Live, and Let Live
🎶🎵Bob Marley – Redemption Song
Freedom is not a luxury. It is one of my deepest needs.
I want to be able to choose for myself. To change my mind. To shape my life the way that suits me.
But freedom is not my possession. I cannot demand all the space, without giving you that same space.
As long as we choose the same things, usually, there is no friction. When you believe what I believe, value what I value, live in a way I can understand: only peace & love between us ☮️✌️❣️
But freedom, truly, only begins where that ends… With the choice I myself would never make. With what I do not understand.
My freedom ends where it damages or limits yours. Freedom is not merely: let me do as I please. If you truly hold freedom dear, you must also be able to say: I let you be who you are.
What has set my thoughts wandering off toward freedom these days?
A teacher, here in Belgium, being dismissed over a headscarf.
I barely read or watch any news, but this news reached me. As did the sharpness with which, despite our famed Flemish modesty, our tongues lash out in comments.
And I think… “Truly?! Is this what occupies us?”
The quality of our education, the wellbeing of our children… it matters a lot. Amid all its pressing challenges considering our education systems, this strikes me as a fair question: how much energy do we want to spend on what a competent teacher wears, versus what she does for our children?
And if we’re willing to spend that much energy on the former… that says something about us.
Can she teach, and does she love it? Does she see my child? Does she truly reach students? If the answer to all of that is yes, what she wears becomes, frankly, far less relevant. Because to me, neutrality shows itself in behaviour.
I do understand where the principle behind such a ban comes from. External neutrality. Give no preference whatsoever to any worldview or religion. So that our children remain free to form their own convictions. There is a great deal to be said for that.
The question is: does neutrality necessarily mean that belief must be invisible?
I mean…
I can imagine a teacher who is visibly Muslim but gives my child all the room in the world to become an atheist. And have you never heard an atheist, not wearing any symbol at all, proclaim with conviction their disbelief?
We all know, by now, how we humans “work.”
So I try to follow the reasoning. A school may not take sides between belief systems. To guarantee that, no one may show, on school grounds, what they believe. Because if you can see it, the school is no longer “empty” of belief. But are we saying, then, that they are also no longer neutral and that influence occurs? That simply by being visible, a side is chosen?
I’ll be honest, my mind struggles with this “logic”.
Because to me, neutrality lies far less in what we see of each other than in how we treat each other. But let’s leave that where it is, there are specialists for that question. Priorities, that remains my point. 😉
But there is another argument. One that moves me much more.
That some girls are under pressure to wear a headscarf. And that a ban gives them, at least, one place where they are free from pressure. If that is truly why we’re all reaching for our pens right now… I would be glad. ❣️ Because then this is genuinely about freedom, and how deeply we wish freedom for every girl in the world.
But I’m sorry to say… what I read, what I hear… makes me doubt that. The way we respond to this, en masse, touches something far deeper.
Perhaps, as a society; or no, each of us individually; we ought to reach for a mirror rather than the proverbial stick.
Why do we find it so hard when you are different from me? And why does that stir such a strong need to correct?
If we want to talk about religion, we needn’t do so uncritically. Religious doctrine may be questioned. About women’s rights, power, fundamentalism. Within any belief system at all.
But there is a fundamental difference between examining an idea critically, and reducing a human being to the symbol you associate with that idea. And is it fair pretending to know something about a person because of something we can see on them?
We seem, sometimes, to assume our own superiority. As though what I believe, do, wear, think, or consider normal is the standard by which another must be measured.
What someone wears. Who someone loves. What someone believes. What choices someone makes. We have opinions about it. We try to convince. To correct. Sometimes even to decide.
And yes, we need rules when people’s choices affect others. Freedom does not exist without limits. But why have we become so obsessed with each other’s choices? I truly wonder.
As though that is what life is for.
Perhaps it’s simply easier to judge another than to question ourselves?
Believe what you believe. Believe nothing at all. Ask questions. Stay critical. Change your mind.
But please, always, look at the human being first.
There lies a fine task for each of us: to concern ourselves, above all, with our own growth.
Not to endlessly judge others, correct them, or mould them to our own standards. But to stay curious, take responsibility, leave room, and let one another simply be human.
Not to ask: “How do I make you more like me?” But rather: “How do we accept and respect each other, exactly as we are?”
Because freedom only becomes truly interesting when it no longer applies solely to choices we understand ourselves. But when we can grant, just as naturally, that same freedom to someone who resembles us not at all.
Live, and let live. That is a beautiful way to be.
❣️
With love,
Always,
Maaike
Love in Action – Maaike Goyens
I give words to what connects & what separates us.
To moments that move us.
To what builds bridges between hearts & people.
In the hope of creating a little more love & connection.
For everyone who has ever struggled to understand someone else & themselves
❣️
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