We are an ‘identity’ society and not a society practising freedom. This is not a clear point in our minds, but this is actually getting hammered into our heads day after day, both personally and officially. What we practise is identity and not freedom.
Many believe that we are free but in reality we live in a prison of identity. All our activities and actions are based on identity and not on freedom. Even our democracy is based on identity and not on freedom. A community based on identity instils identity into an individual.
Look around you, and you will see that identity is ubiquitous. This excessive focus leaves no room for freedom, but, rather, pretends to have the robe of freedom, which is completely opposite to freedom. Our history is a history of identity, not a history of freedom. Can anyone deny this? Our education system, too, strengthens our identity and gives us our history from birth until death, starting from our home, carrying in our consciousness ideas about our tribe and our community, and not our country.
When you go to your work, your school or any other place, you find that others are jealous at the position you have, because of how things get done fast because of your identity or being part of a tribe. Our society was more free in the past than it is today–at school, in the neighborhood and in the market. Those days, we were practising our freedom more and, practising our identity to a lesser extent. The fact that we are a Muslim society is the first aspect of our identity; then we are a tribal society and this is the second aspect of our identitY. Due to the reality of our past, we go from the present to the future and this is the third aspect of the identity.
Where is the person of free will today? We have surrendered our freedom inside our identity garb since childhood. Where are the differences in society–whether religious, social, or in colour? Where is the woman? Even they are prisoners of identity. Where is the freedom to criticize the past and its people?
We are allowed some freedom, the freedom in our individual behaviour, within the range of our identity, whether in religious, social or other matters. So, we see people exercising this freedom, and it is not surprising when we see the social media rippling with fake praise and compliments.
We also see a mixture of badness and profanity and vulgarity. But both are the results of practising identity due to a lack of freedom which has been obliterated and we have come to mistake identity for freedom. The lack of effectiveness in the conduct of our affairs and the lack of prospects in our future is nothing but an extension of the previously-established identity. We go abroad for education and scholarships but return to practise the same identity at the expense of freedom.
Some people say that what we want in life, after all, is already available, and we must thank God for that. This is a narcissistic feeling, as they believe we have everything, and they want only a good ending and want to go to heaven. Someone pointed out that the identity will die unless it can cope with the demands of the present, and, for this, it must be accompanied by freedom that can keep the heritage and look after the society and build up a great mankind.
Freedom is not about the freedom to create chaos, and the freedom we get outside the country is no freedom. The state must be an area of freedom, not of identity, and freedom means man as an independent individual, not as an attachment to a past that he did not choose, nor a destiny that he did not define, nor a future that he did not see.