What Freedom Entails

In 2008 when I stopped attending classes at JKUAT where I was pursuing an engineering degree, I spent most of my time alone hanging around the university. I enjoyed spending my time in the university library where I read a number of books including one about the history of Japan and another about the development of the Swahili language. I also read a book that encouraged me to be an avid reader.

Part of the reason I withdraw from classes at the university was to acquire freedom. Having studied the first five books of the Bible earlier on that year, I had come to identify with the fate of the Israelites who spent their time in bondage in Egypt as narrated in the book of Exodus.

I, too, felt in bondage because I was regularly confused, couldn't feel at ease with people, didn't have opportunities to travel and was pursuing a difficult engineering course.

It was in an attempt to break free from that bondage that led me to stop attending classes and instead hang around the university doing my own things. I also did visit Nairobi City where on one night, I saw prostitutes for the first time in my life in a red-light district known as Koinange Street. The prostitutes, to put it bluntly, were dressed to kill. Even though I did admire their bodies as any straight man should, I am glad I never became one of their customers.

As part of feeling free, I also planned to travel to Magadi, a mining town about 112 kilometres from Nairobi City. I longed to visit Magadi since I had never been there. But I gave up on the plan when I got mixed up on where buses to Magadi Town were boarded.

My search for freedom was put to an end by the university authorities when they caught up with me several weeks later. They incarcerated me in a police cell that night they found me. The following day, I was taken to a psychiatrist who thought I was mentally ill, so she had me forcefully admitted at Thika Nursing Home.

Earlier on in this decade when I thought of how I was handled that time the university authorities caught up with me, I felt bitter to the point of wanting to sue the university. But come to think of it, I am now of the opinion that the university authorities took the right action by incarcerating me in a police cell and admitting me in a nursing home. Why do I think so? Because back then, I didn't understand what genuine freedom entails.

First, to be free means having enough money to meet our needs. We can't be free if we are living in want. That time in 2008 when I stopped attending classes at JKUAT, I was lucky to have money to sustain me thanks to the loan I had received from the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB). I wonder what would have become of me if I ran out of cash while hanging around the university. The university authorities took the right action by incarcerating me in a police cell.

Secondly, to be free means thinking clearly as well as being free from fear, guilt, hatred and jealousy - something I didn't entirely understand when I went astray at JKUAT in 2008.

And lastly, to be free also entails relating well with our families, workmates and others around us. That time I stopped attending classes at JKUAT in 2008, it was foolish of me to stay alone and still think I was becoming free. If I could wave the magic wand and roll back the clocks of time to 2008, I would talk to my family, friends and a counsellor about my predicament instead of living alone.

To sum up my points, to be free entails having enough money to meet our needs, thinking clearly, being free from fear, guilt, hatred and jealousy as well as relating well with those around us.

And to be free is the best thing to be on Earth. That's why President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in an address to the U.S. Congress in 1941, said "...we look forward to a world founded upon four essential freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression... The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way... The third is freedom from want... The fourth is freedom from fear."