One of the most severe denial of human rights is the denial of spatial freedoms – the ability to move as you wish anywhere in the world and put your effort and labor somewhere fruitful. Because that’s what human life is – at the core of our foundation, existence, and what makes us human – it’s this drive to be free and productive where we want to.
During this period of lockdowns, travel bans, and social distancing from our loved ones – alas, finally the whole world has shared a common threat, a threat that denies us what it means to be human. What to do we do with our energy when we’re confined by four walls? How do we manage isolation from friends and family?
“Of all the specific liberties which may come into our minds when we hear the word “freedom,” freedom of movement is historically the oldest and also the most elementary. Being able to depart for where we will is the prototypical gesture of being free, as limitation of freedom of movement has from time immemorial been the precondition for enslavement. Freedom of movement is also the indispensable precondition for action, and it is in action that men primarily experience freedom in the world.”
– Hannah Arendt
(The author, famous German-American philosopher and political theorist, refugee immigrant, pursued by the Nazis and locked away in an internment camp by the French government)
Written July 13, 2020. Republished Dec. 19, 2021.
English