Is the day past?

How to define freedom?

Is it the ability to go where you want to?
Is it the ability to speak your mind?
Is it to quit your job when you are sick of it?
Is it to vote the candidate that you like best or the political programme that suits you best?
When it comes to definitions like this I guess I am not enough of a philosopher to be able to grasp the big picture.
Typing FREEDOM into an online dictionary gave me this definition.
Aristotle said that a human being is free if no outside force keeps him or her from doing what he or she wants to do.


Immanuel Kant said that freedom is the human beings ability to categorise all arbitrary actions under reasonable motivations. Surely Kant's definition has to be seen as a product of the enlightenment.
The Catholic Church defined freedom to be the choice between good and evil. Only those who serve God and do good are able to be really free. To do evil means to abuse freedom and becoming a slave of sin.


Contrary to philosophers the church says that freedom does not mean that you are allowed to say and do everything just like you please to. There is a higher good than freedom which is love and if you distance yourself from love you will tie yourself to the chains of egoism and through this you will tear the band of brotherhood and revolt against god.
I suppose that in today's world this sounds more like the church's method to make people obey to the 10 Commandments. What is said after that though could survive nowadays and even be transferred metaphorically to politics. The Catholic Church believes that the biggest danger to freedom is the human being itself. With a wrong interpretation of autonomy human beings can be misguided to believe in a wrong definition of independence. This can lead to a selfish satisfaction of desires that is generated by power, a search for pleasure or prestigious.It is important to distinguish freedom from depraved arbitrariness. Freedom is always related to self-commitment and self-control.

On August 28th 1963 Martin Luther King held his famous speech inspired by the oppression of dark-skinned human beings by white human beings about freedom and equality. He stretches the fact that humans are their biggest antagonist when it comes to equality and freedom.

I listened to it and what grasped my intention most in his over all powerful speech was the final passage where he repetitively says: "Let freedom ring"
To find interesting quotes of Martin Luther King in relation to this article click here

Even though I hadn't connected this line to him, I knew I had heard this before. I searched through my albums and found a song called "Frei sein" translated "being free" written by Sabrina Setlur and sung by Xavier Naidoo.


Special service by me: translation of the text:


Once I searched for it to embed the Youtube link on this page I gave it a go and typed in "Let freedom ring" in and the page came up with a couple of song which include this line.







And then I found a video that linked what I had been searching for in the first place Mr. Obama and a voice-over of Martin Luther King:



If King had seen the outcome of the election on November the 4th I assume that he would have been a proud man, proud of the development America went through after his assassination maybe he would have even thought this outcome to be worth dying for but since he is dead we can only make assumptions.


These videos are made by voices of the public. They announce what is important to them and quote people who have inspired them. They are free to vote for whom or whatever they want and they are free to express this, no matter which cultural background they have.

I know this sounds idealised and I don't think this assumption could hold up against every scenario imaginable, but it is true if we speak of the World Wide Web as a media platform.

Today and with the American election being only a month ago political freedom and equality are a current topic again.

On Youtube and in chat rooms people can exchange their opinions freely unlike the days when Martin Luther King was fighting for equality. Every citizen with the ambition - and the skills and education I have to say - can take over a leading role in politics no matter which ethnic routes he or she might have. I would be blue eyed to believe that such things as racism do not exist anymore, but they are not as predominant as they used to be.

To exclude or judge someone because of their ethnical background is politically incorrect.

But because we are free and free to have our own opinion there are not only positive voices to be heard about Obama.

To give this story a moral as we are used to by fairytales I think there is no definition of freedom that is able to grasp the big picture as every human being has its own believes and opinions to act upon. Maybe not even Aristotle or Kant would have been able to define freedom in this modern world. When it comes to me I feel free to collect this information and post it to my blog because I think it is important to remind people that it is important to try and understand that there are more layers to politics than the credit crunch and for any German who reads this blog if a politician dies his sideburns (tribute to Gerhard Schröder)

To leave you with one more thought triggering item please have a look at "A New Song" by Langston Hughes written in 1938 on this blog that I follow.


More poems related by Langston Hughes

Picture were taken of http://www.flickr.com/photos/teresa-stanton/2418288543/

and http://www.flickr.com/photos/11304375@N07/2769553173/

More intersting links:

http://www.obamapedia.org/page/Barack+Obama
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,588190,00.html

Text Xavier Naidoo Translation

Do you think the wind blows, because someone tells it to blow?
Do you think the stars in the sky glow because someone switches them on every night?
Do you think the elements imitate what they saw and not what they want,
if you believe this you will never understand what I mean when I say I want to be free

Chorus:
I want to be free
Let freedom ring
Free as the wind when it blows
I want to be free
Let freedom ring
free as a star that's in the sky
I want to be free
Let freedom ring
I want to be free, just free, just free

Do you think the world would stop turning, if someone decided it would be better for it to stand still,
Do you think that someone, somewhere, some day could live your life for you,
If you think so you will never be able to understand what I mean when I say I want to be free

Chorus:
I want to be free
Let freedom ring
Free as the wind when it blows
I want to be free
Let freedom ring
free as a star that's in the sky
I want to be free
Let freedom ring
I want to be free, just free, just free

Do you think the story of your life is writtendown somewhere in advance?
and somewhere a wise man takes responsibilities for your actions?
Do you think that of all the lifes in this world is more valueable than yours?
If you think so you will never understand what I mean when I say I want be free

Chorus:
I want to be free
Let freedom ring
Free as the wind when it blows
I want to be free
Let freedom ring
free as a star that's in the sky
I want to be free
Let freedom ring
I want to be free, just free, just free

Interesting Martin Luther King quotes for the freedom article

"And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that: Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennesse. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi."

“But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.”

proportional representation

Since I last rose the question if we vote for faces and cultural background these days more than political programmes, I asked my PA tutor Dr.Stephen Meredith to explain what the system of proportional representation contains. This system is used for elections in the European Parliament. It stands in contrast to the first past the post system which is currently used in Britain.

In the First-past-the-post system 614 constituencies all over the country elect their local MP and he only needs a simple majority to enter parliament and get one of the 614 representative seats. The party that has the most votes of these local MPs will form a government.

The positive part of this is that, because one of the two major parties - Labour or Tory - are most likely to get the most votes, and only a simple majority is needed, a strong government with a big majority of seats is formed, which doesn't need to enter a coalition with another party.

On the other hand there are Parties that literally suffer from this system always becoming the ungrateful fourth. Here is a nice example how this injustice can be explained comically



The Liberal Democrats for instance as you can see through this examples from 2005 do get a fair share of votes, but don't get any seats in Parliament for this.

Because of this it is relevant to question oneself whether the First-past-the-post system is really representative, since it represents the 42 per cent that voted for the Labour candidate but not the 58 per cent that voted for other parties.

Proportional Representation is a system that makes exactly this possible.
Depending if it is used with an open list or a closed list you are still be able to vote for characters that you trust.

With Proportional Representation the constituencies would be larger. Then you would vote for the party (with a closed list) and their programme and for every ten per cent of votes this party gets 1 seat in Parliament. This means that the unrepresented 20 per cent of the Liberal Democrats in the above given example would get two seats.

However since you vote for a party only with a closed list system you would have to read or inform yourself about the parties’ programmes rather than just voting a character.

And isn't it worth to invest this time since a face doesn't solve an economical crisis but a strong budget plan?

I do understand the need of people to vote for more than promises and plans and that they need a person to identify, just to make sure they have people in the government that are strong enough to hold on to their point.

With an open list system rather than letting the party set up the ranking list for their candidates, who will go to parliament depending on how many votes they get, people would be able to vote for a candidate of the party and this vote would count for the party itself as well as move the particular candidate up in the ranking list.

With an open list system character voting wouldn't disappear but I do think that with a system like this more people might end up informing themselves about the actual political programmes of the various parties.

The Westminster or First-past-the-post system might form a strong government but if this government is only partially representative the question is whether we really want this or if it is time to rethink and change.

The Problem is that this system would have to pass through the House of Commons and House of Lords and with Labour and Tory snuggly and warm in their positions it is questionable whether this is possible.

It is estonishing how many videos, either of experts comments or citzen comments can be found on www.youtube.com

This map shows all the countries that use PR in the EU


Größere Kartenansicht

To see what people all over the world think I raised the question on www.askfivehundredpeople.com



To find out more about election systems used in Europe click here

Özdemir as the German Obama?Has change come to Germany as well?

Last weekend a perfectly fitting example of what I described of the liberal world happened.

In Germany Cem Özdemir was announced to be the new party leader of the green party.Cem Özdemir was a Member of Parliament before he had to resign over a travel miles affair.

After that he became a member of the European Parliament.He is the first Turkish party leader in the German history and a lot of members of the public wouldn't have thought of this to be possible even a couple of weeks ago.

Rumours are saying that the election of Özdemir was a deal between the left oriented members and the realists within the party, so they could both get their candidates through. Cem Özdemir on the one side and Claudia Roth on the other side will now lead the green party. Özdemir won the election with an overwhelming result of 79,2 % even though part of the party still believes him to be a shapeless self-exposer massively prone to thinking too commercial.In his initial speech as party leader Özdemir said, that the party had spent too much time caring about themselves and only discussing internal issues and that it was time to compete and debate the politics made by other, in particular the governing parties of Germany, the big coalition of SPD and CDU.

He especially criticised foreign secretary Frank Walter Steinmeier for not assisting Murat Kurnaz, a boy with Turkish background, born and brought up in Germany, who was a prisoner in Guantanamo.

He also criticised the secretary of environment Sigmar Gabriel. He accused him tobe part of the car lobby and not caring about environmental and climate issues enough.

After those more than rough first words, making his position quite clear, I read an article relating Özdemir to Obama. He is an outsider and he is a forceful man, who might be able to attract Turkish migrants to vote green.On his homepage you can see that even though Özdemir himself distances himself from this comparison his election campaign was run under the slogan of Yes we Cem in relation to Obama’s campaign which was called Yes we can.

Germany is trying to joke about this new found cookie of political diversity already


So after I found this I thought, do we only vote faces or do we vote party programmes? Do we really care anymore about what is written down in party programme or has our political system Americanised?Is a model such as PR proportional representation a system that could work?

Liberal world?

Isn’t it a wonderful and liberal world out there?
The United States the most powerful country in the world has a black president. Germany has a female Chancellor. Harry Potter showed the rise of an unemployed mother to the most famous author on the planet and “West side Story", one of the most popular musicals of our times was written by the bisexual composer Leonard Bernstein. Luis Hamilton is the youngest and the first black Formula one world champion ever.
There are more examples out there in our world and I will start researching this to come up with more examples and see in how far our global society has become liberal…

Futtern wie bei Muttern- Fernsehratgeber Landschaft Deutschland


Deutschland kehrt zurück zu alten Werten. Kochen, backen, putzen, Erziehung, schaltet man den Fernseher ein findet man fast nichts anderes mehr. Vom perfekten Dinner bis zu „die Putzteufel“ und “die Super Nanny“ nicht zu vergessen, all abendlich findet sich eine Ratgeber Show, die uns zeigt, wie man seine Gäste verwöhnt, oder seine Kinder richtig erzieht. Was unsere Großmütter noch als Grundausbildung in der Schule und von ihren Eltern mitbekommen haben, lernt Deutschland heute aus dem Fernsehen. Kinder die sich nicht benehmen und sich auf Flatrateparties betrinken? Kein Problem ab auf die stille Treppe mit ihnen! Die Wohnung vergeht im Chaos? Holen sie sich doch einen der Putzteufel nach Hause, der zeigt ihnen wie man mit Essig zu Omas Zeiten die Kalkflecken aus der Dusche entfernt! Aber nicht nur das wir hilfreiche Tipps bekommen wie wir uns im Haushalt und in der Erziehung schlagen können, nein gleichzeitig wird unser voyeuristisches Ich befriedigt. Schadenfroh schauen wir uns an wie manche Eltern mit ihren Rabauken kämpfen, oder Mütter in fremden Haushalten verzweifeln, wenn sie beim Frauentausch aus ihrer heilen Reihenhaus-Welt in eine Berliner Plattenbau Siedlung verschleppt werden. Statt nur durchs Fenster in die Wohnung des Nachbarn zu schauen, bekommen wir einen exklusiven Einblick in die Wohnzimmer und Küchen deutscher Haushalte. Da werden beim durchstöbern der Wohnung alte Familienalben gefunden, in denen die Köchin des Abends mit einer furchtbaren achtziger Jahre Frisur zu sehen ist. Sogar einen Partner können wir heutzutage im Fernsehen finden. Junge Damen durchforsten die Wohnungen verschiedener Herren, beklagen sich über die mangelnde Hygiene im Badezimmer oder auch die Fotogalerie der Exfreundin, die in der Vitrine im Wohnzimmer steht und entscheiden anhand des Zustands des Bettlakens, ob sie hier ihren Traumprinzen gefunden haben oder nicht. Wie schön zu sehen, dass es bei anderen noch viel dreckiger ist als in den eigenen vier Wänden und manche Subjekte noch viel schwerer vermittelbar als unser einer. Und wenn unsere Schaulust durch den ganzen Hockus Pockus noch nicht befriedigt ist, können wir uns ja immer noch über das Scheitern tausender Teenies bei diversen Casting Shows schlapp lachen, oder uns auch wahlweise fragen: Herr Gott hat sich niemand getraut dir mal die Wahrheit über dein feines Stimmchen zu sagen???
Böse, böse wie sehr man sich doch über das Leid anderer freuen kann und eine Beleidigung an die deutsche Hausfrau, die sich scheinbar im Fernsehen ansehen muss wie man den Haushalt richtig führt. Optimisten würden behaupten: Im Gegenteil wir versuchen ja nur unsere bereits vorhanden Fähigkeiten zu erweitern und können unsere eigenen Kochkünste mit denen der Realityshow Darsteller vergleichen! Wie man in diesen Shows sehen kann, gibt es ja scheinbar immer mehr kochbegeisterte Wesen, egal ob männlich oder weiblich und immer mehr Menschen, die sich um die Erziehung ihrer Kinder tatsächlich Gedanken machen und sich bessern wollen. Schließlich beeinflussen sich Fernsehen und Gesellschaft ja gegenseitig. Gesehen wird, was interessiert und gesendet wird, was man als Feedback aus den Zuschauerzahlen als profitabel erkannt hat. Wenn wir es jetzt noch schaffen mehr Bildung in deutsche Wohnzimmer zu bringen, aber das bitte in einem unterhaltsamen Format, so etwas wie „ Germany`s next Einstein“ na dann: Vielen Dank liebe Fernsehlandschaft, du führst uns zurück auf den richtigen Weg! Doch nun die wichtige Warnung: Vergessen wir vor lauter Zuschaulust beim realen Leben der anderen das eigene nicht, denn zusehen hilft nicht wenn wir die Glotze nicht ausschalten und in der echten Welt leben. In diesem Sinne Guten Appetit!

Generation Doof

Hallo Generation Doof – Wir sind die Generation Panik!

Generation Golf, Generation Ally, und nun: Generation Doof. Deutschland scheint zu verblöden, Kritiker hacken auf Bushido und Konsorten herum, die mit ihren „Ghetto-Texten“, die „Ghetto-Kinder“ und ihre „Ghetto-Blaster-Handys“ versorgen. Die Intellektuellen schreien vor Empörung und halten sich die Ohren zu. Und was ist mit den Jugendlichen und Abiturienten, die sich nicht an den Sidos und Kader Loths (oder wie auch immer man sie schreiben mag) orientieren?

Darf ich vorstellen, wir bilden die Generation Panik:

Getrieben von den Vorurteilen, der wirklich Erwachsenen, die bereits in der Berufswelt angekommen sind, versuchen wir so viel Wissen wie möglich in uns aufzusaugen, unsere Abschlüsse mit summa cum laude, am besten gleichzeitig in drei Sprachen und in 4 Semestern, statt in anberaumten 6 (für den neuen bereits von allen verlachten Bachelor) zu machen. Dabei schieben wir natürlich noch mindestens ein Auslandssemester ein, um unsere Flexibilität und unsere Engagement unter Beweise zu stellen, denn ganz ehrlich – „Englisch in Wort und Schrift“ in seinen Lebenslauf zu schreiben, ist einfach nicht so überzeugend, wie ein Masters-Degree aus England oder Amerika. Wer nebenbei kellnert oder eine andere Aushilfstätigkeit ausübt, um ein Butterbrot auf dem Studententisch zu haben, kann natürlich nicht so viel Chancen auf dem Jobmarkt erwarten, wie der von Mama und Papa finanzierte Student, der es sich leisten kann ein unbezahltes Praktikum zu machen. Getrieben von der Angst, als arbeitsloser Hartz 4 Empfänger auf der Couch und vor Oliver Geissen zu enden, rackern wir von früh bis spät und erfinden Motivationssätze wie: Kaffee – schlafen kannst du, wenn du tot bist!

Im dritten Semester hielt vor einer Vorlesung einer meiner Professoren, eine für ihn von höchster Bedeutung scheinende Ansprache, dass wir aufhören müssen uns Gedanken um die Zukunft zu machen, das wir jetzt erstmal studieren sollen, fleißig lernen und uns dann später Gedanken darüber machen können, ob wir einen Job bekommen oder nicht. Wie schwer es ist zu denken, wenn der Magen leer ist, der eigene Anblick im Spiegel Augenringe der Marke Udo Lindenberg zeigt und man außer der Bibliothek und dem eigen Computerbildschirm nicht viel zu sehen bekommt, einen des Nachts wenn man nicht vor totaler Erschöpfung zusammenbricht, leise Stimmen bezirzen, alles hinzuschmeißen und einfach Sekretärin zu werden, um der Unsicherheit ein Ende zu bereiten und man mit dem Gedanken einschläft: Was soll die ganze Selbstverwirklichung und diese Pseudoindividualität, ich schieb jetzt Bushido rein und lass mein Gehirn verfaulen…

Der Kellnerjob zu dem wir dann am Samstagabend müssen, wenn die 16 bis 18-jährigen auf Flatrate-Partys ihre Gehirnzellen dem Alkohol opfern und wir auf der anderen Seite der Theke damit kämpfen, uns den betrunkenen Schützenzug vom Leib zu halten, macht uns dann wieder bewusst, warum wir lernen. Ebenso die Vorlesung in der wir feststellen, dass es vielen unserer Kommilitonen nicht anders geht und man Gott sei Dank nicht alleine sitzt in diesem Boot auf dem Meer der Selbstzweifel…

Natürlich:

Das hier scheint ein wenig übertrieben – und ist mit Sicherheit aus einem weiteren Anflug der Wut über den verzweifelten Kampf einen Platz in dieser Konsumwelt zu finden, bei dem wir unser Happy End mit bedrohlichem Tempo und trotz ordentlichen Paddelns gegen die Strömung den Bach runter gehen sehen entstanden – dennoch bitte ich hiermit mal um Aufmerksamkeit für diejenigen, die noch mit Stil um Chancen und Aufmerksamkeit bitten und nicht mit Texten die sich um Nutten, Koks und Bier drehen. Hallo Welt (und ich klopfe hiermit virtuell an Köpfe wie an Kokosnüsse), der Nachwuchs, der sich Gedanken macht wie es weiter gehen soll, und die Demokratie nicht zur Idiocracy verfallen lassen will existiert noch!