Freedom: to what extent?! [Archives:2007/1085/Community]

Lamis Abdulkarim Shuga'a
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Socially speaking, freedom can be related to freedom of people or of societies in which it can be represented by populations, expressions, rules, laws, etc. As it is known, personal freedom differs from one person to another according to habits, believes and opinions that everyone has acquired, and furthermore to customs and cultures of the society to which he belongs. Additionally, freedom is not doing whatever you want regardless of others' feelings. Instead, it is to restrict rules and laws as hard as you possibly can; otherwise you will almost certainly face terrible problems.

In short, freedom is doing what you like without being stopped by anyone. Freedom of societies, on the other hand, differs from one country to another regarding the culture, education and religion of each country. Whatever has been said about freedom, a question must be taken into account: Is freedom which is applied all over the world really for our sake?! In other words, can we consider all forms of freedom completely good and just?! The answer, of course, is 'no' and I'll explain why it is 'no'.

Let's take 'smoking' as a simple example.

It can be noticed that there are available areas for smoking, whereas there are specific places in which usually it is prohibited like hospitals, universities, offices, buses. However, smokers don't care about that, smoking wherever and whenever they need. Maybe they ignore the proverb that says “your freedom starts whenever others' freedom finishes””. Furthermore