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6 years ago

Freedom: The most sought-after human state

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"Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains" said Rousseau in the introduction to his treatise The Social Contract two and half centuries ago. Humans deprived of the blissful state of freedom have been fighting for it through the ages. Lots of them have embraced death in their desperate battle against their oppressing masters. A lot of others have been able to reach their cherished goal --- being free of the rulers' lashes of whips. They have shed blood, undergone series of ordeals, and lost their families and co-fighters along the process. Freedom is the most sought-after dream of mankind as it continues to elude it due to scores of adversities.

Spartacus, the Thracian gladiator chained in slavery, realised the true meaning and values of freedom. He did not want to remain shackled by this extreme form of indignity meted out to an already deprived section of society. Spartacus stood up in revolt (73-71 BCE) against the system of Roman slavery. As he and his compatriots were unflinching in their revolt, the rebellion was bound to become successful. As expected, Spartacus impressively led his people to freedom. Centuries later, the Thracian freedom fighter carved his place in history as an iconic figure, especially in the 18th century France. For his heroic stance, he began to be viewed worldwide as an enemy of oppression. He was unanimously recognised as the champion of freedom.

In the consequent periods, the concept of slavery and oppression assumed a wider dimension. Apart from the social and community arenas, nations were found up in arms against invading forces and colonial oppressors. The struggle for justice, synonymous with freedom, by that time had led to the birth of a new concept of war. Those were not fought between nations. Nor did they break out on border dispute, expansionist missions or infatuation for a beautiful woman in a foreign territory. Most of the battles and great conflicts in the pre-Christ era and the Middle Ages were sparked by mostly mundane causes.  From the very beginning, the struggles for freedom and independence pursued one single goal --- emancipation of peoples from different forms of exploitation, and fighting against infringement on their inalienable rights. In course of time, they began enjoying the distinction of being the Freedom War, War of Independence, Liberation War, etc. Thus the American War of Independence (1775-1783) emerged as the outburst of revolt on the part of 13 American colonies against the rule of Great Britain. The main reasons behind the fight, also called the American Revolutionary War, included irrational taxes imposed by Britain on the people of the colonies. Other injustices and the resolve to establish self-assertion also played their part in the growing of popular disillusionment. On the other hand, centuries of corrupt and despotic monarchic rule triggered the sparks of the French Revolution (1789-1799), which saw the establishment of the First French Republic in 1892. Perhaps to demonstrate its arduous process of evolution, the republic got its final shape in 1958, under President Charles de Gaulle, as the Fifth Republic.

As the world's political history shows, not all the modern states came into being through turbulent phases of revolution. Many were born as part of transitional processes. Yet the nations emerging through traumatic and blood-smirched births enjoy a special place in the global community. Bangladesh, born of a sanguinary Liberation War, enjoys a distinctive place among these countries.

Just five years after the birth of Pakistan in 1947, the Bengalees in the then East Pakistan discovered themselves as being shortchanged and misguided by the leaders who had planned the partition of India. In the case of Pakistan, its founding leaders were hamstrung by some powerful feudal cliques. The disillusionment with the new state of Pakistan became a stark reality in the 1950s, during the Language Movement of 1952 to be precise. The seeds of discord were sown on the demand that Bangla be declared as one of the state languages. The thorny issue was resolved finally. But it left deep scars in the psyche of the people in East Pakistan, prompting mistrust and disaffection.

The 1971 Liberation War was, thus, a corollary of preceding episodes filled with prolonged popular unrest, initially simmering and later violent. By the mid-1960s, it became clear that the eastern wing of Pakistan was almost set to shape up its own destiny. By March, 1971, the Bengalees crossed the Rubicon, their one-point demand being independence. Since the injustices meted out to East Pakistanis started in just six months after 1947 and continued unabated, the later face-off was inevitable. It began with the state language issue, with Bangla in focus, in the session of Pakistan's Constituent Assembly in capital Karachi in February, 1948. The countdown to the 9-month Liberation War began in earnest after all conciliatory initiatives failed in 1971. The war was not going to be a war of attrition. For the Bengalees, their very existence as a sovereign people rested with the War of Independence. There was no way turning back.

The freedom of Bangladesh was destined to be a reality with the start of the Liberation War on March 26, 1971. The blood-spilling all-out war had to be fought against the well equipped Pakistan occupation army by the Bengalee Freedom Fighters. It took a few months for raising a fully trained guerrilla force from isolated groups of ragtag fighters. Still they were weaker than the enemy forces in terms of war experience and weapons. Yet all their weaknesses were overcome by their great determination to attain freedom. With the final and decisive onslaught of the joint forces of Freedom Fighters and the Indian Allied Forces on the already vanquished Pakistan Army, the people tasted victory. For a long-subjugated nation it meant freedom and freedom only.

On attaining freedom from foreign domination, there starts the phase of another war. With the initial jubilation over, a free nation looks to its other freedoms. They include freedoms from hunger, poverty and all kinds of deprivations. It's a long and arduous journey.

As has been seen in history, once a struggle for freedom or liberation starts, and eventually ends, it remains marred by many unfulfilled dreams in many cases. But there are few reasons for feeling disheartened. In every society pessimists are found as strong as the optimists.

There are no reasons to lose hope.  If one generation fails to taste the fruits of freedom after a pyrrhic victory, the newer generations take the helm. It's part of universal rules. The struggle for attaining the other freedoms continues. Bangladesh may not be an exception.

It's now a universal truth that being in freedom is the best of human conditions. It's this blessed condition that enables man to give free rein to the completion of all his unfinished tasks. Absence of freedom aborts scores of human possibilities.  It robs many a society of the ability to see dreams, and, finally, discourages them from surviving with dignity. Perhaps due to it the first of the thirty Articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says, "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights."

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