This has been a question I have come back to a great deal lately - how to maintain hope and build sustainability into organized resistance, advocacy, and activism. In the face of seemingly insurmountable odds and working change that we may never see in our lifetimes, maintaining movements and outselves within them is a challenge to say the least.
This relates to both mental health advocacy and the calls to action across the globe that ask us where we would like to stand in history. “Let This Radicalize You” by Kelly Hayes & Mariame Kaba has been my guide in this and I highly recommend it if you’re exploring these questions too.
One of the quotes I came across referenced an essay written by Andreas Malm in 2017 - “The Walls of the Tank: On Palestinian Resistance” (another excellent resource) that I’ll share below:
“How do you keep on fighting when everything is lost? Ask a Palestinian. A Palestinian is someone who is wading knee-deep in rubble. Palestinian politics is always already post-apocalyptic: it is about surviving after the end of the world and, in the best case, salvaging something out of all that has been lost.”
At the core of organizing we face the fact that we may not see change in our lifetime, but we act in accordance to the belief that we will because otherwise what is the point? Let this radicalize you rather than lead you to despair.
Featuring ḴÁL¸Ḵ/qél̕q (a Nootka wild rose, a native species with edible components)
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