Tulsa-Smith:- emotional...: How should national freedom really be defined?

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

How should national freedom really be defined?

Put more specifically, when is a nation truly free? Is it when it has a free press, holds democratic elections, and runs other overt political indices perfectly?

I was reading the Time magazine online version article above and wondered if those criteria above truly tell eberything about a nation.

I think not. My view is that more subtle indicators exist for analyzing the degree of democratic freedom in existence in any nation.

In my humble opinion, the most important of these is how the majority group in power treats the others in the minority - including the opposition and the rules or channels available for the minority to express dissatisfaction civilly and being heard legally.

In Nigeria, for example, the prolonged absence of minority rights in the Niger Delta has caused the present imbroglio in that region of the crude oil rivers.

Second would be whether or not the annual percentage of Press or media stories that are false, of no informative value, or outright misleading is higher than, say, 10% - which would imply the presence of corruption and the absence of the rule of law!

A close third criterion is the way women are treated in political affairs and the manner in which they are appointed to government appointments - going by quota or by virtue of societal position is no better than tokenism, I think.

For example, Ghana's new Speaker of Parliament is a retired Supreme Court Justice: she was not just 'appointed' in answer to gender rights activists' or government critics' "demand" for gender equity in government appointments!

Finally, what the man in the street says about the people in power is very vital in determining whether or not puppets or hypocrites or thieves are in power - it is amazing how a disillusioned Common Man can reflect the national mood and the neglect of his well being by a national government preoccupied with something other than nation building.

What do you think?.

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Greenville, Rhode Island bakery owned by the Cavanagh family, which uses the plant to produce church communion bread from just water and bread. That business is known to produce about 850 million sacramental wafers annually and to supply 80% of the Holy Communion bread used in American, Australian, Canadian, and British churches. The only middlemen in the supply chain are nuns living in convents! Now they want to expand to West Africa with their Christian sacramental ware for Pentecostal, Catholic, 'New Wave', and Orthodox church offerings. I make reference to the so-called New Wave churches - my term for those churches that broke away from the orthodoxy of the Protestant fold, just as the latter roke off from the Catholic church by virtue of the exploits of Martin Luther centuries ago. Many new-wave and other church goers in the generally undeveloped West African subregion of Africa pay more to religious organizations in monthly tithes and offerings than they do to their government in personal income and value added taxes. Now, that last fact is quite interesting because it is an admission that a bakery in Rhode Island has seen a huge market in the center of Black Africa for small white perfectly laminated and non-crumbly holy wheat bread, reportedly costing "less than a penny" apiece, for the use of both the bible-reading and the bible-believing religious organizations. However, the picture from the Cavanagh's factory floor speaks volumes, in my own opinion, about the need for the company to watch its business ethics and to treat all customers equally irrespective of location, creed, or other discriminatory demographic information or criteria. So, I just hope and pray that the wafers falling off the conveyor belt and by the way side are not destined for West Africa and that the actual wafers delivered will be wheat bread and water, and not just glutamate-free bread and 'pure' water, if you get my point, even if so requested by some shady, greedy, and unethical businessmen over in West Africa. Posted by Okonkwo O. Awa on Sunday, December 28, 2008.

In the summer of 2007, Pope Benedict XVI (BXVI) encouraged The Church to reach out to young people using new technologies, as he himself learned to send out cellphone text messages to the faithful. So in obedience, a tech savvy evangelizing Catholic priest got some help from a Web designer in order to write all the daily books of prayers into a low-cost computer software application downloadable onto the iPhone. Rev. Paolo Padrini's iTunes prayer book was officially approved by The Vatican's Pontifical Council for Social Communications in December 2008. Of course, all proceeds from the electronic prayer book venture will go to charity. Speaking of charitable behavior, The Holy See has seen it fit after 400 years to honor Galileo Galilei in 2009 as the "patron" of the non-mutual exclusivity of the faith versus reason dichotomy. That is very appropriate in this age of new technology, even though The Church still smarts from its error of judgment in calling the famous astronomer a heretic after he publicly embarrassed The Church by reporting that his scientific observations in Astronomy with his unique telescope had led him inexorably to believe that the Earth actually revolved around the sun, in direct opposition to the teaching of The Church at the time that Planet Earth was the center of the universe. In seeking to paint the Church in a new light of worldly knowledge by distancing itself from a past of imbibing pure dogma, The Vatican may have ventured to cross the final frontier and boundary between Science and Christianity by acknowledging recently that there could be life on planets other than the Earth! Posted by O. O. Awa on Wednesday, December 24, 2008.