You Say You Want A Revolution
Image taken by @wa.deen yesterday in Minneapolis
Those who refuse to remember history are condemned to repeat it. The same is true for those who refuse to bear witness. And for anyone not marginalised or vilified or brutalised through an accident of birth or dumb luck, this is just one more mod con.
History is liberally smattered with violent uprising and bloody revolution. Humankind's evolution is tethered to it, moving us constantly beyond injustice at the hands of old paradigms that only ever serve those in power. Civil rights. Gay rights. Women's rights. All are human rights that were borne of riot and refusal in response to a brutally unfair status quo. Check your history. Then brush up on stories beyond your own. Most of what we petulantly assert as rights were enshrined for us by earlier generations who protested, fought, bled and died for them in the face of murderous intent.
It is an easy shot to demonise anger and anarchy without asking what caused it. It is the ultimate smokescreen, gaslighting the enraged in order to protect the privilege that permits hair splitting. It deliberately muddies the issue. What would your response to persistent murder and injustice be? And if the knee was on your throat or the wolf always at your door? The idea that long overdue justice and social change happens from polite requests is absurd and offensive. We are rightly disturbed when the curtain is hauled back. Truth emerges from the well incandescent with rage.
It is all the old lies that got her - and us all - there. Rage flares from anger that has been simmering too long. Anger is the natural and rightful response to the transgression of safety, boundaries, values and beliefs. It is often the basis of how we make change and it is uncomfortable and messy. Activism - taking action - is how the need for reform is finally expressed.
Any shadow work you do is incomplete if it does not also examine the cultural and generational containers we grew up in. They inform our personal shadows and reactions. Each generation is responsible for knowing better so our actions put us on the right side of history.
This is on all of us. Now. We can all do better. This is the year that is showing us where and how. Don't look away.
Words c. Kerrie Basha 2020