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| Issue 07 | February 06 | ||||
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Natasha Ginwala Venue: CYDA (AV Room) Date: 23 Dec 2005 Freedom in today’s society has become a luxury good perennially in short supply. As future stakeholders of society we are committed to the creation of an ownership society that encourages innovation, values artistic expression, and imbibes democracy as the foundation of our socio-political institutions. Our workshop ‘Exploring Freedom’ is a beginning towards this purpose. We formulated some essential questions to give structure to the workshop - Is freedom merely a lack of restrictions? It is said freedom is never free- Are wars and revolutions the way to freedom? If one is locked up in a dungeon, can he still say ‘I am free’? Is freedom the license to do as one pleases? Does limiting government necessarily lead to expanding freedom? Many opine, freedom is a utopian concept- If so, why is it the root cause of all our struggles and ambitions? Our participants comprised of volunteers of the Centre for Youth Development and Activities (CYDA) Pune, an enthusiastic bunch of change makers. First, we shared our LACS experiences and briefly described CCS and its objectives. We started by defining freedom for ourselves and outlined the significance it has in our lives. After debating on the different types of freedom we dived into a discussion on the role of State, Family/Society and Self in promoting and obstructing freedom. The participants were divided into groups to represent each of the segments. We made some interesting observations. While some viewed the State as a monolithic structure incapable of change others decided that since ‘we’ are the state we cannot evade responsibility and wash our hands off it. On the one hand, the society was viewed as a teacher shaping our value systems and personal opinions and on the other it was viewed as the protector, conserving and sustaining our moral fabric. It was noticed that personal freedom was valued the least. Instead of viewing the individual as the basic unit of society he seemed to be the end recipient of societal leftovers. As we conversed about the freedom valued most we opened up a Diaspora of issues ranging from reservations, gender identity to education. We ended by connecting our discussions on freedom to the philosophy of Liberty. As our participants left the room they carried confused, frustrated and thoughtful expressions. We hope to
catch up with other CCS Graduates around the city to discuss the
formation of an FOF group. At the organizational level we will continue
to conduct workshops and awareness programmes as part of our
Youth4change activities. |
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Centre
for Civil Society |
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