How to (actually) be free

What does freedom mean to you?

Past the aphorisms like “freedom’s not free” or “the price of freedom” is the truth that freedom is not what we think that it is. American freedom is predicated on white supremacy and corporatism, to be free means that young and middle-aged people are recruited to terrorize the Global South.

In the 20th century, the main targets were East and Southeast Asia. These included the imperialist projects in the Philippines and Vietnam where veterans of the Philippine-American war stated that the same exact genocidal tactics used against the Filipino people were enacted against the Vietnamese people. This also expressed itself in an imperialist war in Korea fought between the U.S. and the USSR, both culturally European imperialist powers. This also involved the economic subjugation of Japan, from its “economic miracle” from serving U.S. corporations to the forced devaluation of its currency that resulted in Japan’s lost generation (Japanese Gen X), many of whom would become hikikomori.

This, of course, coincided with the imperial projects of West Asia, from America’s continued military and economic support of Israel to its meddling in puppet state regimes in Iran and Afghanistan, both of which resulted in anti-imperial backlash that paved the way for the right-wing regimes of both nations today.

However you put it, American freedom is not about true freedom but, rather, upholding the economic interests of the wealthiest families in the U.S. (and the West as a whole) at the expense of lives abroad and the moral fabric of Americans.

This is not freedom. This is a matter of enforcing a global hierarchy.

Does that sound like a conspiracy? Maybe. But if that weren’t the case, then why do American, European and Chinese elites, alike, attend the same primary and secondary schools in Europe and, later, attend the same Ivy League schools in the U.S. and Russell Group schools in the U.K.?

Shouldn’t these families be at war?

Shouldn’t they be loyal to their countries?

Or is loyalty an ideology for the working classes to fall for to keep us subservient (of course, I use working classes very liberally here).

Whether you’re talking about corruption in the Philippines and South Korea, longstanding elite families in Europe or new money in the U.S. and China, the children and successors of these families are trained in exactly the same way in preparation for leading their respective nations.

Of course, this isn’t new or even limited to the most elite of elites.

Heads of state of nations from the Philippines to Afghanistan, the Bahamas, Colombia and Mali have attended U.S. universities, including those in the Ivy League, American University, Tufts University and other top or even mid-tier U.S. universities to leverage connections, earn advanced degrees, and return to their nations of origin.

This is because the American empire affords a certain level of privilege to those who can enter, and for international students to pay for, its institutions and the level of access to the echelons of power that attending any top 200 nationally ranked U.S. university can open up.

As someone who has graduated from two such schools (Boston and Houston), though most alumni are regular people like myself, many UH graduates become oil magnates (or at least work in advanced roles in the energy industry) while many BU graduates have succeeded in fields ranging from entertainment to business and government.

Still, this means that international students with bigger ambitions in their respective countries can more easily be afforded opportunities in governance by attending an American school. This enforces the Western-centric power structures with an unspoken global division of labor where the Global North is primarily host to more white collar work (albeit AI is changing things), developing nations host manufacturing, call centers, IT support and other lower-cost customer service roles, while the rest of the Global South simply starves or, if they are able to seek refuge, still never live lives appropriate for their true potential.

In fact, economic inequality is also rampant across the West and the developed world. This is why we need to stop seeing the Global South as “those poor people” who we pretend to donate to, not realizing that so many non-profits simply pocket the bulk of donations as administrative costs (of course, there are very low margins for nonprofit work to begin with and they too deserve a living wage).

Instead, we need to remember that we are materially closer to the conditions of the Global South than we are to becoming elites or billionaires.

Then, and only then, can we deconstruct these corporatist ideas of freedom that only serve those who already have access, privilege and power. The greatest threat to global stability is, and will always be, capitalism until we finally do what it takes to change this reality.

Our ideas of freedom need not be framed from the lens of what the most privileged can profit from but, rather, can be driven by our own self-determination and the desire to improve material conditions for everyone. This vision is what freedom means to me, even in a world, a society and a nation that seeks to eradicate those like me.