Freedom… Is Death Called Freedom?
Letters from Awriterstip – Week 18
Jacob Mascarenhas
Dear Readers,
I usually write once a week. I take my time. I reflect. I breathe before I put words on paper. But this time, I could not wait. This is not another scheduled newsletter. This is not another thoughtful weekly reflection. The situation unfolding before us feels like a wound that refuses to close.
People are dying. Families are collapsing under grief. War is no longer something distant or strategic; it feels like a disease spreading through humanity. I have written about this before, and I know not everyone will agree with my perspective. That is fine. This is not about politics. It is about our future. It is about children who will inherit the consequences of what we allow today. It is about soldiers, from all nations, who will return home carrying invisible scars, trauma, and memories they can never erase. It is about generations to come and the legacy we are building for them.
That is why I am writing again.
There is a sound echoing across parts of our world today, especially across the wounded lands of the Middle East. It is not the sound of freedom. It is not the sound of justice. It is not the sound of peace. It is the sound of buildings collapsing, of sirens tearing through the sky, of mothers screaming names that will never again be answered. It is the sound of fathers digging through concrete with bare hands. It is the sound of children whose lives ended before they even understood what war meant. We are told this is necessary. We are told this is a defence. We are told this is retaliation, strategy, liberation.
But let us ask the question that refuses to go away: Is death called freedom?
When a bomb falls on a school, what freedom has been achieved? When a hospital is turned into rubble, whose liberty has been secured? When a child is wrapped in white cloth and carried through crowds of grief-stricken relatives, what victory has been won?
We live in an age of astonishing technology. Nations boast of precision-guided weapons and intelligence systems that can track a moving vehicle from miles away. They say they can detect threats with extraordinary accuracy. And yet somehow, schools are struck. Hospitals are hit. Residential buildings collapse. Are we to believe that the world’s most advanced systems can recognise a signal in the dark but cannot recognise a classroom full of children? Or is the truth something we are too uncomfortable to confront?
Children do not start wars. They do not vote for leaders who promise retaliation. They do not design weapons. They do not draw borders or draft military doctrines. They wake up with sleepy eyes, hold their mother’s hand, carry schoolbags filled with notebooks, and dream of futures that stretch far beyond the horizon. They imagine becoming doctors, teachers, artists, and engineers. Yet they are the ones buried beneath dust and debris. Who gave anyone the right to turn a classroom into a graveyard? Who gave anyone the right to destroy a hospital and call it collateral damage? No one gives you the right to say that death is freedom. No one gives you the right to say what freedom is now.
War has always hidden behind careful language. Words like “security,” “strategic interest,” “measured response,” and “necessary force” are spoken in calm voices at podiums far away from the smoke. They sound rational. They sound justified. But beneath those words are broken families and empty beds where children once slept. The language of war sanitises horror. It transforms blood into statistics. It turns human lives into numbers on a briefing slide. Once people become numbers, it becomes easier to ignore them. Once children become figures in a report, it becomes easier to move on.
Perhaps most painful of all is when violence is wrapped in the name of God. Some claim divine guidance for their actions. They say heaven stands with them. They say God wills their struggle. But no merciful Creator commands the killing of children. No loving God instructs anyone to bomb a hospital. If we truly believe we are all children of God, then how can one group claim sacred approval to destroy another? Faith is meant to remind us of compassion, humility, and mercy. When God’s name is used to justify destruction, it is not faith speaking; it is power seeking validation.
Every side in a conflict believes it has a story of pain, history, fear, and grievance. Perhaps there are real threats. Perhaps there are genuine wounds carried across generations. I might be wrong in understanding every political detail, every historical complexity, every strategic calculation. But not at the expense of seeing children die. Not at the expense of watching parents wrap their children in white cloth and bury them before their time. There are parents around the world who long for children, who pray for children, who would give anything to hold a child of their own. And here we are, witnessing other people’s children being taken away by violence.
For what are we fighting?
Why, why, why is everybody quiet?
Why is everyone speaking in careful tones about “de-escalation” while the bombs still fall? Why are statements issued and meetings held while graves are being dug? Everybody talks about stopping this, about calming tensions, about restoring stability. But what does that mean to a mother who has just lost her child? What does de-escalation mean when a school is reduced to dust? Silence becomes complicity when it stretches too long. Neutrality becomes indifference when children are dying. We ask for calm discussions while families are shattered in seconds. We call for restraint while entire neighbourhoods disappear.
For what are we fighting for, if the result is a generation of grief?
We went through a global pandemic not long ago. During COVID, we lost millions of people across the world. Families were torn apart. Parents died. Grandparents died. Some children were left without mothers or fathers. We stood helpless in front of death, locked inside our homes, praying for vaccines, praying for survival, praying for mercy. At that time, humanity spoke about unity. We said we had learned how fragile life is. We said we would value each other more. We said we understood loss. And yet here we are again, creating more destruction with our own hands.
I am not speaking about the inevitability of death itself; death comes to all of us. I am speaking about children who are dying because of decisions made in offices and war rooms. Children crying for their mothers. Children screaming for fathers who will never answer.
Have some dignity.
Have some empathy.
Stop this. Yes, perhaps my words will not stop a single bomb. Perhaps writing this will not save a single life. But silence will not save them either. We fight passionately for climate change, for policies, for social debates, for causes that trend for a week and disappear. We see influencers donate millions and announce it publicly, showcasing their generosity, but is it enough? Is it reaching where it truly needs to reach? Are we fighting with the same urgency for the children trapped under rubble? Death comes for all of us one day; that is the nature of life.
But accelerating death, manufacturing death, delivering death to schools and hospitals, that is not freedom. If this is the freedom being offered, then it is a hollow one. Do not redefine freedom as death. Do not teach the next generation that liberty means destruction.
Death is not freedom, my friend. It never was.
We have global institutions designed to protect humanity. We have the United Nations. We have international conventions and humanitarian laws. We have organisations such as UNICEF and the International Committee of the Red Cross working to defend the innocent.
Yet statements and resolutions cannot bring back a lost child. Emergency meetings cannot erase trauma. Carefully worded condemnations cannot rebuild trust overnight. The system was created to prevent exactly this kind of suffering, and yet the suffering continues.
The damage does not end when the smoke clears. It settles into the minds of survivors. It becomes the fear that grips a child whenever a door slams too loudly. It becomes the trauma that shapes a teenager’s view of the world. Entire generations grow up surrounded by loss. Anger replaces hope. Fear replaces trust. The seeds of tomorrow’s conflict are planted in today’s rubble.
War promises security, but it often produces only deeper insecurity.
Freedom is a word we cherish. We fight under its banner. We celebrate it in speeches. But freedom is not domination. Freedom is not the ability to destroy. Freedom is not retaliation without end. Freedom is safety. Freedom is dignity. Freedom is the right of a child to attend school without fear. Freedom is the right of a family to seek medical care without risking their lives. If a child cannot sleep peacefully at night, there is no freedom. If a hospital becomes a battlefield, there is no liberation. Death is not freedom. Destruction is not peace.
At the centre of it all remains a simple, piercing truth: no one gives you the right to say that death is freedom. No one gives you the right to redefine freedom as survival under constant threat. No ideology, no border, no political objective can justify the deliberate or careless destruction of innocent lives. If our systems allow that, then our systems must be questioned. If our leaders defend that, then they must be challenged. If we remain silent about that, then we must examine ourselves.
History will not judge this era by the number of missiles launched or alliances formed. It will judge it by how humanity treated its most vulnerable. One day, future generations will ask what we said when children were buried under rubble. They will ask what we defended when hospitals were destroyed. They will ask whether we called it freedom. And we will have to answer. If the price of your freedom is a child’s life, then it is not freedom at all. Freedom does not rise from rubble, and peace cannot be built upon graves. Until we remember that every child, on every side, belongs to the same human family, the word “freedom” will remain hollow, and the cries of the innocent will continue to echo louder than any slogan ever could.
A Prayer for the End of War…
God of mercy, God of all nations and all children, we come before You with heavy hearts. We have seen too much suffering and heard too many cries. We have watched children buried before their time and parents broken beyond words. If we have forgotten our humanity, remind us. If we have hardened our hearts, soften them. If we have chosen pride over peace, humble us. Protect the children, shield the innocent, comfort the grieving, and heal the wounded in body and in mind. Watch over the soldiers on every side and bring them home safely, lifting from them the burden of trauma, fear, and memories that haunt them. Silence the weapons, still the anger, and replace hatred with understanding and vengeance with wisdom. Teach us that freedom is not found in destruction but in dignity, compassion, and life. Let this war end. Let peace rise where rubble now stands, and let the next generation inherit hope instead of ashes.
Amen.
Save Our Children…
God Bless Us All…
- Jacob Mascarenhas
Author | Storyteller
.jpeg)
