All human desires are born from two simple desires – freedom and union. How can one exist in a union and still be free? We are influenced by the seasons, the sun, and the state of the systems. We remain closely connected to one another and the web of life.
But what if freedom was not the opposite of union but the very essence of it?
The word ‘free’ comes from the Germanic origin ‘frēon’, from an Indo-European root meaning ‘to love’. Perhaps lack of freedom is ultimately the lack of love. “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights…,” reads the opening phrase of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yet the reality of our world seems far from it.
In an interview we published, Jordanian-Palestinian artist Dana Barwaqi shares, “When the land is occupied, the coloniser immediately cuts the connection between people and land, eventually cutting the connection within communities, cutting the connection between man and the spiritual, and separating man from spirit from environment.” The political and the spiritual are inseparable. The stories of struggle for freedom are written with the ink and blood of the spirit. There can be no climate justice without justice for Palestine. Human rights are intertwined with nature’s rights.
It’s ironic that the word ‘right’ can mean both being morally correct and having a legal entitlement—because when one person’s rights come at the expense of another, it is anything but right. While the political parties, institutions, organisations, and humans are legal entities, trees, forests and rivers have no rights or recognition. It’s puzzling how some humans have more rights than the others, entitled to extract from human and natural resources alike, while some are left to be depleted.
From east to west, women, children, and marginalised communities are being oppressed day after day. The genocide in Palestine calls us to wake up to these realities. To free ourselves from these oppressive systems and to love our body and bone as part of the Earth. These struggles are not just about justice but also about love – our love for the planet, for humanity, and ultimately ourselves.
Freedom comes with responsibility; to have regard for others to be free, our connection to freedom should be established once again, not in extractivism but in reciprocity. If tomorrow my house were set on fire, I would hope my neighbours would come along, but today if someone’s house is left in rubble, I must speak; we must speak; this is how friendships are born…. Another word that shares its root with ‘frēon’, ‘to love’.
If not for friendship, if not for love, if not for freedom… why else are we here?
Words by Priyanka Singh Parihar,
Founder and Editor-in-Chief
