Thank You to Our Sisters in the USA

To my dear sisters in the USA.

There is a song, often sung here in Quebec to celebrate a birthday: “Ma chere, C’est a ton tour de nous laisser parler d’amour\". \"My dear, it is your turn to let us tell you how much we love you\".

This is my message to you today as we all absorb the change of Government in your country, allowing a man who has bragged of sexual attacks on women and not been charged, who has incited violence against people of colour, who has promised to displace millions of people, who has expressed pride in hoarding his money and not paying taxes, to take position as leader.

But this message is a loving thank you. Thank you for your fiery and visionary action over so many years. Thank you for the Civil Rights movement, the Anti War movements, the Union Movements, the Anti Poverty Movements, the early women’s movements, the gatherings offered in your country for so many years for we women to come together in safe spaces, where women took the stages with leadership through music and dance and taking back the Drum and discussion where we deepened our understandings of how important interconnectedness must be, to move forward. Thank you Sisters. Thank you for all of these experiences, as I know that women have stood and stand tall as leaders all along, and we have greatly benefitted.

Living where I do, close neighbour to the north, in the 1960’s some of you came here, encouraging our coming together, our starting women’s centres, our building networks of safe houses and rape crisis phone lines. I have looked to your leadership all along, as I met with my sisters here. I have crossed the border so many times to meet with you, returninginspired by your courage, your wisdom and vision.

And now you have created for us all World Pulse. And given me a way to experience a dream come true, that I would have direct information on how my Sisters are doing everywhere, globally, and not only that, to be able to say hello, send my love, describe my joy, celebrate all of our steps forward, be nourished in our strongly linked arms, in the knowledge that we are rising everywhere, that girls are being empowered and made aware that we are working on this together, and that we will not stop until we are done. You have made it possible for us to meet and be in discussion with and in celebration with each other everywhere. To experience our profound beauty, to flourish through our support for each other, to feel our fierce determination strengthen, our commitment to each other solidify, that we are not finished until we have created a very different world. You have given us a way to be connected, and we have chosen to do this with deeply loving hearts in gratitude for this first time in the history of this world that we are able to be in discussion and movement with each other.

What has just happened is part of an eons long plan for control of the earth and all of its wealth, and control of people by hoarding the wealth by a few, a plan which was played out but only in part by this election. This is a crisis of our global economy and big business has backed the election. Our commitment to a just global economy and to practices that protect our Earth are interwoven with our commitment to those most affected, and most under attack. We know this, and we are being held back because we see and are committed to a different possibility, a necessity.

So in my thanks to you dear sisters of the USA, my commitment has only been galvanized to an even stronger degree. I will stand strong in hopes of protecting the Indigenous Peoples on the front lines of the 3 pipelines in our combined countries. I will be vocal in the damage Canadian mines are doing here and globally. I will stand strong with the Black Lives Matter Movement. I will speak out against police brutality and prison systems that attack, imprison and kill peoples of colour. I will question incessantly how a man who has openly and proudly raped women can be the leader of a country instead of being in jail. And I will celebrate, and laugh and cry and plan and plot with my sisters everywhere, and never give up, and only grow stronger than I have imagined I can be, thanks to you.

Mes cheres amies, C'est a ton tour de nous laisser parler d'amour.

With Profound Love in Sisterhood,

Tam