Our Common Humanity in the Information Age. Principles and Values for Development

CONCEPT OF FREEDOM 
Uzodinma Iweala, Author 
Perhaps the most universal of all concepts that underpins our common humanity: 
freedom.
A while ago, I was in Nigeria watching CNN International with my Uncle. As scenes 
from America’s failed project to export “freedom” and democracy to Iraq scrolled across 
the screen, my uncle said, “When will the Americans get it? You can’t create freedom 
overnight – certainly not by force.” He then went on to say, “And furthermore, what the 
West considers freedom is not necessarily freedom for all.”
What the West considers freedom is based largely on enlightenment philosophies 
conceived just before and crystallized during the American and French revolutions. It is 
an idea of freedom that can be traced back to Aristotle’s notion that freedom means the 
ability to engage in entirely voluntary actions. These enlightenment philosophies focus on 
the individual as the main unit and so argue that individual freedom – rights to life, 
liberty, and property be respected – indeed worshipped.
Can anybody find too much fault with that idea? After all, it did produce the greatest 
democratic experiment on earth—the United States. Before the uneasy coalition that was 
the original 13 colonies declared independence, it had become clear that this glorification 
of individual freedoms had come at the expense of obligations and responsibility to 
fellow men. The slaves imported from Africa and their descendants knew and know this 
all too well. Europe, with its colonization of the rest of the world was perhaps the leader 
in this hypocrisy.
It is apparent then that somewhere very early on, the idea of individual freedoms became 
detached from responsibility and obligation to fellow men. Somewhere along the way, 
the right to freedoms became the right to luxuries. We all know that to maintain their 
luxuries, societies have been known to sacrifice freedom, theirs and others’.

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32 | Our Common Humanity in the Information Age 
I would say that what the West exports as freedom to use a buzzword of today —that soft 
power of fast-food, fast cars for all, is now being rejected as a symbol of oppression. 
Don’t get me wrong; there is not one person on this earth who wouldn’t want a life of 
luxury. However, as people wake up to the fact that those fast cars, that fast-food – more 
importantly that the resources necessary to create and maintain them have come through 
exploitation of freedoms around the world – the desire for Western luxury cast as 
freedom wanes, and a tendency to push the idea of cultural or community freedoms rises.
Do I think this form of freedom is inherently better? Obviously not when in certain 
societies the rights of women and children come after the needs of men in the 
community, but I do think that both systems have much to learn from each other—
especially when it comes to development.
In his 1953 speech, “Bread and Freedom” Albert Camus says: “If someone takes away 
your bread, he suppresses your freedom at the same time. But if someone takes away 
your freedom, you may be sure that your bread is threatened, for it depends no longer on 
you and your struggle but on the whim of a master. Poverty increases insofar as freedom 
retreats throughout the world and vise versa.”
Is this not at the root of the Millennium Development Goals, a set of goals designed to 
reaffirm our commitment to a common humanity? These are incredible goals that must be 
reached. The only problem is that they will never be reached until we reconsider existing 
power structures and how they promote and prohibit access to freedom.
In some senses, the way we combat poverty today is an exact expression of Camus 
“bread depending on the whim of the master.” Powers of the developed world (and I 
include Western NGOs and movie stars in this category) decide when, where, and how 
they are going to alleviate the developing world’s poverty. All too often, these decisions 
are made without consulting the most important stakeholders—the poor and very poor 
who are the intended beneficiaries of this charity. This arrangement seems to ignore the 
idea of freedom and more importantly its intimate relationship with development. 
Freedom and development go hand in hand because the first step is the freedom to speak, 
to articulate and demand that one’s basic needs be met. If development means Western 
aid agencies focusing on what they want to improve instead of what the people have 
expressed need for, if freedom means NGOs operating in countries with completely 
expatriate staff, then it is a maintenance of the old structure that subjects freedom to the 
whim of the master.
Perhaps more importantly, the West should understand that alleviating poverty with one 
hand while continuously undermining freedoms – individual or communal – in the hopes 

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Chapter II – Freedom and Development | 33 
of national or corporate interests with the other simply cannot serve anybody. Nobody 
wants handouts to alleviate the humiliations of suffering caused by exploitation. People 
want the ability to dictate the courses of their lives—free from poverty AND its causes or 
masters.
I’ll go back to Camus to close. He says “People are well aware that they will be 
effectively freed from hunger only when they hold their masters, all their masters, at 
bay.” 

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