Keti Koti (End of Slavery)
On July 1st we celebrate the abolishment of Slavery in Suriname and on many of the Caribbean islands.
July 1st 1863 to be exact (Curacao and Suriname were both Dutch colonies)
In Suriname it's a national holiday called "Keti Koti" which translated to "Broken Chain" (or a cut chain).
Image credit - Reena.nl
On Curacao its not that big of a celebration but you do have more & more people acknowledging the fight their ancestors had to get their freedom.
Now I'm not going to go into any of the details of how and why, which countries.
It's very important to know the history, and if your interested I encourage you to look it up.
But that's not my angle today. My focus today is actually on today...
Specifically on a personal level, what does freedom mean to you???
And even further, what are you doing with your freedom???
The pandemic (yes there is that word again) brought to light some interesting thoughts when it comes to freedoms we take for granted. Things we've gotten used to.... Things others to this day don't have. But also things some of our ancestors definitely didn't have!
So with July 1st coming around during this time might bring with it a lot more awareness and hopefully appreciation...
That's my hope at least...
So back to the questions, what does freedom mean to you? Is the choice to move around freely? Is it the option to speak your mind? Or to express yourself? The opportunity to gain knowledge?
There are so many aspects to freedom that it might be hard to pick just one but I encourage you to try, even if you don't leave a comment, just think about it.
And when you do ask yourself what you're doing with it... And if you're happy with what you've accomplished with it?
In closing I'm goinq to leave you with pics for a park called "Lucha pa Liberdat" (fight for freedom) here in Curacao.
It's dedicated to revolution and of course the fight for freedom.
Take care everyone!
And feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.
Congratulations @gvkanten! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Your next payout target is 1000 HP.
The unit is Hive Power equivalent because your rewards can be split into HP and HBD
You can view your badges on your board and compare yourself to others in the Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPCheck out the last post from @hivebuzz:
I was staring at the statue image and I realized that there is a very powerful story behind it. I can imagine few of the details right now without googling anything but I will definitely check the deeper significance of this online.
I will consider freedom from the lens of being able to make your own decisions freely without getting tied down to other people's opinions or perspectives.
I found this post to be quite thought provoking actually. You asked some great qs.
Hey sorry for the very late reply...
Did you end up Google the image?
Great answer, making you own decisions is very much at the base of freedom in my book too.
The opinion and perspectives of others are always going to be there though and it's your choice how you let that influence you
No worries at all gvkanten!
Yes I did! I found out about Netherlands role in the slavery process and how people grew up without knowing about this in Netherland until more light was brought into this matter. I hope more people learn about what happened and understand the roles that were played by their respective countries in this matter. It is not a national holiday yet in Netherlands although some people have advocated for it to become one.
I couldn't agree more! From the day we are born, our parents are the first people that influence our lifestyles and then as we get older and make friends, we learn and perhaps get influenced by them. Ultimately, we have a choice about what we allow ourselves to get influenced by.