School: Christ The King College, Onitsha
17 Years. Male
Justice is an intrinsic value and is one of the social pillars of our society. It is simply the consistent and transparent will to render to everyone what is due to them. In fact a great African writer, Professor Wole Soyinka ably contended that the scales of reckoning with mortality can never be evenly weighted, alas, and thus the burden threads of the society unravels and our society disintegrates into barbarism; justice is the bedrock of peace, progress and development in every society.
On the other hand, freedom is the state of not being under any physical restraint. It is the absence of coercion and discrimination. Without freedom, the society glooms in the cold hands of corruption and discrimination. Freedom is not only essential but also the basis of our existence; it is the prime condition of humanity.
In the past, freedom and justice was just a mere illusion; counting down to the era of slavery when the negroids are being dehumanized by their colonial masters; they were not allowed to live their life the way they want it; what a terrible condition! Thanks to the revolution in the world today with the advent of democracy which entails the fundamental human rights. Advanced countries in the world today practise this political system and this helped them to achieve an enviable feat in the world political history.
To have a society which creates a picture of progress and peaceful co-existence, the percepts and principles of justice and freedom must be strictly adhered to. Of course the South Africans can never forget their liberation from the wicked hands of their colonial masters as it marks their highest achievement in their country’s political history during the apartheid regime. The apartheid regime is a political and social system where the citizens of South Africa were divided according to their race and also a law is made to back up the system. Barbaric laws like that the blacks are not allowed to marry the whites, the blacks are not allowed to own properties or even to vote despite the fact that they were the majority, the apartheid regime later came to an end in the year 1994 with Nelson Mandela as the president of the country as he is the pioneer of that revolution; taking a look at the economy of South Africa today you will find out that it is among, if not the best in the whole of Africa, that is justice and freedom for you.
The case of Libya also highlights the importance and the need for freedom and justice. The Libyan revolutionary and President Muammar Gaddafi after many years of good work turned into a tyrant and a delusional leader; in fact he is the only president of the Arab world that formally apologized for the role of the Arabians in the slavery of the blacks; he also proclaimed in one his book titled “The Green Book” that the African race will surely prevail and that Africans are the legitimate owners of Libya; he even provided all the needs of the Libyan populace but because of freedom, the Libyans ousted their president. They have no problem with the Muammar Gaddafi’s government just that there is no freedom of speech and act. Indeed justice and freedom is truly the essentials conditions for humanity.
Historically, there is an evident proof that justice and freedom are innate and that man will continue to fight for them until they are restored. When the existence of the human nature is sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and chains of discrimination; personalities like the great Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Franklin Roosevelt and professor Wole Soyinka who through his didactic literally works promoted justice and freedom across the globe. The importance of freedom even leads to the coming together of all the democratic countries of the world to form the United Nations Organization (U.N.O) in the year 1948. The purpose of this organization is to check mate the activities of the member nations to see thayt the principles of freedom and justice are never neglected.
In conclusion, justice and freedom can never prevail in a society where there is little or no value for the human life, where there is an inverse relationship among individuals, that is, in a society where one person lives in opulence and another lives in destitute. For man to be able to dwell happily in its social, economic and political environment justice and freedom must be held in a high regard as its importance can never be over emphasized.