Tag: Monica 4 Freedom

Huck Finn Week – Day 1 – Beautiful Journeys To Freedom

We are made to dance our way to freedom.

Next Saturday, the 10th of the 12th, 2022, is the 138th anniversary of the first publication in Canada and the United Kingdom of Mark Twain’s classic novel The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn.

It is a youthful story, seen through the eyes of a teenager, which, IMHO, helped liberate the American imagination from the evil idea, associated with slavery, that black people were not fully human.

The glorious story of the deep bonds of human fellowship between white boy, Huck, and the runaway slave, Jim, goes right to the heart of what the American nation is (or at least looks like to me ) – a glorious quest for equality and freedom.

The powerful primal force of the Mississippi River carries the fugitives away from the northeastern Free States they had yearned to reach into the South where slavery and its attitudes were strongest.

But, through the strength of basic human decency amid much ingenious conniving along the journey, they eventually find their way back to freedom.

Another very important pilgrimage for Freedom is described in Australian Country Music singer Dusty Starr’s song “Epic”, in which Dusty sings of the meaning for him and many other people of early 2022’s Convoy to Canberra

Mark Twin wrote that Australian history “does not read like history, but like the most beautiful lies …… (which) are all true ……….”.

For me:

Australia is journeys,

Always was and maybe always will be

In the songlines of old dreamings,

But then convicts of pommy cruelties sent around the world

Broke down hoping to get home but going, going, held ……….

Australia’s yearned in journeys constantly returning:

Explorers, drovers and foreign wars,

Swaggies and grey nomads ……..

Talk about walk about getting out

From bad laws that drove ‘em mad

So full on sad losing all they had ……..

Australia’s failed us and gave up

Staying alive with beautiful lies

Where the heart sighs

Forced to compromise

But still willed for going going

Hoping hoping

For truthful youthful

Beautiful eyes

Beautiful eyes

Beautiful eyes

Monica is a pure force for freedom.

Geoff Fox, 5th December, 2022, Down Under

Sloboda Is Freedom

Monica is an Australian Christian of Greek Italian heritage, who cares deeply and thoughtfully about freedom.

Yesterday in Melbourne outside the Federal Court of Australia, among clean-living God-fearing Serbian people seeking justice for their mistreated national hero Novak Djokovic, I saw Monica’s confidence in her ability to stand up for freedom blossom. It was a wonderful sight.

She and I both learnt that Sloboda is the Serbian word for freedom.

Under the beloved colours of the Greek flag and holding a Serbian flag in front of her, Monica chanted the Serbian nickname of the best tennis player in the world “Nole. Nole. Nole.”

Djokovic himself is embarassed by the attention that has been focussed on him.

After suffering from the trauma of false imprisonment in a cheap hotel, he has the right to step back from the limelight to recover.

But those of us, like Monica, who care about freedom and who crave its restoration, have the right and responsibility to speak out against injustice.

Human rights matter.

Freedom matters.

Australia has to stop degrading itself with irrational acts of tyranny.

Fairness is a fair dinkum Aussie value which Australia needs to reclaim.

The world is watching.

Geoff Fox, 18th December, 2022, Down Under.