Blog Post 2- Analysis

Something that I got out of all our discussions in class and in reading was the concept of freedom. How freedom is something that we take advantage of everyday and don’t really think twice about. For people like Bhutto, Fredrick Douglass, Mandela, MLK, among so many others, freedom is something they thought about long and hard. All these leaders had to fight for their rights one way or another, and it wasn’t an easy fight. I was born into a nation that already has freedom for all as their number 1 priority, except it wasn’t always like that. Hearing the stories of all these powerful activists opened my eyes to think about where we once were as a society, and that things haven’t always been this easy.

For example, with Bhutto, she felt as though the West, which is where we live, doesn’t believe that Islamic nations and democracy go along hand-in-hand. As an Islamic woman, this was especially thought provoking because I know that our religion and our beliefs will not stop them from co-existing equally under a democracy. “... Islam is clearly not only tolerant of other religions and cultures but internally tolerant of dissent. Allah tells us over and over again, through the Quran, that he created people of different views and perspectives to see the world in different ways and that diversity is good.” (Bhutto 185). She claims that extremists in Muslim countries have created the bad image of Muslims that the West thinks about, but that isn’t who they really are. Bhutto thinks that real Muslim belief is that we as a people were sent here to live amongst one another and learn from one another, and that’s why power to the people is so important. Because we shouldn’t take away anyone’s God-given right of voice, and we shouldn’t ignore why Muslim countries deserve the rights that the West brags about.

Another thing is even within our own country, we didn’t always give everyone who lived here the same advantages as everyone else. In the story of Douglass, he was a slave here in the U.S., where we claim our main priority is freedom. We need to look back in time to realize that that has not always been the case. Douglass was denied very basic human rights, even the right to learn. He couldn’t read or write, and if he was caught doing so, he'd be punished. This is something else that we take advantage of as well: the fact that we are able to obtain an education. Education is such a beautiful thing that we don’t really think twice about, but to people like Douglass, it was all they could ever think about. When Douglass was finally able to get his hands on some reading material and eventually teach himself how to read, he said that “They gave me tongue to interesting thoughts of my own soul, which had frequently flashed through my mind, and died away for want of utterance... What I got from Sheridan was a bold denunciation of slavery; and a powerful vindication of human rights.” (Douglass 334). A powerful message that I took from this quotation was that he learned about his basic human rights when reading this is that not only did reading open up Douglass’s mind, but it also connected him with his current situation. That slavery was an invasion of human rights, and it’s so shocking to me that if he didn’t learn how to read, he wouldn’t have known the extent of the situation he, among many others of his race, were in.

This ties in with MLK as well. King stood up for what he believed in, and that was freedom and justice for people of color in America. “Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The urge for freedom will eventually come.” (MLK Letter 4). Stories like MLK’s and Bhutto’s and Mandela and Douglass all have one thing in common: freedom for them and their people wasn’t an option until they made it one. Even though this isn’t a direct discussion we held, it’s something that just came as a shock to me when hearing the stories of these great figures.

Divider courtesy of CSFD