Ode
to Freedom
To
be born a free citizen opposite to having been born as a slave to a regime is
the most important distinction in human condition. It defines us as masters or
prisoners of our fate.
The
dichotomy of these two opposites, and the magnificent spectrum of hues and
ranges that exist in between, determine the principal success or failure, as it
may be, in the relationship any individual has with his or her native and
adapted country. As with most elements and characteristics of a human’s life,
the longer the enslaved experience, the farther the disparity between origin
and destination, the weaker the support system, the more difficult the transition.
Those who are born free can never fully understand the nuances and intricacies
of a human journey from captivity to liberty. Those who remain enslaved may
crave liberty, but not actually having experienced freedom, will have
difficulties envisioning its consequences and the increased load of obligations
the free society virtually dumps onto the newly liberated head before it is
ready to absorb it. Those of us who were born enslaved, but were able to break
free, at least in my experience, do not wish enslavement upon our brethren. Nor
do we wish to be subjected into involuntary servitude by becoming our brothers’
and their children’s keepers.
Becoming
free is an obviously preferred alternative to enslavement, but it is a
difficult process, one that requires much mental commitment, adjustment and
investment of will and character. A person does not instantaneously become
freed. It is a learned experience that an individual must work though and at
for the remainder of his or her free life.
Freedom – the power to act, behave, speak and think as one wishes
without obstruction, restraint or domination by another person, group,
organization, or despotic government…
When I
was a little girl growing up socialist in the USSR, America was my enemy.
Through
some extraordinary twists of fate everything changed for Mama and me, and in
the fall of 1979 we surrendered our Soviet citizenship. The price we paid was
parting with all our family, leaving them trapped forever behind the Iron
Curtain never to see them again. Or so it was then.
On November 2, 1979, escaping
forever the subjugation to the USSR and its totalitarian claim on me, I was
freed. My slavery was over. I stood on Austrian soil tasting this freedom with
my entire body, taking it all in within those several lucky seconds I dared to
step off the train, so that I would never let go of that moment of first
knowing that I am freed!
Scared
and stateless, Mama and I joined our departing horde, thousands of Soviet
Jewish refugees, first in Vienna, then we were moved to Rome to await our
destiny. We received the sacred right of entering USA as refugees from the
institutionalized discrimination by Soviet Socialist Regime against the Soviet Jews
and on January 10, 1980, a mere two weeks after USSR’s invasion of Afghanistan
and the simultaneously halted exodus of Soviet Jewry to various destinations of
freedom, Mama and I landed at JFK.
We
arrived, as so many do, poor, helpless, and fully ready to make our own mistakes.
We brought with us no intent to deceive, defraud, demand or destroy the majestic
land of sacred opportunity we were somehow allowed to enter.
