The Independence Gone Undelivered

The problem with Independence Day is that you did something grand and you claim that there is no way you could go back to the time you were not independent. It is like a moment in time you entered, or a line you crossed, that brands you are liberated and no more enslaved.

But as it hit sixty four years last Monday, am I mentally imprisoned to think that I am more and more captivated with whatever it is not independent, that I become disillusioned with the claim “I am free”? One such is the increasing apprehension of freedom to expressing and practicing faith. Last Saturday Aug 15, 2009, the Post reported that a group of people in Tangerang threatened one minority who held their religious service move out of the area or get their consequences and this kind of anarchy seems to have just been replicated all the time with impunity. This is serious in its nature because how I express my faith does not have to be the same with another’s template for faith practices and this would not have been unbelievably prevalent were the government taking serious measure against those who threaten and vandalize in the name of God. However, here political correctness has not allowed the government to say what it has to say when it comes to the minority’s belief.

Then came security. Ten years ago, I worried the least about the security, my own security. I am not saying no muggers were lurking behind but at least I was secure to know that no one would blow off himself in a public place. With the bombing of the supposedly tight security of JW Marriot and Ritz Carlton, I, if not everybody, am made confirmed that no place is safe and now a prisoner of my thought of terror. You could never say this is Independence.

But what has been taking me away is that the so called increasing costs of living; they disown me more and more of my times as I commemorate this Independence. Prices of daily needs, health, education, and housing have gone up so sky-high they do not bother me catching up haplessly; no matter how many hours I spend making money. I found myself chained to barely survive the day by working longer hours day after day month after month. To my knowledge it takes so much more than it did to enjoy whatever level of life quality I would like to choose. Somebody raised kids and was not bothered by what I am like expensive baby diapers, expensive schools, expensive everything; some ads have even suggested that I put money down payment and make installment for my casket to anticipate my death; they say on the spot price is beyond my reach and I know they just knew how to worry me to death. This Independence is not liberating me , at t least from the anxiety about if I can live a decent life.