The Movement Outside And Inside
Movements need an emergent strategy to stun and replace systems and injustice.
I’m torn about the protests happening world wide. On one hand there is a lot of righteous long held anger on the other it is creating the conditions for control.
They are symbolic of the voices of the marginalized that have been silenced and ignored from the years past. The protest turned riots are causing a vein of anger to be expressed and forcing those with power and influence to listen.
The idea of peaceful protest allows the world to reflect back on the world to see itself and make the right changes towards justice and equality. The axis and times we are in represents one of deep choice, do we move toward caring and creating systems about each other or do we move towards violence and anger that will burn for years to come?
Yet there is something about the anger that burns. It reminds me of the sacredness and power of fire, it can reduce things to the irreducible, ashes.
There is nothing left after ash. We must be careful from the flames that we hold to not reduce our homes. Killer Mike gave a poignant speech about the situation in Atlanta and spoke about the need to direct that fire burning in peoples heart as rage and anguish at the derelict and amoralized systems. Kareem Abdul Jabar, wrote an op-ed for the LA times talking about why this protest is important.
I wonder now how the protest can we create change through controlled burns. How might we pay respects while paving way for the new that is so desperately needed?
Fire, in these times, is the peoples will, the will to see, the will to voice, the will to create change. We must all direct our fires together to make sure they burn in the right places and give light to a future worth saving.
I support protest, I support BLM, I support ending white supremacy, even the idea of whiteness as it is a story of separation.
I admit to get there, we have to consider our own development as it pertains to world views. Are we afraid of leaderless systems. I am afraid we will not have a leader like those of the civil rights era, there will be no one like a Dr. King or Rosa Parks to rally us to a cause because in fact those people we are looking for are ourselves, the ones who care.
I’m also fearful of systems of dissent where activists leaders become the target of systems of control.
I then wonder, how does build a movement build itself out of the ashes of chaos, hurt pain and despair without leadership because that is a requirement these days.
Movements are alive and to make an impact need to be non-violent, decentralized, disobedient and non-participating in current power structures to create change by atrophying power and the attention to those structures.
That which shames the system sand the elites that uphold it and act aloof and removed from the people is the very vulnerability the will of the people need to exploit.
Movements must also build and create alternative solutions to the dominant paradigms that include systems for livelihood and governance. They must also be disruptive to shake off control of normalcy and complacency in our lives.
It requires rethinking what is community and how to maintain relationship globally.
It requires new awareness of all unjust systems of oppressions.
It requires unity consciousness, recognizing shared humanity of spirit and struggle.
How might we develop kindness for ourselves and others?
Raimon Panikkar once said “a person is a knot in a network of relationships”.
Are we all not connected in someway on this planet?
Do we all not share the same airs and winds, mountains, streams, rivers, valleys, deserts, forests?
I wonder in these times how might we elevate our consciousness in communion with that which connects us all. Call it divine, call it human spirituality, call it life…I think there is something beautiful waiting to be born from all of this.