Right here in our bodies, in our defense of our right to experience joy, in the refusal to abandon the place where we have been most completely invaded & colonized, in our determination to make the bombed & defoliated lands flower again and bear fruit, here where we have been most shamed is one of the most radical & sacred places from which to transform the world.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the power of reclaiming joy and healing in the face of oppression and destruction.
Aurora Levins Morales highlights the importance of reclaiming joy and beauty even in the aftermath of trauma and colonization. It suggests that the wounds we carry can serve as a foundation for radical transformation and healing, encouraging individuals to cultivate life and vibrancy in places that have been damaged, both physically and emotionally. By embracing our experiences and the rights to all feelings, we actively contribute to changing the world for the better.
In practice
A speaker at a social justice rally may use this quote to inspire activists to find empowerment in their experiences.
Solidarity is not a matter of altruism. Solidarity comes from the inability to tolerate the affront to our own integrity of passive or active collaboration in the oppression of others, and from the deep recognition of our most expansive self-interest. From the recognition that, like it or not, our liberation is bound up with that of every other being on the planet, and that politically, spiritually, in our heart of hearts we know anything else is unaffordable.
What is required to face trauma is the ability to mourn, fully and deeply, all that has been taken from us. Only through mourning everything we have lost can we discover that we have in fact survived; that our spirits are indestructible.
To make the revolution in the United States is a slow day by day job that requires patience and discipline. It is the only way to make it. . . . All I know is that despite the fact that I am one of the people who benefit from a capitalist society, I find that any system which exploits other people cannot and should not exist.
Reorganization to me is shuffling boxes, moving boxes around. Transformation means that you're really fundamentally changing the way the organization thinks, the way it responds, the way it leads. It's a lot more than just playing with boxes.
There is no fundamental social change by being simply of individual and interpersonal actions. You have to have organizations and institutions that make a fundamental difference.
I wonder whether any other generation has seen such astounding revolutions of data and values as those through which we have lived. Scarcely anything material or established which I was brought up to believe was permanent and vital, has lasted. Everything I was sure or taught to be sure was impossible, has happened.
I call for greater measures to involve more women at higher levels in mine action. Governments should do more to address gender in their mine action programmes and through their implementation of the Anti-personnel Mine Ban Convention.
What is it you want to change? Your hair, your face, your body? Why? For God is in love with all those things and he might weep when they are gone.
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