The Covid-19 virus has in a short time blown open and revealed the destructive veins of neo-liberal capitalist racist patriarchy. With each day, we see that the majority of people who are dying are those who have been historically exploited, oppressed and marginalized by poverty, racism, xenophobia. The virus is revealing the violent, broken, greed and growth systems that we have been both tolerating and forced to live with for far too long.
As we rise in global solidarity to meet this moment, we now MUST ASK ourselves; “what is essential”, “who is essential”, “what would it mean to live with just what is essential”, and “how would we value, protect and uplift those who are doing the essential work”?
The Earth. Most essential to all life, is the most violated. Indigenous people of the earth have taught, embodied and been calling for the true alignment of humanity and the earth.
Across the planet, the majority of frontline workers, health care workers, home care workers, domestic workers, farmworkers – are women. As with the EARTH, they are the least valued, underpaid and least protected. Health workers without necessary personal protective equipment (PPE) despite putting themselves at risk every day, food and agricultural workers providing the food on our tables while they cannot feed their own families, the list goes on.
Now is the moment for our movement and movements across the planet to open the window to a new world, to refuse to go back to a “normal” that was never fair or functional for the majority of people.
It is up to us to envision and demand this future as we collectively rise in global solidarity and organized creative resistance.
Because neo-liberalism has FAILED across the world to take care of the health and well -being of the majority of human beings and the earth:
We need to envision a world where ecology and economy live in alignment. Where the new economy is defined by LOVING CARE of the earth, and of the people.
Because in this pandemic, people are locked down, living in fear and uncertainty – it has become fertile ground for governments to control people, to curtail democratic human rights, to erode freedom of the press, and to exploit people and resources –for these forces to take root in the name of health and safety:
We need to Rise for a world no longer defined by political or religious totalitarianism, hatred, violence against women, violence to the earth and to people, tyranny, fascism, patriarchy, misogyny, racism, ableism and capitalism.
Because the violence of hatred, greed, separation and destruction has chronically disabled our ability to have empathy:
We need to create a world where community, trust, care and love are at its core. We need art, poetry, music, dance to inspire, connect and awaken us.
Because we have continued to take without permission from the Earth – which has led to her destruction:
We need to re-imagine and manifest a new way of living – one that recognizes we are not separate or apart from the earth. We need to honor and respect nature and all of LIFE and not take more than our share.
Because it has been ingrained in us to operate within divisions – “us” and “them,” to believe that some people matter and others don’t:
We need to build even stronger global solidarity to connect, in ways deeper than before, in order to dissolve hierarchy and come into our inclusive humanity.
