Remember remember the fifth of November
The gunpowder treason and plot
I know of no reason
Why the gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot</em
If you ever saw V for Vendetta this is one poem you will always remember the film on a day such as today. This is one of my favorite films and always leaves me thinking around for some days.
Living in Venezuela, freedom is a concept that can never be hold as an absolute and that each day is understood differently in the minds of its peoples. Still when the world advances towards a freer societies there are some societies that are going in the opposite direction. With much sadness, i must recognize that I live in a society where freedoms increasingly looks as a threat more than a right.
We say we have freedom of speech because we are not banned by the government when we say something they don’t like. But those this hold true? Can we say that talking with fear to become a political target, be discriminated by the state or threatened by its supporters is to talk with freedom of speech? If your answer is yes, check your premises
I cant claim to be free if I can’t even do whatever I want with my money without government authorization (currency controls – CADIVI) or have to strategize my future depending on whatever the government decides to do. We live in a society that has had so many governmental impositions and rules over the years that we have become used to it and forgotten what freedom should be like.
I am not only referring to freedom as the lack of imposed government prohibitions but also as a state where our only censor is our conscience. Due to insecurity, we are ever more allowing those who brake simple formal or informal rules to continue doing so by being afraid to speak up because you might end up with a bullet in your head. Where fear reigns, freedom is no more than an Oasis.
For all those living in countries were governments forget to tackle violence and embrace it, where a dissident voice is recommended to silence itself, where you fear the police in the same way you fear a thief, let us remember today, the fifth of November, that freedom should always be an absolute.
People should not fear their governments…governments should fear their peoples