Despite everything, we ball (for People Power's 40th Anniversary)
Two stick figures and a house and call that change
Dear fellow baller,
I write today in anticipation of multiple anniversaries tomorrow, the commemoration of EDSA People Power and Aaron Bushnell’s sacrifice for Palestine. If you couldn’t tell, I’m preoccupied with how to move forward in history carrying the dignity of people who have sacrificed themselves for political change.
I’ve been thinking about the other side of this moment and what might carry us there. I’m certain it involves a diversity of revolutionary strategies, a plurality of resistance. When I say plurality, I mean everyone acting from their local needs and most specific skills and interests to create a kaleidoscope of solutions to the present moment. A plurality of thinking about how we can help each other’s real needs and how we can divest from the hegemonic system that divides and enslaves us.
Where is the site of our resistance? Is it in the streets, online, at home—or somewhere else entirely? For many of us in the ahem business of change-making, our politics suffers from an internal war. Middle class against the poor. Leftists against centrists and leftists against conservatives.
Listen, wherever the struggle is shared with the most people—that’s where we should be. That’s where we have tremendous potential for solidarity across all identities. I don’t believe we are so divided that we don’t share any difficulties, but we do need a robust empathy to bridge our differences, especially since these differences are encouraged and emphasized by the ruling class to prevent us from working together.
According to Wataru Kusaka’s Moral Politics in the Philippines, modern-day politics seeks to pit a morally “good” group against a morally “evil” out-group, which furthers the division inherent in movement spaces.
I don’t remember a time when politics wasn’t about morality, but I am envious of a politics that doesn’t condemn citizens to political purgatory based on how well we can perform change-making. If politics is the pursuit of shared goals, then pursuing change can be as simple as going to our neighbors and talking about how we might help each other. Yes, sometimes it sounds absurd—let’s just ask each other what we need and share resources based on trust!—like a child drawing two stick figures and a house and calling that family—but shouldn’t it be more simple? Shouldn’t we uncomplicate changemaking and go back to the basics of being good humans?
I think we should, and I think it makes the impossible weight of carrying historic political wins like EDSA much easier to carry.
Aaron Bushnell, if you’re reading this from the spiritual realm, I hope you know how much your words mean to me. Please grant us protection in tomorrow’s march as I bring your words: We will not be complicit in genocide!
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