FREEDOM IS COMING TOMORROW – Part 1

By Oliver Kasito Jnr
Freedom is a word known by many people, at the same time abused by most people around the world. Because of what Africa has gone through the past decades this word is absolutely famous in the continent of Africa and there is no better place you can hear people talking a lot about this word than Africa. The funny thing is that the people who are mostly concerned of this word are those people under leadership and not those in leadership. As innocent as the word “freedom” is, people have always associated it with war, violence, blood, outrage, hatred, fight, struggle and many other fierce acts which aren’t innocent as the word is. In this very same context we have diverted the meaning by bringing in our own understanding, that for people to be free there need to be war, fight and etc. for this the world is blind as the famous Indian activist said “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”. The world is blind and deaf at the same time; it can’t see the enslavement it’s in nor hear the cry of those who are being enslaved.

“Freedom is coming tomorrow” is one of the famous songs which was used in the famous movie known as Sarafina a movie which was released in 1992. The song talks about a better day hoped for when freedom is going to prevail and the movie talks about the struggle during apartheid in South Africa. Africa has been a continent known to be ruled by the colonial rulers such as British, Portuguese, French and many others. According to the perspective of many people the time that Africa was being ruled by whites Africa was enslaved (it didn’t have freedom) and the day we became independent (rule ourselves) we were free. But are we really free from enslavement? Or we are still enslaved in our own
freedom? The problem with the continent of Africa is, she is not free from enslavement rather she is still enslaved in her own freedom. Unless Africa comes to the knowledge of freedom it will never be free.

There are several ways we – Africans get it wrong. In Africa the word freedom is defined in the context of “day” and “not way of living”. You are free to express yourself the way you would like to on “independence day” but once that day is gone well your freedom has automatically reached an expiry date. As I have expressed earlier that freedom always benefits those in leadership and not those under leadership. This can be seen in almost all of the continent that people in leadership seem to have the entitlement to freedom than the rest of the people and the rest of the people are subordinates, victims and spectators to the game of freedom. Before independence the people thought freedom means “being independent (self-rule)” and when we got independence; today freedom means “remembering the day we got independence”. So, in short I can say freedom comes once every year (on Independence Day) after that it goes but I am not really sure where but maybe is buried together with those who fought for it. The president can bring people back to the memories when we got freedom and declare the exercise of it during the ceremony of “independence day” but in reality it is the opposite of what you think he is saying, such a pity.

Africa is missing the whole point in fact the whole world at large when it comes to this word “Freedom” why? Because we understood and we still understand this word in a context of war, violence, blood, outrage, hatred, fight and struggle without these things freedom can never be attained. It seems like freedom is something we search for with actions that might hurt and hate others and live us being hurt and hate at the same time. If freedom is something that we have to look for then why haven’t we found it up to now? If freedom is something that we have to express, how do we expect it to be expressed and in what context will we express it, do we express it with rage, hatred, fights, wars and shading of blood? If freedom is something we expect to come tomorrow from which direction will it come from? If freedom is something that we don’t have within our hearts how do we expect it to find it somewhere? If freedom is something that we can’t give ourselves and give it to others whom do we expect will come to give it to us? If freedom is something that we have to fight for, then why is it free? If the people we claim fought for freedom didn’t fight for it could we still not be free? And today can we say or claim that we are free from those people who kept us captive (the whites)? If yes in what context are we saying that we are free? Should people be ready enough to tell their children that “freedom is coming tomorrow”? Somebody said tomorrow never comes, so if freedom is coming tomorrow then it means there is no freedom coming at any time.