Bearing witness

My mother and I knew that many of these landless people Had become sick from pesticides they were exposed to when they worked on other people’s land. So when we heard that many of tem had chosen to grow food using organic practices, we assumed it was to keep themselves healthy. They seemed shocked at our assumption. “Do you think we’d go through all of this, risk our lives for this land, only to grow food that would make somebody else sick?” So we were not surprised when they told us that the MST had created the first line of organic seeds in Brazil.
Anna Lappe and Frances Moore Lappe Pushing Hope’s Edge

That is how I imagine the future. A place where the seeds are organic, the dispossessed, the oppressed, the hungry, the beaten, the exploited, and the mutilated, are the exception, not the norm. A place where animals have rights. A place where patriarchy is abolished. A place where our way of living doesn’t come at the cost of exploiting others, beings and non-beings alike. A place where we live in communion with nature, not in duality with it.
Where do we start? By treating nature with respect, because there is a correlation between the way we treat the environment and the way we treat women, the indigenous and the disenfranchised. By not using chemical fertilizers and pesticides, by preventing land erosion, by cutting our dependence on fossil fuel with all the atrocious ways deploy to get it, refine it, find it, etc… we can give back honor and dignity, not only to the planet but top the people whose fate mirrors the earth’s. We use the same language, the same adjectives, the same derogatory terms, to talk about the earth, as we use to talk about women, children, animals, and people living at the margin. Nature and the marginalized receive the same treatment: they are both seen as needing to be conquered, tamed, civilized, because they are out of control! They are disrupting the social order. They stand in the way of progress.
Changes start with me. I can, and I do, put my actions, and my money, where my mouth is. There is no such thing as a futile act, every action has a repercussion. I am what I think and what I do. I am whom I am associated with. I shape my world. I think globally and I act locally, from the words I speak to the actions I take; from the company I keep to what I focus on.
My voice counts. It is important that I use it. It is important not only for me, but for others. It is important because who I am matters. I am a writer. Words are my window into the world, mine and others. It is how I bare witness to the events around me. It is how I sculpt, dance, playwright, compose, take a picture, raise a child, save a land, touch a soul, celebrate life, denounce, cry, accuse. It is how I am free. It is how I create my world. It is how I create our world.