues necessary to reasonably consider. They have claimed mastery in realms where they cannot possibly have more than foolery. They have played politician, thereby damaging science”. (Macleod, I. 2021)
Hello lost human-ness
It can be argued that love and compassion are the highest human values. If that holds sway, then de-humanisation (one form being the deliberate taking away of freedoms as described above) is the very opposite - or the lowest, most evil of human vices.
It is thus a great pity that Freedom is a value scarcely mentioned in the lexicon of business and organisational values. People have started to talk about being able to speak out in psychologically safe workplaces, about smoothing the way for diverse peoples to associate and belong together freely, to live and work where they desire. But we are a long, long, long way from all people everywhere becoming truly free.
Isn’t it time that we in the South African business world placed far more attention on fighting for valid, basic human rights in the country in which we operate? I fear that big business has been infected by state creep, state capture, endemic corruption and public/ private sector partnering - and may have been rendered unable to act. But smaller businesses still have the capacity to speak out and to do the right things within their own organisations, communities and spheres of influence.
Isn’t it time that we taught our workforces how to become workforces-for-good, and how to develop their ethical maturity and moral backbone.
And taught them to teach their children about the sacred right of every individual to benefit from things such as:
- Playing sport or seeking work on merit
- Feeling safe without fear of their homes, possessions, and even ideas expropriated without compensation – that is, stolen by the government
- Expecting that their hard - earned taxes and pensions are not stolen and misused - and instead being able to access electricity, clean water, an efficient intermodal transportation system, efficiently run and honest municipal services, a high standard of education, a police force on the side of decency and good, who serve the people
- Making informed, independent choices about their associations, occupations, and care and well-being of their families and communities
- Having their privacy respected
- Expecting unbiased, high quality education
- Freely visiting and attending the death beds and funerals of their families and friends
- (Based on factual information) being able to decide for themselves on matters of social distancing, wearing of masks, receiving vaccinations (all of which are experimental and have no scientific basis) Why doesn't government provide logical, full answers to questions like: if well over 90% of those who contract covid-19 recover because of their natural immunity system then why vaccinate everyone repeatedly for the rest of their lives?... and... if masks don't prevent the transmission of nano particles, then what is the point of wearing them?
- Not being subject to hate-based speech emanating from government and parliamentary figures in authority (which inevitably cascade down to grass roots level)
- Not having their compassionate urges impeded by “higher” authorities
- Being free to walk on the beach without interference
- Living in a culture where the norm of hate-based communication is replaced by the bridging of differences between people
In South Africa, instead of this being advocated and nurtured, more and more legislation keeps eating away at these basic human rights, and there is more and more state interference with what should remain independent (for example the judiciary, the reserve bank)...
Years ago the musical group Creedence Clearwater Revival had a hit song whose title captures the current situation well: Bad Moon Rising (Fogerty, John C. 1969)
How do we begin to fix what is so badly wrong? And begin to tell a new story?
We are in the lion's den with all the fear and hopelessness that this brings. My wish is that many discover the capacity to discern truth, to see through deceptions and arrogant, bad intent of the global goliaths, and learn how to act accordingly – and move beyond empty words, lip service, and meaningless gestures, to loving deeds that count. I advocate that each of us relies on the source that sustains and upholds them; becomes calm; does what they can in any small way to reach out; and to continues to stay woke (in the right way).
Calming. In our last Halo and Noose newsletter Nnaumrata Arora Singh spoke to us eloquently about freeing ourselves from FOMO and moving to the peaceful, productive, present state of JOMO. The joy of escaping from all the overwhelming “noise” (including false stories and fake news) that we are subjected to constantly by the various media channels. (Her powerful piece has been posted at:
http://storytellinginbusiness.blogspot.com/2021/05/shifting-to-jomo.html ).
This step may at first read seem quite insignificant, like starting far too small to make any meaningful difference, but in fact will be a huge state to attain – especially at a time when in South Africa many are fearing a failed State, ever-tightening control and coercion, and inevitable anarchy. And many are feeling listless, defeated. The attaining of any form of meaningful freedom seems impossible.
Reaching in and out. Becoming still facilitates the consequent flow of compassionate action (and this implies being present to self, our motives, values, world views, and our willingness and ability to shake loose those internal negative beliefs and biases. And to be fully present for, and ready to serve, others).
Beng watchful. It might require a great deal of ongoing inner work and prayer to break free from the new form of slavery being imposed on us by Government agendas. "Stay Woke", in contemporary parlance, means to be alert to those paradigms dominating society, communities and self; the inherent and perhaps hidden injustices and biases contained within those paradigms; and to seek to put them right. (Politicians and self-interest groups are distorting its meaning). Staying woke, as is always the case, requires starting with self. This is beginning a revolution from the inside- out. You see, as the wise conclusion of Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard teaches us, “The unhappy man is always absent from himself, never present to himself”.
And perhaps Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a young German pastor imprisoned and executed in 1945 for his opposition to the Nazi regime, best stated (and reminds us of) the need to 'stay woke' and not give up our freedoms so gullibly and mindlessly:
“Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity. It would even seem that this is virtually a sociological-psychological law. The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other. The process at work here is not that particular human capacities, for instance, the intellect, suddenly atrophy or fail. Instead, it seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances. The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with him as a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.”
References
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich (1997) Letters and Papers from Prison (New Greatly Enlarged Edition) Touchstone
Macleod, Ian (2021) I Fool – but not a Fauci Daily Friend 4th May, 2021
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