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QOTD: What Does Freedom Mean to You?

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With all the recent events in Europe I have been thinking a lot about freedom and what does it mean to me.

It was pretty easy back then when I was young and living in an occupied country. The more books banned by the Soviets you could read, the more movies that were banned you could see, the more news from the Voice of America or Radio Free Europe you could hear, the more information you had. All this knowledge allowed you to compare the outside world to the world created by the Soviet propaganda. It was obvious that they were lying. They were lying because they were scared — they knew that once the truth was released, they would lose.

It wasn’t easy to get some 25th copy of a book printed in somebody’s basement. It was not easy to get into Fellini’s movies meant just for the eyes of Politburo members. Some nights you could not hear the radio programs from the free world at all. I chose to do it and when I did one of those things it felt like a little victory. You felt like you were becoming less and less scared and therefore free.

My country is independent now. There is nothing I should fear but freedom still means the same to me. It’s the ability make a choice. The difference is that now I will not be punished for it. So many people in the world do not have that luxury.

You lived your lives in a totally different world. What does freedom mean to you?


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