What is Freedom? Civic Responsibility, the Government’s Right to Know and the Right to Remain Anonymous.

The first Kilburn Kitchen Conversation took place at Café Mangobita, the Venezuelan café in the Kingsgate Community Centre, Kilburn/West Hampstead,18th Feb. There were 10 of us present: a children’s youth worker/climate change activist, a software marketeer/poet, a DJ/gardener, a theatre designer, an Egyptian businessman/freedom podcaster, a representative from the London Islamic Network for Environment, a novelist/puppeteer, a sustainable fisheries expert, a jazz musician/new media specialist and a freelance environmental consultant/activist.

We were British, Anglo-Italian, Scottish-American, Egyptian and Australian.

An inspiring and engaging conversation took place. Its flavour was:

Freedom is …
Saying things we believe to be true, not self-censorship to agree to an unstated norm or allowing McCarthy-esque censorship to enter by the back door.
Not having ID cards imposed on us… And recognising that they are the tip of the iceberg of new laws coming through that curtail our freedom.
Anarchy? –exposing us to things we don’t want as much as those we do.
Full self expression to each be all we can be.

Our Civic Responsibility is…
Not letting ourselves be manipulated into being afraid.
To be aware, informed, outspoken.
Shop according to our principles. Support those who provide us with alternatives for freedom from the corporate stranglehold.
If biometric id. is coming, should we at least use it to be able to instantly vote out politicians who cease to serve us and serve corporations and their own interests?

The Government’s Right to Know is …
Over-rated as a new thing: Isn’t Big Brother already watching?
Over-stated: Nothing we have seen of new technologies convinces us it would make us safer. Madrid had ID cards in place at the time its bombs went off.
Terror is simply the latest “common enemy” used to manipulate us to offer up our freedom.

The right to remain anonymous is…
Something we all wanted.
To protect the right to be someone else, when its in a good cause and allows you to obtain information being disclosed to you that can lead to a better world.
Complicated!: the media often choose to portray a one-sided view: if we are not allowed to be anonymous, do we at least want the full facts behind our story to be known or freely available?

What can we do?
Inform ourselves and obtain news from as many sources as possible.
Switch off our TVs, throw away our Heat and OK! Magazine and free our minds.
Dare to engage in conversations with people about subjects that matter…leaving behind the old fashioned notions we were brought up with to be “nice” and “always happy”
Be loving in our outspoken-ness: if you can see through the sham of celebrity-led consumerism, you’re part of a privileged elite and our responsibility as aware citizens is to share our perspective generously - whilst respecting and having compassion for people caught in the endless and draining cycle of working to earn to consume to feel better about our lives that are empty because we work all the time…
Recognise the hypocrisies present in our own lives and not be stopped by them or be too ashamed to admit to them.

Recognise the different levels of spiritual development that people are at and understand their actions accordingly.

Stick together: there are more of us committed to freedom than we dare imagine…

Acknowledgements
The coffee was free courtesy of sponsorship from the Electoral Commission via the New Economics Foundation.