Liberation / freedome is a state of being. Liberation is a process.
Liberation / freedom is the destination. Liberation is its path.
But can we be happy? From the moment we ask ourselves the question, we no longer are. It’s the same for freedom. Wanting to be free means nothing. But wanting to free yourself implies a will and a process already in progress.
Freedom is an idea, an ideal, a projection. Liberation is a process, a desire to move forward, an evolutionary approach. Which is more important: becoming or being? It is impossible to be totally free, just as it is impossible to be totally and unconditionally happy. But it is possible to move towards this freedom, to engage in the work of liberation. Because freedom is a state of being. Liberation is becoming.
The word freedom is probably the most ambiguous word and the most charged with fantasies and passions in the entire political lexicon. Everyone agrees that freedom is fundamental and essential, but everyone has a unique definition and vision of what freedom could really be. The worst episodes in history and the worst human behavior have often been carried out in the name of freedom…
The word liberation is used less, but it can inject nuance into political certainties. Liberation does not imply a utopian end state, but a process at work. It can be more unifying and consensual, more unifying than sowing divisions. Liberation does not impose a single reality, nor an absolute hypothesis.
The state of (supposed) freedom is therefore a certainty, an idealized projection. So partially false because not anchored in the reality of the moment. Liberation implies a process of freeing oneself, gradually getting rid of attachments and its corollaries of illusions, errors, conditioning, obstacles that hinder our access to freedom.
Freedom is a construct of the mind. Liberation is a deconstruction of its confinements.