An Open Letter to the Movement
[Sent to a mailing list in response to a call for more secrecy in future protests]
Sisters and brothers,
We should not be talking about secrecy as a value we should adopt. That is what the corrupt ones who hold power in our society want most. They want to drive us under ground, to make us illegitimate, to silence our voices. We cannot let that happen. We cannot let them win by default. We must not allow ourselves to become marginalized, for our views and beliefs are in fact quite mainstream, if only the masses stopped to examine their own views. And after all, is forcing that examination of values not what we aim to do?
We must never cease to see our struggle in the context of those who have come before us and those who will come after.
Sisters and brothers,
We should not be talking about secrecy as a value we should adopt. That is what the corrupt ones who hold power in our society want most. They want to drive us under ground, to make us illegitimate, to silence our voices. We cannot let that happen. We cannot let them win by default. We must not allow ourselves to become marginalized, for our views and beliefs are in fact quite mainstream, if only the masses stopped to examine their own views. And after all, is forcing that examination of values not what we aim to do?
We must never cease to see our struggle in the context of those who have come before us and those who will come after. Dr. Martin Luther King famously said that “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. The chain reaction of evil — hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars — must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation”. I am somewhat new to this list, but I also speak as someone with some level of experience of having worked in a war-torn region, and having seen a higher level of militarism and oppression.
Yes, by many definitions, this is indeed a war. Our brothers and sisters are being maimed and killed. But this is not a war to be won by force, simply because the empire has bigger guns than we do, and a hell of a lot more of them than we can ever afford. But even if we could win by force, we will lose the very soul and heart of that for which we fight.
Every empire has flaws in its armor, and it is those flaws that we must learn to exploit. In fact, it is those flaws that we are fighting against in some ways. Truth is deadly to empire. To the cockroaches that have corrupted the political process and discourse, the spotlight of the truth is truly nothing short of deadly. We must exploit that. And overreach is deadly to empire. Think about the strain the endless wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and soon elsewhere will place on empire. We must exploit that too.
We must also learn to strategize on a whole new level. This is not a battle only against some “ism” but it is a battle for the future of humanity as a whole. Our world is in a deep crisis, and our generation has been handed down a torch that is at risk of dying out. Our world is literally being destroyed like never before. That crisis forces us into actions we would otherwise consider extreme, actions that require us to compromise our safety and put our bodies to back our words.
But we cannot, must not, should not become the evil we fight. Otherwise the fight is futile, we will only go from one evil into another, as has been the case throughout history. We cannot fight secrecy and corruption by allowing secrecy to breed corruption within our own ranks. We cannot talk of values without living those values. We must be the change we wish to see in others.
Yes these are ideals, and I know better than anyone that we live in a world that is far less than ideal. Fucked up might be a better term to use. But never forget that it is less than ideal because of the people who fail to live what they preach. We must aim to do better, if we are to succeed.
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