Freedom
Freedom
By Monica Benderman
Back in 1620, Pilgrims came to this country to get away from the repression they felt by those in England who would not allow them to practice their religion freely. No one from another country went to rescue them. No one brought guns to their land and destroyed their king, or fought their battles for them. With sweat, blood, fear for the unknown and yet driven by a powerful will to live by the basic human rights all people possess, these pilgrims made a choice. Repressed, with none of the modern weapons of warfare we blatantly wield today, knowing they could not live with this treatment, they freely chose to liberate themselves. The Pilgrims understood the meaning of freedom. It was not free – they earned it – they did not rely on others, they did not expect others to do the work for them.
In 1776, American Revolutionaries fought for their freedom against another repressive British government. Like the insurgents we see in far off lands, our forefathers hid in trees and behind bushes waiting to attack an oncoming army, striking in its matching uniforms and regimented steps across the battlefield. British troops were stymied as farmers and cobblers, writers and shopkeepers picked up their hunting rifles, found a common cause among men they had never met, and refused to fight a war dictated by a disciplined infantry shipped in from overseas.
Freedom meant something to our forefathers. Freedom was worth standing up for, and defending families for. Freedom - the right to live as they chose, the reason they fled the civilized country they had to find their way to a wilderness full of unknowns. They fought because they had made this land what it had become, and no one had the right to dictate their government, their way of life, their manner of success – least of all an army of men who had never lifted a finger during the toughest times of colonization, men who never gave one day of sweat to lay the groundwork for the communities they now tried to take with their bayonets, in-step assaults and fancy commanders parading on noble steeds.
The British came with all of their finery, confident that their will would overcome, ready to bring their form of government to an untamed land just waiting for its potential to be given the freedom to blossom. The British left, defeated, knowing a little more about the power of Freedom. The blood, sweat and tears of the Revolutionaries proved to be founded on something far more real than the invading army ever fully recognized.
If America would remember its history, America would see itself revisited in the events of today. Sadly, too many Americans only know the illusion of freedom, and once again, a glorious army, regimented in its steps on the battlefield, with well-designed uniforms and powerful guns find themselves facing revolutionaries of another era, a new generation, willing to hide in trees and behind stone steps using simple tools to create weapons; giving up lives in ways that this generation of Americans cannot fathom, simply because they have had a taste of the power of freedom, and they will not lose it again.
In our own Revolution, freedom fighters from other countries came to fight alongside our “patriots” as France sent soldiers to give strength to their cause. Different ideologies clashed and many died. Freedom was earned. Not because people died – but because they were willing to give everything they had to preserve their right to freely choose a way of life different from that which the repressive leaders of the invading force sought to impose.
Freedom is not something we can give. Freedom must be taken. Even on the day when our soldiers come home, even if, on that day, the war is declared a victory for “our side,” true freedom for the Iraqi people will not exist because of what our country has done. The Iraqi people were already free – and the choices they make are the choices that decide the direction their collective lives take.
Americans invaded a sovereign country without being asked. Americans challenged that country saying we were coming as a “liberating force” and when the declared work was done, Americans stayed on not recognizing when their forced welcome had been worn. As the revolutionaries fought back, the Americans dug deeper trenches and built higher walls around their camps.
The defense of the Iraqi revolutionaries grew with the magnitude of the challenge – Freedom, real freedom, means everything, and as the intensity of its denial builds, so too does their defense of it. Desperate people do desperate things, and when it comes to defending what is rightfully theirs; the right to have no outside interference as their sovereign country challenges itself to grow, to reach out and to become what it was meant to be, they will go to extremes, simply because they know the value of what they are fighting for.
Americans can challenge them, call them extremists, insurgents, terrorists; but what Americans can’t comprehend is the true extent a human being who has tasted real freedom will go to, simply to avoid being controlled by another. Americans cannot fathom such a response; they see it as uncivilized, as demonic because this generation of Americans has never been faced with having to fight that hard to defend their own freedom. They bargain for someone else to go in their place, they demand that another fulfill their duty, and they honestly believe they have earned the right to do nothing while others sacrifice in their name.
Freedom is there for the taking – always. All people choose daily – and their choices determine their way of life. Americans have chosen. Americans have chosen to allow themselves to be under surveillance; to allow the government to spend more money than it takes in; to allow themselves to be led. Americans have chosen to give government more power than the constitution allows, because Americans have relinquished the true value of freedom simply so their life can be easier to live.
Americans have lost the will to fight for their freedom, as they have become comfortable in their laziness. They are willing to demand that their soldiers protect their freedom as they sit idly in easy chairs watching the horrors of a war they created. Then Americans are willing to demand that the horrors of war be replaced by happy, feel-good news stories, as soldiers die and revolutionaries in an emerging country are labeled terrorists for daring to challenge America’s illusion of freedom with a courage only displayed when faced with fighting for true freedom.
Freedom is inherent – and the repression people feel is the repression they freely choose to accept. When people no longer can accept being threatened, abused and mistreated by others, and have chosen to allow true freedom to manifest itself in their actions; they are no longer willing to compromise, they are free.
When we take steps to alter another’s way of life, be it a person, or a country through interference they didn’t request, we are violating human rights in the process; we are not giving them freedom, we are taking it away, by imposing our perception of their situation through our actions. The Iraqi people are held captive by our perceptions of their way of life, and the results of our actions have placed them in a situation they did not freely choose to accept.
As the years have passed, Americans have become more dependent on their government for their way of life. Day by day in Iraq, we are creating the same environment again as we continue to front the battles that Iraqis should be fighting for themselves. Perhaps the Iraqi people weren’t ready for what our government thought we were bringing them. Perhaps, if we had been patient, the Iraqi people would have stood against their government at the time when they could no longer compromise, when their way of life was no longer something they were willing to freely accept – when they were ready. And by waiting, perhaps we could have been the country that helped them on their way rather than the occupier forcing them to make a choice they weren’t ready to make.
Monica is the wife of Sgt. Kevin Benderman, Conscientious Objector to war and the current status of this country, and currently serving a prison sentence at the RCF at Ft. Lewis, WA.
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