Aspiring to Freedom:
The Promise of a Sweet Word
The Promise of a Sweet Word
Sometimes there are words that reach
across the years which still have the power to move. Often, if those
words are accompanied by a melody, they can more easily embed
themselves in the unconscious, but when prompted by an external event
or an inner emotion they can rise up to the surface again.
An ‘earworm’ is a catchy musical
phrase which continuously repeats in the mind long after it has
stopped playing. But ‘earworm’ does not adequately describe what
I’m writing about now. This is something more
than that. This is a musical and lyrical phrase that bubbles up from
deep in the past to come alive again in the present. What is more,
that phrase prompts recall of the whole message.
Around 20 to 25 years ago, when I was
still a relatively young man, I was a keen follower of the band Fat and Frantic. You may not have heard of them, but they had a large
and very loyal cult following in the UK; large enough to ensure that
many of their concerts sold out, large enough to propel them onto
radio and TV – but not quite large enough to break their music into
the mainstream charts.
Among the band’s eclectic mix of
novelty, jazz-flavoured pop, gospel and ‘piffle’ (punk-skiffle)
were a number of songs on the theme of social justice. You could
call them protest songs. One of these was ‘Freedom is a Sweet Word’ (written by Fat and Frantic vocalist and trumpet-player Jim
Harris). It is this particular song
that winds its way through the years (it was first released in 1987)
to circulate around my consciousness today.
Anyone who has followed my intermittent
blog will know that I am particularly concerned with gaining
recognition for past injustices in children’s and adolescents’
mental healthcare settings. But I also have a wider concern for
justice in general. I can’t help but find myself angry on behalf
of those belittled and dis-empowered within our society on whatever
grounds. People can – in effect – be disabled
by our society
and its institutions for a whole swathe of reasons.
These reasons can, of course, include mental health problems – but
they also include class, ethnicity, sexuality, physical health
problems, religious affiliation, and so on.
‘Freedom is a Sweet Word’ reflects
back to me, and puts into clear and concise words. some of my own
thoughts and feelings on this broad subject. The song has nothing to
do with mental health as such, but it resonates with what I have
witnessed and experienced in a mental healthcare setting. It speaks
of those who limit the freedom of others because they are fortunate
enough to be ‘Barclaycard carrying members of the free’, because
they have the power to exercise ‘freedom without justice’. These
are the people with the means (symbolised by the Barclaycard) who can
dominate and control those who are denied – or who have lost
– the
means. These ‘members of the free’ can absolve themselves
of any responsibility towards the less free; in fact, they gain their
freedom from the less free. This is because those without
means are labelled as failing to use their freedom as
‘constructively’ as those with the Barclaycards.
It is certainly the case that if you
were ever a child in a psychiatric institution you will know what it
was like to have your freedom limited by those ‘Barclaycard
carrying members of the free’. These ‘members of the free’
were the adults who made the decisions, the people with the means –
doctors, nurses, social workers, etc. Some of them may have
exercised their means properly and responsibly, while others may have
abused their means. Together, however, they gave the institution
they served power: the
institution had all the
power; you had
none.
The difficulty with not having means
and power – not having that Barclaycard, so to speak – is that
it’s very difficult to claw your way up from whatever belittled or
dis-empowered state you are in. But as the song says, that freedom
‘shines and glistens like a star’, and so it is still something
to aspire to. Furthermore, not everyone exercises ‘freedom without
justice’; there are some who know both freedom and justice,
and that is why I can hear that song playing in my head and find hope
in it.
____________
‘Freedom
is a Sweet Word’ by Fat and Frantic is released by Classic
Fox Records / I'll Call You Records
Delivered
Unto Lions by David
Austin is published by CheckPoint Press
ISBN
978-1-906628-21-5
For
more information visit www.davidaustin.eu
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